The financial stability interest rate
The financial stability interest rate is a threshold above which the real interest rate in an economy triggers financial constraints and systemic instability. It...
Understanding the disposition effect
Investors have a tendency to sell assets that have earned them positive returns and are reluctant to let go of those that have brought...
Contagion and self-fulfilling dynamics
Contagion and self-fulfilling feedback loops are propagation mechanisms at the heart of systemic financial crises. Contagion refers to the deterioration of fundamentals through the...
Macro uncertainty as predictor of market volatility
Market volatility measures the size of variations of asset returns. Macroeconomic uncertainty measures the size of unpredictable disturbances in economic activity. Large moves in...
Classifying market states
Typically, we cannot predict a meaningful portion of daily or higher-frequency market returns. A more realistic approach is classifying the state of the market...
What traders should know about seasonal adjustment
The purpose of seasonal adjustment is to remove seasonal and calendar effects from economic time series. It is a common procedure but also a...
Inflation and precious metal prices
Theory and plausibility suggest that precious metal prices benefit from inflation and negative real interest rates. This makes gold, silver, platinum, and palladium natural...
Real-time growth estimation with reinforcement learning
Survey data and asset prices can be combined to estimate high-frequency growth expectations. This is a specific form of nowcasting that implicitly captures all...
Estimating the positioning of trend followers
There is a simple method of approximating trend follower positioning in real-time and without lag. It is based on normalized returns in liquid futures...
Forecasting energy markets with macro data
Recent academic papers illustrate how macroeconomic data support predictions of energy market flows and prices. Valid macro indicators include shipping costs, industrial production measures,...