At the beginning of last year MiFID II was introduced to make the financial industry more transparent. One key aspect of this is the move from bundled to unbundled products brokerage firms provide. Previously, a fund manager buying a security through a broker would pay a hefty commission. This would
The ride haling app has lowered its expectations from a rumoured IPO valuation of around $100 billion to between $80-90 billion. This would still be the largest public offering from Silicon Valley since Facebook, with the company pitching an initial price range of $44 to $55, even as many other
Monetary and Fiscal Policy are the two most widely used tools governments and central banks use to control a nation’s economy. You may have read in FT about how the Federal Reserve, the US Central Bank has become “dovish”, due to its overly “hawkish” stance last year due to
Warren Buffet has described them as “financial weapons of mass destruction”. Robert Kiyosaki said that the subprime Morgage Backed Security (MBS) disaster was a result of them “exploding in financial institutions such as AIG and Lehman Brothers”. So, what exactly are derivatives? A derivative is a financial security with a
At the beginning of the month, Beth Hammack, a senior Goldman Sachs banker and chair of the government advisory group know as the Treasury Bond Advisory Committee sent a letter to Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary, warning that according to TBAC calculations, America will need to sell $12 trillion of bonds
After a volatile end to 2018, investors are now looking at what the new year can bring. Despite rising 7% against a broad basket of currencies in 2018, many now deem the dollar overvalued. Drawing parallels from both physics and Forex trading, it is well known that whatever goes up
Back in 2010, Goldman Sachs was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that it had misled clients over the mortgage backed securities it had sold. Internal Goldman emails surfaced showing how arrogant self-interest bankers had left their clients out in the cold to save their jobs
Turbulence in the global financial markets, particularly in the technology sector, saw equity sell offs, oil prices tumble, and dollar swings this week as concerns over the global economy intensified as investors fear growing trade tensions and weak corporate earnings. FAANG stocks, which had previously powered the recent post crisis
US crude oil prices entered a bear market [defined as a 20% drop from a recent high] on Thursday as concerns of tight global supplies eased. This follows Washington allowing eight countries to continue buying Iranian crude, softening the blow of new international sanctions on the nation. In addition to
Global Warming. Corruption. War. Poverty. These are all problems every human on the face of the earth must deal with, and it is something everyone should be tackling. The financial industry has decided to combat these problems with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing. It is investing standards that indicates
It is a well-known fact that when interest rates are hiked, investment banks increase their profitability due to their massive cash holdings. Increasing the interest rates directly increases the yield on the cash it holds, and the proceeds go directly into the income statement. Furthermore, interest rate hikes tend to
Since the fiscal stimulus of tax cuts that the Trump administration has implemented this year, the US economy on the surface has been doing great. It has notched a 4.1% annualized growth rate for Q2, which is considerably faster than the 2% growth rate that has been standard since