This year has been peculiar to say the least. A pandemic that started more or less in January killed more than a million people and is now on the cusp of a second wave across the globe. In late spring, we experienced nationwide protests against police brutality and racism that ultimately spread around the globe. Then riots captured our attention. Now we come to fall where we have, as you may have heard, likely the most important American election in the past 50 years. It may decide who the next Supreme Court Justice is. It obviously can flip the executive branch, but even more importantly,it may also flip the senate, resulting in the “blue wave” many political strategists have predicted (more on this later).…
Posts published in “Finance”
Fintech firms are actively working to electronify and digitalize fixed-income primary markets
Global fixed-income primary markets continue to develop away from voice-driven communications and manual operational processes to more streamlined interoperable platforms. Firms that once struggled through paper document-driven offerings with no transparency, insights, compliance or regulatory audit trails are now embracing the electronification and digitization offered by firms such as IHS Markit.
Global markets have historically traded fixed income products with a specific set of information and data, allowing for technology firms to standardize and electronify the process; identifying, mapping and modeling the necessary data into digital workflows. Many sectors (investment grade, high yield, emerging markets, structured and securitized) carry unique structures, pricing mechanisms and optional provisions – most of which are specific to each asset class – however, often times this data does remain consistent within each sector and is capable of being identified and tagged for digital standardization.…
Note: Considering the potential market fluctuations throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic, it should be noted this article was originally written on 3 June 2020
A few weeks ago in May, the US treasury announced a record high $96 billion quarterly refunding driven by the Covid-19 emergency stimulus. This compares to $84B from last quarter, an amount which held for the previous 5 quarters. So how does a former Goldman Sachs Banker, who is one of the longest-tenured cabinet members in Trump’s administration, decide to structure such debt in such crazy times? In other words, how does Mnuchin, the U.S. treasury secretary, think?…