Updated summary: Shadow banking and asset management
Easy monetary conditions and tighter regulation for banks naturally encourage risk transformation and liquidity creation outside the banking system. Institutional asset managers are key agents of that...
The ECB’s quantitative and qualititative easing
The ECB has introduced a set of new policies that emulate quantitative and qualitative easing. Key measures are targeted long-term repo operations, asset-backed securities purchases,...
The Federal Reserve’s increased influence on financial markets
A new empirical study suggests that the Federal Reserve has exerted a stronger influence on fixed income, commodity, and currency markets since it started...
How human stress increases financial crisis risk
John Coates gives a neuroscience view on how human "stress response" can aggravate financial crises. Rising market volatility causes a bodily response in form...
Updated Summary: Managing systemic risk
Explicit management and research of systemic risk is critical for macro trading. First, it supports timely risk reduction or, alternatively, avoidance of uninformed mechanical...
Europe’s financial transaction tax and the consequences
A recent HSBC report argues that the planned financial transaction tax in the Eurozone will have a profound negative impact on investment returns, as well as...
How fear of disaster affects financial markets
Fear of economic disasters, such as depressions, is more frequent than their actual occurrence. People tend to perceive a growing risk of disaster as...
RECENT ARTICLES
Crashes in safe asset markets
A new theoretical paper illustrates the logic behind runs and crashes in modern safe asset markets. Safe assets are characterized by stable value and...
Copulas and trading strategies
Reliance on linear correlation coefficients and joint normal distribution of returns in multi-asset trading strategies can be badly misleading. Such conventions often overestimate diversification...
Trend following: combining market and macro information
Classic trend following is based on market prices or returns. Market trends are relatively cheap to produce, popular, and plausibly generate value in the...