We analyse the potentially vulnerable and systemically relevant financial intermediation chain established by hedge funds and prime brokers. Our dataset covers the 306 largest global hedge funds and their prime brokers over the period July 2001 to December 2011. The study illustrates that hedge...

Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However,...

This study provides a background for the preparation of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG) 2003 and assists the EP in putting forward recommendations in supply-side issues covered in the BEPGs. The report looks at investment, progress in opening markets, integration of financial...

Changes are being made to a key piece of European law whose purpose is to protect you when you buy or invest in financial products. The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) is being updated and strengthened in some important areas and will be known as MiFID II.MiFID is central to...

The objective of this report is to shed further light on the extent of high-frequency trading (HFT) in EU equity markets. We use unique data collected by ESMA, covering a sample of 100 stocks from nine EU countries for May 2013. Our study complements the HFT literature by looking at equity...