Total S.A. (EPA:FP) – market cap as of 27/04/2018: €138.0bn Direct Energie S.A. (EPA:DIREN) – market cap as of 27/04/2018: €1.90bn Introduction On April 18, 2018, French oil major Total S.A. announced the acquisition of 74.33% of Direct Energie’s share capital in a transaction valued at approximately €1.4bn. At a Read more…
Novartis AG (SIX: NOVN) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: CHF204.12bn AveXis Inc (NASDAQ: AVXS) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: $7.62bn Introduction On April 9, Novartis submitted an offer to acquire all the shares of the American gene therapy group AveXis. The Swiss drugmaker offered an 88% premium adding Read more…
Monex Group Inc (TYO: 8698) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: ¥149.15bn Introduction On April 16, the online brokerage giant Monex officially acquired the cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck for ¥3.6bn (~$33.55m). The move is questioned by the general public due to the recent security breach in Coincheck and the theft of Read more…
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: $462.0bn Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKG:0700) – market cap as of 20/04/2018: HK$3,780bn Introduction The first two weeks of April 2018 have seen a string of aggressive acquisitions and the announcement of financing rounds by companies backed by the Chinese Read more…
Introduction Information has always been one of the main sources of alpha on the market. Centuries ago just having first-hand information about the outcome of a war could very well constitute an important edge over others, the famous speculation of Nathan Rothschild on the Battle of Waterloo comes to mind. Read more…
In this article, we will develop an investment strategy on currency, specifically on the USD/CHF pair. We will: Introduce the currency carry trade (for those familiar with it, you are welcomed to skip this brief explanation) Review the developments in the Switzerland economy, and move to the current environment Read more…
US This week, US equities ended on a low note as the market kept a close watch on rising UST yields and Apple was a drag on the tech sector. The benchmark 10-year yield rose to its highest level in four years. The three major equity indices still managed to Read more…
Introduction on TIPS and Gold as inflation hedge Generally, an assets is considered t o be an “inflation hedge” if either its purchasing power is maintained over the long run or its nominal returns closely track realized inflation over shorter horizons. Gold and TIPS fall into this category and are Read more…
Differences between historical realized volatility and option implied volatility has for long been known as a potential indicator for volatility mispricing. To our knowledge, the first well-known academic study on the topic was conducted by Goyal and Saretto in 2009 and published as the paper ‘Cross-section of Option Returns and Read more…
US Over the course of last week, the most important data concerning the United States came out on Friday 14th, when the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment was released. The Consumer Sentiment was 97.8, below the consensus 100.5 and the previous 101.4. This drop seems to due to concerns about Read more…
Melrose Industries plc [LON:MRO] – market cap as of 13/04/2018: £4.36bn GKN plc [LON:GKN] – market cap as of 13/04/2018 £7.76bn Introduction On March 29, 2018, “Project Golf” (as the bid was called internally) got pushed to the last hole, when the turnaround specialist Melrose received acceptance from the British Read more…
Introduction A persistent financial crisis, the rising of regional tensions, the concerns of a trade war and many other facts have recently been catching up with the M&A-friendly international environment. Protectionism seems now to pervade the new world order. Rising economic nationalism is threatening to impact M&A activity across all Read more…
Dropbox Inc. (NASDAQ:DBX) – market cap as of 13/04/2018: €11.8bn Introduction Founded in 2007, Dropbox is the leading pure-play cloud storage and collaboration platform. Its mission is to “unleash the world’s creative energy by designing a more enlightened way of working”. Dropbox is focused on reducing the amount of time Read more…
In the current increasing interest rate environment, the debate about the controversial but nevertheless important benchmark has sparked off again. This is why, we thought it relevant to provide in the following article a refresher on the history and functioning of the London Interbank Offered Rate, as well as examine Read more…
Introduction The 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and subsequent Great Recession pushed the US Federal Reserve to deploy two main tools of monetary interventionism: 1) Quantitative Easing (QE) 2) Reduction of the federal funds rate to unprecedented historical lows The Federal Reserve began purchasing both sovereign and corporate bonds in Read more…