Market Recap 08/10/2023

Download PDF US The week in the US markets was marked by choppy trading, with most indices being down during the week but recuperating their losses during the Friday rally. The S&P ended its longest weekly losing streak of the year by closing at +0.48%, the Nasdaq and the Russell Read more…

Vintage Private Equity Deals: Merlin Entertainment – Learnings from one of Blackstone’s Most Successful Investments

Download PDF Introduction In 2005, Blackstone’s [NYSE: BX] private equity fund made a, for its size, relatively modest investment of £102m to acquire Merlin Entertainment, a theme parks company, from the private equity fund Hermes Equity Partners. This was the first step in its strategy of rolling up the attractions Read more…

The Future of Cybersecurity

Download PDF Introduction The cybersecurity market has undergone major changes over the past decades. With the increased digitalization of companies, the importance of data has become critical. “Data is the new gold” wrote Sandro Shubladze (Forbes author) in March 2023, referring to the growing importance that data has in the Read more…

An Overview of Now-casting Methods

Download PDF Introduction Now-casting methods are a class of forecasting models originally used in meteorology, and that later found useful applications in economics and finance. The first paper that generalizes the use of now-casting methods in economics is Giannone, Reichlin, and Small (2008). The idea of now-casting is that high-frequency Read more…

Market Recap 01/10/2023

Download PDF US The week in US markets was marked by losses in all major indices apart from the Nasdaq and Russell 2000, up 0.06% and 0.48% respectively. The S&P closed the week down 0.74%, the Dow Jones was down 1.34%, the Russell 3000 Value and Growth were down 0.89% Read more…

Market Recap 24/09/2023

Download PDF US US equities mainly lost this past week, with their most followed index closing this week almost 3% down (S&P500). Russell 2000 led the way down with a 3.82% decline week on week, closely followed by the tech heavy tracker (Nasdaq composite) which closed 3.62% down compared to Read more…

Half a Century of Black-Scholes: Option Pricing Models from Inception to Contemporary Innovations

Download PDF Introduction 50 years ago, the financial industry changed forever with the introduction of the Black-Scholes model for options pricing. However, the story started much earlier with less sophisticated approaches and has evolved significantly over the last century, encompassing notable frameworks such as the binomial tree in discrete time, Read more…