Download PDF Introduction This article focuses on one of the oldest and most complex trading assets available – Commodities. From its natural explorations to its transformations and massive chains of transportation and storage transactions, Commodities are at the core of economies around the world and a major driver of globalization. Read more…
Download PDF The Lira, inflation and COVID-19: an overview of the Turkish economy Political context Turkey’s political scene was recently in the news with the departure of Finance Minister Mr. Albayrak, a powerful politician and the Turkish President’s son-in-law. The departure of Mr. Albayrak was seen as favourably by investors, Read more…
Download PDF US The US stock market edged higher after the announcement of another Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough led by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, yielding higher levels of efficacy than what regulators seek. This development reflected on the markets by a 0.6% rise in S&P 500, outrunning the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The COVID-19 crisis has proven to be especially challenging for the real estate sector. Retail, office spaces, and any other type of real estate that functioned on the premise of people getting together in one space has been squeezed tight by the grips of government regulations as Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) have had an interesting trajectory to say the least, starting out as a niche derivative, they rose to prominence after the Russian financial crisis of 1998, ballooning into a market worth an enormous $62.2 trillion in 2007. In 2008, this market promptly collapsed, Read more…
Download PDF United States It looks as if the market read a recent Goldman Sachs report, which beckoned at the possibility of starting to “shift from the hope-driven economy to the growth-driven economy”. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 220 points (0.8%) to 29,263, the S&P 500 Index was down Read more…
Download PDF Introduction What is short selling? This is the fundamental question that needs precise defining before we proceed with our article, which unfortunately will not involve Margot Robbie in a bubble bath drinking 20-year-old Dom Pérignon. What it will present however are examples of applications of short selling as Read more…
Download PDF US US stock market marks new record highs with the hopes rising for the soon vaccine development and investors’ look into the Biden’s victory on the US presidential elections. S&P500 closed at 3,585.15 with weekly gain of 2.16%. Dow-Jones Industrial Average Index (DJIA) was up 4.08% reaching 29,479.81. Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Banks finance themselves through a variety of different sources with different maturities and credit risk characteristics, for example through deposits, equity, short-term wholesale funding, long-term unsecured bonds, covered bonds, and asset-backed securities (ABSs). Hereunder a representation of the main long-term funding sources for a bank in their Read more…
Download PDF United States The US market certainly retains the main stage of financial attention, after the drop in the past few weeks that could have signalled investors’ fears ahead of the new election. However, this time around the equity markets saw a dramatic bull run, with the S&P 500 Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Traditionally, the carry factor has been associated with a trading strategy in the FX markets. For decades, practitioners and academics have thoroughly studied the phenomenon by which currency speculators were regularly profiting from deviations from the uncovered interest parity condition. Borrowing in a low-interest rates currency Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Passive management as it is known nowadays was born in the 60’s and the 70’s. By that time, it was already clear that actively managed funds tended to underperform market indexes. For this reason, Nobel Laurate Paul Samuelson urged the investment management industry to develop a “portfolio Read more…
Download PDF United States Many US markets have seen the roughest week since March; the Dow and S&P 500 indices are down 7.5% and 6.4% respectively and the Nasdaq fell over 6% (following a sharp selloff in technology stocks due to mixed earnings results, with Apple falling 5.5% after a Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Variance swaps are OTC derivatives that allow investors to get direct exposure to the volatility of an underlying product, such as stock indexes, exchange rates and other asset classes. They initially gained popularity during the early 2000s following the advances in derivatives pricing theory. Their pure exposure Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Once again, the United States are at a crossroad. Pitted against each other, American citizens will have to cast a vote on what many political observers believe to be one of the most divisive elections in recent times. As the ballots roll in, financial markets will Read more…