Download PDF Introduction The Dutch pension fund industry is undertaking a once-in-a-generation shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions, that is reshaping one of the world’s largest retirement systems, under a recent reform. At the core of the reform is a policy judgement that the old system made unsustainable Read more…
Download PDF Introduction In 2023, the global economy has exceeded expectations, with projected global GDP growth set to beat consensus forecasts from a year ago. Core inflation has seen a significant drop, plummeting from 6% in 2022 to 3% across economies recovering from the post-COVID price surges. Notably, the US Read more…
Download PDF Commodity futures have become a widespread vehicle amongst investors and traders as they can be used for strategic and tactical asset allocation. The strategic appeal of commodity indices comes from the equity-like return, their key diversification role, and their inflation-hedging properties. The term structure of commodities usually refers Read more…
Download PDF Introduction During the last months, and especially from September, long-duration bonds experienced a dramatic sell-off, which pushed yields to historically elevated levels: U.S. long-term interest rates reached the highest level since 2007, while European bonds have not been so attractive since the Euro sovereign debt crisis in 2012. Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Swap spreads, which measure the difference between the fixed rate on a swap and the yield on a Treasury bond of the same maturity, have often been negative in recent years, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. This phenomenon has puzzled market participants, Read more…
Download PDF Introduction After the great years of 2020 and 2021, the cryptocurrency market has been recently going through what many industry analysts believe to be a “crypto winter”, with Bitcoin prices reaching a low of $15,000 in December 2022, falling from almost $60,000 in November 2021. The fall from Read more…
Download PDF Introduction In 2022, rates traders have had to navigate a landscape of deteriorating liquidity in sovereign debt markets. Over the past few years, there have been multiple episodes of severe illiquidity in US Treasuries and related markets. Firstly, US repo rates spiked in September 2019, with intraday secured Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On the 25th of September Italian citizens are going to vote for their representatives in the parliament. Based on the current macroeconomic and political scenario, we analyze the effects that the elections’ results might have on the markets and propose a trade idea based on the BTP-Bund Read more…
Download PDF Conventional economic theory suggests that Central Banks (CBs) should only intervene to influence short-term interest rates and allow the market to set long-term rates. However, in modern economic history, this belief has been put into question: most notably, the US and the Euro Area have reacted to the Read more…
Download PDF Abstract While the literature investigating risk premia driving the cross section of stock returns is extensive, fewer studies analyze corporate bond returns. We set out to understand which factors and firm characteristics command a premium in terms of expected returns on corporate bonds, both in the investment grade Read more…
Download PDF US US stocks went further into top territory this week. S&P was up 14.50% YTD at 3,699.12 points; DJIA up 5.89% YTD at 30,218.2 points, recording the best monthly performance since 1987. Similarly, small-cap Russel 2000, up 13.36% YTD at 1,891.35 points, showed its best gain since inception, Read more…
In a world of excessive liquidity, where open market operations by central banks are ineffective, unconventional and unheard-of monetary policies need sometimes to be applied. In this article we will briefly discuss of the overnight interbank lending market in Europe (and changes in how its respective index is calculated) and Read more…
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (TOKYO: 8306:JP) – market cap as of 09/11/2018: ¥9.477tn Introduction On October 31, 2018, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (“MUTB”), a wholly owned subsidiary of the cross-listed Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (“MUFG”), and one of Japan’s leading asset managers, came to an agreement with Read more…
Fed hiking path explained
We are proud to publish a comprehensive report on one of the most promising emerging markets of the year: Mexico. Mexico finds itself in between two different and opposite macroeconomic forces: on one side, reduced cost of power will significantly lower the production costs of Mexican manufacturers; on the other side, Read more…