Global ETF News Older than One Year
The Great Lockdown: Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression
April 14, 2020--The world has changed dramatically in the three months since our last update of the World Economic Outlook in January. A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost.
As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic,the world has been put in a Great Lockdown. The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.
Source: IMF
IMF Global Financial Stability Overview: Markets in the Time of COVID-19
April 14, 2020--The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic poses unprecedented health, economic, and financial stability challenges. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the prices of risk assets collapsed and market volatility spiked, while expectations of widespread defaults led to a surge in borrowing costs.
Several factors amplified asset price moves: previously overstretched asset valuations, pressures to unwind leveraged trades, dealers' balance-sheet constraints, and a deterioration in market liquidity. Emerging market economies experienced the sharpest reversal of portfolio flows on record. As a result, financial conditions tightened at an unprecedented speed. Decisive monetary, financial, and fiscal policy actions-aimed at containing the fallout from the pandemic-managed to stabilize investor sentiment in late March–early April, with markets paring back some of their losses.
view the IMF Global Financial Stability Overview: Markets in the Time of COVID-19
Source: IMF
How fintech can promote financial inclusion-a new report on the opportunities and challenges
April 14, 2020--Financial technology can spur financial inclusion by facilitating payments, but the opportunities come with challenges, according to a new report by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the World Bank.
The report, Payment aspects of financial inclusion in the fintech era, connects fintech innovation with financial inclusion, providing a framework for incorporating and leveraging technological opportunities to promote access and use of transaction accounts, while also addressing potential challenges.
Source: bis.org
Trading Floor Closures Hurt Stock Futures Liquidity, Peak6 Says
April 12, 2020--The closure of U.S. trading floors has taken some liquidity out of the futures market as volumes shifted to exchange-traded funds, according to Peak6 Investments LLC.
It has become more difficult to trade S&P 500 e-mini futures as volume has migrated to products based on the all-electronic SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, said Neel Shah, a senior trader at the options trading firm.
Source: bnnbloomberg.ca
World Bank Finance and Coronavirus (COVID-19)
April 9, 2020--The COVID-19 pandemic expanded rapidly from a health emergency to an extraordinary shock to the global economy with far reaching negative consequences for financial markets. Governments around the world are taking swift action to offset the negative effects on firms and people who have lost jobs.
Emerging markets and developing countries, some of which were prone to financial market volatility before the coronavirus pandemic, are especially exposed. This page outlines policy guidance for ways to mitigate risks to financial markets and maintain liquidity to support economic recovery once the health crisis is resolved.
Source: World Bank
Bitcoin's Price To Be Boosted By May's 'halving'-But Other Issues Will Have More Impact
April 8, 2020--The historic Bitcoin halving event next month will boost its price-but other key drivers will have a more significant, longer--term impact.
This is the prediction from Nigel Green, the CEO and founder of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and services organisations.
It comes as the Bitcoin price has surged around 12 per cent over the last week and 6 per cent Monday-outperforming almost all the major indices.
It also comes ahead of only the third-ever Bitcoin halving event in May.
Source: scoop.co.nz
Emerging market economy exchange rates and local currency bond markets amid the Covid-19 pandemic
April 7, 2020--Borrowing through domestic currency bonds has not insulated emerging market economies (EMEs) from the financial shock unleashed by Covid-19; EME local currency bond spreads spiked amid sharp currency depreciations and capital outflows.
Portfolio investors face amplified losses as local currency spreads and exchange rates move in lockstep; their revised portfolio allocations in turn strengthen this correlation.
EMEs with monetary policy frameworks that are equipped to address the feedback loop between exchange rate depreciation and capital outflows stand a better chance of weathering the financial fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Source: BIS
Interest Rate Controls, Capital Flow Restrictions, and Other Potentially Costly Financial Market Regulatory Tools
April 6 2020--With the surge in public debt in the wake of the global financial crisis, financial repression-administrative restrictions on interest rates, credit allocation, capital movements, and other financial operations-has come back on the agenda.
In our recent working paper, we argue that countries would be better-off without financial repression.
Source: IMF
IMF An Early View of the Economic Impact of the Pandemic in 5 Charts
April 6, 2020--The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the world into a recession. For 2020 it will be worse than the global financial crisis. The economic damage is mounting across all countries, tracking the sharp rise in new infections and containment measures put in place by governments.
China was the first country to experience the full force of the disease, with confirmed active cases at over 60,000 by mid-February. European countries such as Italy, Spain, and France are now in acute phases of the epidemic, followed by the United States where the number of active cases is growing rapidly. In many emerging market and developing economies, the epidemic appears to be just beginning.
Source: IMF
Graphic: 'Sustainable' funds a safer harbour in coronavirus market meltdown
April 6, 2020--Funds focused on buying stocks that score well on environmental, social and governance-related metrics proved a safer harbour for investors during the coronavirus-fuelled market rout last month, Morningstar data shows.
With trillions of dollars wiped off stock market values during March, there were few places to hide completely for funds only allowed to bet on rising prices, yet investors in funds focused on environmental, social and governance metrics (ESG) lost less money than their non-ESG peers.
Source: reuters.com
