6 min readMarket participants seeking guidance on what sustainability means for their business and how to implement something more than a working definition have led financial regulators and standard setters to start crafting sustainable reporting frameworks. While still in their infancy, they mark a significant step towards effectively integrating sustainability concerns into financial markets. Broadly speaking, these…
6 min readIn the past twelve months, inflation has slowly become one of the greatest issues challenging the global economy. As the Fed has responded with the most aggressive interest rate increases in decades, treasury professionals have an opportunity for higher return potential on their cash investments. However, they need to be aware of the impact inflation…
6 min readIt’s no secret that tech giants enjoy healthy profits, but less well known is just how much cash these cash cows have. At the end of 2021, Big Tech (Apple, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta) held a combined $476.7 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. To put that into perspective, this is…
6 min readCo-authored by: Alexander Goldman In June of 2019 the House Committee on the Judiciary launched an investigation into whether Silicon Valley had fallen under the grip of a few large gatekeepers that have come to control key areas of e-commerce. A sixteen-month examination of key players’ market dominance, primarily focusing on Apple’s, Google’s, Amazon’s, and…
6 min readWhile most major integrated oil and gas companies have expressed alignment with the Paris Agreement, efforts made by U.S. players to address climate change with a transition to more renewable energy sources have fallen short in comparison to their European counterparts. As some drag their feet on sustainability efforts, governments, world organizations and financial institutions…
5 min readThe COVID-19 pandemic produced the first major test for the U.S. banking system since the 2008 global financial crisis. At the start of the pandemic, questions were posed about how bank balance sheets would hold up amidst a period of social isolation, lockdowns, elevated job losses and a severe contraction in output. Would the banks’…
5 min readWhile most major integrated oil and gas companies have expressed alignment with the Paris Agreement, efforts made by U.S. players have fallen short in comparison to their European counterparts. Despite some players still dragging their feet in their sustainability efforts, governments, world organizations and financial institutions continue to pressure companies to align with climate-focused goals….
4 min readFixed income investors have been slower to adopt sustainable investing practices than their equity counterparts, as only in recent years has responsible fixed income investing become a hot topic. (Sustainable investing was one of our three themes to watch for in our article “2020 Vision – Watch the Fed, Repos and ESG Investing.”) Different timetables…
3 min readThe auto industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors since the pandemic began. In April, US auto sales hit a low of 8.6 million vehicles, down from 16.8 million at the end of February. Moody’s expects vehicles sales to fall at least 20% in 2020 and will take several years to return to…
6 min readBecause credit card asset-backed securities (ABS) are tied directly to the strength or weakness of consumer finances, economic downturns can be perilous to their health. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the high unemployment and low consumer spending in the current economic downturn are putting ABS under scrutiny. So far, however, this class of securities has…