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BlackRock Responds to Demands for Stronger Climate Action with Bold New Commitments
January 14, 2020--The company still remains the largest investor in coal, oil, gas, and the companies driving deforestation.
January 14, 2020--Today, after more than a year of increasing pressure from climate activists, investors, legislators, and thought leaders, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, in his highly-anticipated annual letter, announced a sweeping new set of policies which aim to put climate change and sustainability at the center of BlackRock's business model. BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager with almost $7 trillion in assets under management.
In response to today's announcement Diana Best, Senior Strategist for the Sunrise Project which is a core partner of the BlackRock's Big Problem campaign, said: “BlackRock's new initiatives match the size of the crisis we're seeing in 2020 and are the direct result of an outpouring of pressure from the global climate movement.
IMF-FinTech Note-Regulation of Crypto Assets
January 10, 2020--Summary:
The rapid growth of crypto assets has raised questions about the appropriate regulatory perimeter and the ability of the existing regulatory architecture to adapt to changing conditions.
Effective regulation of financial services promotes long-term economic stability and minimizes the social costs and negative externalities from financial instability. The same underlying principles for regulation should apply to nascent products and services based on innovative technologies, notwithstanding design challenges.
view the IMF-FinTech Note-Regulation of Crypto Assets
BlackRock joins pressure group taking on biggest polluters
January 9, 2020--World's largest investor signs up to Climate Action 100+ after criticism from activists
BlackRock, the world's largest investor, has joined an influential pressure group calling for the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions, after criticisms that it was undermining action addressing the climate crisis.
The US investment firm has signed up to Climate Action 100+, a group of investors managing assets worth more than $35tn (£s;27tn), that pressures fossil fuel producers and other companies responsible for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions to show how they will reduce carbon dioxide pollution.
World Bank-Global Growth: Modest Pickup to 2.5% in 2020 amid Mounting Debt and Slowing Productivity Growth
January 8, 2020--Global economic growth is forecast to edge up to 2.5% in 2020 as investment and trade gradually recover from last year's significant weakness but downward risks persist, the World Bank says in its January 2020 Global Economic Prospects.
Growth among advanced economies as a group is anticipated to slip to 1.4% in 2020 in part due to continued softness in manufacturing. Growth in emerging market and developing economies is expected to accelerate this year to 4.1%.
This rebound is not broad-based; instead, it assumes improved performance of a small group of large economies, some of which are emerging from a period of substantial weakness. About a third of emerging market and developing economies are projected to decelerate this year due to weaker-than-expected exports and investment.
view the World Bank JANUARY 2020 Global Economic Prospects Slow Growth, Policy Challenges
Bond ETFs gain traction in the great rotation to passive investing
December 29, 2019--Fund assets balloon fuelled by low costs versus their actively managed counterparts
One of the biggest trends in finance over the past decade has been the explosive growth of cheap, passive investment vehicles known as exchange traded funds.
Although the ETF was first invented back in the early 1990s as a way to invigorate trading on the now-defunct American Stock Exchange, the industry has expanded dramatically in size and breadth since the financial crisis.
Our Guide to What the World's Top Central Banks Will Do Next Year
December 22, 2019--It was the year central banks jumped back into the fray, cutting interest to deal with a slowdown driven by a trade war and subsequent decline in manufacturing.
Some, like the Federal Reserve, had at least made some headway on rate hikes before 2019, creating room to loosen amid the weakest growth since the financial crisis.
But others, like the European Central Bank, found themselves in a more difficult position and had to cut benchmarks further below zero, stoking resentment about subzero rates.
IMF Working Paper-Capital Flows at Risk: Taming the Ebbs and Flows
December 20, 2019--Summary:
The volatility of capital flows to emerging markets continues to pose challenges to policymakers. In this paper, we propose a new framework to answer critical policy questions: What policies and policy frameworks are most effective in dampening sharp capital flow movements in response to global shocks? What are the near-versus medium-term trade-offs of different policies?
We tackle these questions using a quantile regression framework to predict the entire future probability distribution of capital flows to emerging markets, based on current domestic structural characteristics, policies, and global financial conditions. This new approach allows policymakers to quantify capital flows risks and evaluate policy tools to mitigate them, thus building the foundation of a risk management framework for capital flows.
view the IMF Working Paper-Capital Flows at Risk: Taming the Ebbs and Flows
Global Wave of Debt Is Largest, Fastest in 50 Years
December 19, 2019--Debt in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) climbed to a record US$55 trillion in 2018, marking an eight-year surge that has been the largest, fastest, and most broad-based in nearly five decades, according to a new World Bank Group study that urges policymakers to act promptly to strengthen their economic policies and make them less vulnerable to financial shocks.
The analysis is contained in Global Waves of Debt, a comprehensive study of the four major episodes of debt accumulation that have occurred in more than 100 countries since 1970. It found that the debt-to-GDP ratio of developing countries has climbed 54 percentage points to 168 percent since the debt buildup began in 2010. On average, that ratio has risen by about seven percentage points a year-nearly three times as fast it did during the Latin America debt crisis of the 1970s. The increase, moreover, has been exceptionally broad-based—involving government as well as private debt, and observable in virtually all regions across the world.
FSB report assesses vulnerabilities of leveraged loans and CLOs
December 19, 2019-The Financial Stability Board (FSB) today published a report on Vulnerabilities associated with leveraged loans and collateralised loan obligations (CLOs). The report assesses the financial stability implications of developments in the leveraged loan and CLO markets.
It provides a global perspective by combining available data and analyses from FSB members.
Markets for leveraged loans and CLOs have grown significantly in recent years, with the majority of issuance concentrated in the US and to a lesser extent the European Union. The securitisation of leveraged loans through CLO issuance, which had come to a halt almost entirely between 2009 and 2010, exceeded pre-crisis levels in 2014 and has remained strong since then.
New Data on World Debt: A Dive into Country Numbers
December 17, 2019--The new update of the IMF's Global Debt Database shows that total global debt (public plus private) reached US$188 trillion at the end of 2018, up by US$3 trillion when compared to 2017. The global average debt-to-GDP ratio (weighted by each country's GDP) edged up to 226 percent in 2018, 1½ percentage points above the previous year.
Although this was the smallest annual increase in the global debt ratio since 2004, a closer look at the country-by-country data reveals rising vulnerabilities, suggesting that many countries may be ill-prepared for the next downturn.
Global debt reached $188 trillion in 2018.
In advanced economies the average debt ratio declined, but there is no clear sign of a significant push to reduce debt. In emerging market economies and low-income developing countries, the average debt ratios rose further. Notably, China's total debt ratio reached 258 percent of GDP at end-2018-the same as the United States and nearing the average for advanced economies, which was 265 percent.