Download as PDF Introduction We have touched upon the new trend of ESG factors shaping investors preferences in the “Green Bonds Boom” article published in the last semester. This time around we will try to analyze how environmental, social and governance responsibility may be driving equities, in order to see Read more…
Download as PDF Introduction Over the past few years, volatility in the foreign exchange markets has entered a marked downward trend, which ultimately culminated with the signing of the US-China Phase One trade deal in January 2020. This descending movement has characterised both Developed and Emerging Markets currency pairs and Read more…
Download as PDF With the equity markets being arguably reluctant to consider the potential threats to global growth stemming from the Corona virus outbreak (COVID-19), the commodities market experienced quite large price movements over the past month. While we clearly acknowledge that commodity prices are more directly affected by an Read more…
Download as PDF United States US markets started the week on Tuesday after remaining closed on Monday for the Presidents Day holiday on an upbeat tone, the bears took over sentiment for the second half of the week leading to losses on the week, with the S&P500 closing at 3,337 Read more…
Introduction In this article, together with a brief introduction to the use of option-implied information in forecasting, we would like to give an answer to the question: does Option-Implied Skewness and Kurtosis improve the predictive power of (Squared) Implied Volatilities on Future Realised Variance? In order to do so, we Read more…
In our previous article, REITs: Is Liquid Real Estate the Solution for the Late Cycle? – Part 1 (https://bsic.it/reits-is-liquid-real-estate-the-solution-for-the-late-cycle-part-1/), we looked at the business cycle and historical REIT returns during its different phases. While some of the findings point to REITs as potential additions for a late-cycle portfolio, this article Read more…
US This week U.S. stocks rose with S&P 500 gaining 1.56% and Nasdaq Composite 2.35%, closing at 3,380.16 and 9,623.58 respectively, these levels marked records for both indices. U.S. market surged relative to its peers as a result of investors beliefs for American market to be the least affected by Read more…
In this article, we will analyze the upcoming Democratic Party Primaries for the 2020 US Presidential elections from a markets point of view. We will start by introducing the Democratic Party primary system for electing the Democratic Party’s Nominee who will face President Trump on the 2020 elections, after introducing Read more…
US US bill supporting pro-democratic movements in Hong Kong has caused a negative reaction of China, however, China avoided any direct measures related to trade. Sanctions are going to be introduced on US human-rights organizations and US Navy ships port visits would be halted. The tension between two nations increase: Read more…
An overview of inflation interpretations In the following article, we are going to examine the current framework of monetary policy – inflation targeting – with a focus on the evolution of the inflation process Post-Bretton Woods and its effects on the current regime of price stability. In the post-war era, Read more…
US The Thanksgiving holiday was accompanied by record highs on Wall Street: a beat in US GDP growth and – this never gets old – positive comments from President Donald’s Trump about a closing on the final stages with a partial trade deal with China lead to a bullish sentiment. Read more…
We gave a brief introduction to put writing strategies already earlier this semester. We since thought about possible modifications of such strategies and their effects on return characteristics and return predictability. The positive returns of put writing strategies can be motivated from risk premia, as we show in the first Read more…
Real estate is traditionally associated with large capital expenditures and not a high amount of liquidity. Hence, the sector is usually reserved for long-term investments by high net worth individuals. Even more so, commercial use buildings are out of reach for most private individual’s pockets, making developers and other large Read more…
Introduction In this article, we will try to provide an insight on green bonds, a quickly growing new star of impact investing trends in the world. A total of US$580bn in green bonds were sold up to the year 2018, and at least another US$170bn more are expected to be Read more…
In this article, we introduce distressed debt securities. Then, we investigate what are the problems of valuing a company in financial distress and how we can address those problems. Finally, we present some investment strategies that can be applied when a company is financially distressed. Overview Distressed companies are companies Read more…