Secrets of Finances and Payday Loans

The high correlation between M&A activity and equity market performance clearly shows that M&A was a major driver of the equity bubble of the late 1990s. Sometimes even mergers that did not create synergies were rewarded by rising stock prices on the side of the overtaking parties. It was obvious that not every merger was [...]

But the more cyclical character of the US market and the lower average credit quality of the issuers are not the only reasons that explain the spread differential. Another reason is the different investor base. It was already pointed out that the European corporate bond market is still young, while the US market is well [...]

From the industry structure it becomes obvious that the average credit quality of the issuers in the US investment grade market is lower than in the Euro corporate bond market. The current rating of the Euro market is A, whereas it is only A_ in the US market. Over the last 5 years this differential [...]

A comparison of the sector structure of the Euro and US dollar corporate bond markets shows that the share of financials is much higher in the Euro market. While financial companies are somewhat cyclical, especially with respect to changes in the interest-rate environment, they are usually considered a rather defensive sector. The same holds true [...]

The assessment of the macroeconomic environment results in a judgement of the stage of the business cycle and the leverage cycle. Valuation indicators help to form an opinion on the future direction of credit spreads. However, the magnitude of a change in spreads essentially depends on the market structure, especially the average credit quality and [...]

Tversky and Kahneman  and Shiller  argue that the assumption of rational, utility-maximizing behavior of investors is frequently violated in real life. They also show that these anomalies can be predicted and that they result from the use of simple heuristics to facilitate the process of decision-making. Sophisticated investors can benefit from this fact if they [...]

Changes in risk appetite seem to depend on the level of risk appetite in the preceding month. Up- and downswings of risk appetite are driven by investors’ perceptions. If risky assets have outperformed for some time, investors tend to expect a continuation of this outperformance. Conversely, during times of underperformance of risky assets, investors apparently [...]

Geopolitical risks like war and terror can create stress scenarios for all risky asset classes. The geopolitical situation has a strong impact on the risk aversion of investors. The events of September 11, 2001, provide a tragic example after which investors bought safe haven assets such as government bonds and gold at the cost of [...]

Market participants often cite changes in investors’ risk appetite as a possible explanation for developments in global financial markets that cannot be explained by changes of market fundamentals. Indeed, financial crises often seem to coincide with abrupt shifts in market sentiment from risk tolerance to risk avoidance. While fundamentals undoubtedly remain of significant importance, these [...]

The corporate bond market is a leading indicator of economic activity. However, its forecasting power is obviously not perfect, because – like equity markets – credit spreads sometimes predict recessions that do not occur subsequently. After the 1987 stock market crash, for example, credit spreads widened significantly. Asimilar observation could be made in 1998, following [...]