This year’s “Brexit” and last year’s “Grexit” have one common theme: referendums create uncertainty. And generally speaking, markets hate uncertainty. Uncertainty surrounding UK’s decision whether or not to leave the EU is starting to test traders’ nerves. Implied volatility of the GBP/USD spiking to 29% — a level comparable to… Read More »
Neil Dwane -
Anticipation is growing in advance of the UK’s 23 June referendum on its European Union membership. The key battle lines for a potential British exit—colloquially known as “Brexit”—have already been drawn on the issues of immigration, political and financial accountability, and bureaucracy. Yet rather than focus on these qualitative and… Read More »
While the Fed (and Emerging Markets) may be enjoying a boost from weakness in the dollar, we would question how sustainable the current dovish stance of the Fed is It is important to stress that, in a world of small numbers, changes are important at the margin but, in our… Read More »
James Butterfill, Head of Research at ETF Securities: “Brexit is the mother of all market uncertainties: legal, political, economic, polling and currency risk combining to make any confidence about the short-term outlook foolhardy. We expect more instability in currency markets, as Brexit concern adds to the pre-existing uncertainties over Fed… Read More »
Historically, Kings of Saudi Arabia don’t accede the throne until late in life. However the current ruler, King Salman Al-Saud has upset the established formula of “rule by elder” by giving unprecedented power to his son, Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman also referred to as “MbS”, who is just 30… Read More »
Some shocks will always come out of the blue and can only be absorbed first and responded to afterwards. These are what Nassim Taleb calls “Black Swans” Some events, though, can probably be better described as “Grey Swans”. These are vaguely visible on the horizon, but it is extremely hard… Read More »
Laura Sarlo, CFA® -
UK voters will decide on June 23 whether or not Britain will remain part of the European Union – a unique economic and political partnership between 28 European countries. As a major contributor to the EU — and the EU’s status as the third-largest economy in the world – a… Read More »
Credit Suisse Global Equity Research believes that two hedges on the potential knock-on impact of a UK EU exit are: buying Bonos relative to BTPs (Spanish relative to Italian bonds) or euro volatility (which has, unlike sterling volatility, remained range bound) Markets remain relatively more sanguine than polls: Opinion polls… Read More »
Markets are climbing a wall of worry and the S&P 500 is close to its all-time high. We suspect it can go through that barrier but that better returns will be had on US high-yield and other stock markets A few days in Tel Aviv left me feeling naive in… Read More »
TIPS seem to be en vogue. Why the interest in this relatively unexciting, high-quality asset class? Some of the recent attention can be attributed to strong TIPS performance so far this year versus last year. But I also suspect that forward-looking investors are intrigued by the asset class as they… Read More »
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