Has COVID-19 affected carbon emissions? Using satellite imagery from NASA and the European Space Agency, we examined the empirical data so far to understand the potential impact, and if there may be a decline in global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2020.

A better understanding of the relationships between companies has potential value for many financial applications. We examined three — building simple hedging portfolios, min-vol portfolios and optimized hedging portfolios — and found it reduced portfolio volatilities in all cases.

During market crises, institutional investors have employed derivatives contracts to hedge market risks or express views on certain performance/risk characteristics. We explore prior use of futures for exposure management and tactical asset allocation.

The slowing Chinese economy and trade uncertainty had already put strains on the performance of Chinese consumer asset-backed securities. The COVID-19 pandemic could further harm the performance of these securities. Investors may wish to gauge the risks.

Previously, we have examined the relationship between ESG characteristics and financial performance in developed markets. In this blog post, we explore whether ESG characteristics  have had financially significant effects in emerging markets and Asia.

We compare the market turmoil sparked by the coronavirus pandemic with levels of volatility, drawdown and recovery after 9/11 and the global financial crisis (the two other similarly severe economic and market shocks of the last 20 years).

Fear of a coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic impacts caused sharp drops in global markets after an initially mild response. We look at recent performance from a factor perspective and how quickly factor returns and volatility reverted in past crises.