A well-known concept in modern capital market theory is that only systematic risk factors affect security prices. Macroeconomic announcements are among the most important news for financial markets because the state of the economy is a prime candidate for such a source of non-diversifiable risk. This book investigates the effects of US macroeconomic news on three financial markets that have received less attention in the literature so far. The markets of interest are the commodity futures market, the German stock index futures market, and the German bond futures market. I investigate not only price effects, but also liquidity effects as well as the channels of cross-border information flow. I find that commodity markets as well as international stock and bond markets are likewise affected by the release of US macroeconomic news. The strength of the commodity price response depends on the state of the economy and news about the US economy is more important for German stock markets than domestic economic news. For an investor in any of these markets, this book provides valuable information on how to adjust his trading strategies around the release of macroeconomic news. Moreover, my findings contribute to the understanding of cross-border information flow. First, I find that both domestic and foreign economic news induce significant price and liquidity effects. Second, I find that there are two important channels of information transmission for foreign news: the direct response to the news and the indirect response to the foreign response to the news.

In his speech from 1998 the former chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Arthur Levitt pointed out that trust "is the bedrock of our capital markets" and that this must not be shaken by the erosion of earnings quality. He made clear that it is the challenge of the whole financial community to counteract such a development. This thesis deals with the question whether the importance of earnings for the capital market varies with its quality. The question arises, because in recent years a large number of firm scandals has shaken the trust in the reliability of reported earnings. In order to properly address the research questions, the literature on earnings quality definitions, quality measures as well as implications of earnings quality on capital markets is reviewed and critically discussed. The author investigates whether well known results concerning capital market implications of earnings quality remain stable for all measures considered. She answers the question of how earnings quality affects firm value, cost of equity capital, and the accuracy of analysts' forecasts taking into account the effects of determinants of earnings quality.

This publication serves as a roadmap for exploring and managing climate risk in the U.S. financial system. It is the first major climate publication by a U.S. financial regulator. The central message is that U.S. financial regulators must recognize that climate change poses serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system, and they should move urgently and decisively to measure, understand, and address these risks. Achieving this goal calls for strengthening regulators’ capabilities, expertise, and data and tools to better monitor, analyze, and quantify climate risks. It calls for working closely with the private sector to ensure that financial institutions and market participants do the same. And it calls for policy and regulatory choices that are flexible, open-ended, and adaptable to new information about climate change and its risks, based on close and iterative dialogue with the private sector. At the same time, the financial community should not simply be reactive—it should provide solutions. Regulators should recognize that the financial system can itself be a catalyst for investments that accelerate economic resilience and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. Financial innovations, in the form of new financial products, services, and technologies, can help the U.S. economy better manage climate risk and help channel more capital into technologies essential for the transition. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5247742

Changes in the structure of the U.S. Treasury market over recent years may have increased risks to financial stability. Traditional market makers have changed their liquidity provision by increasingly switching from risk warehousing to risk distribution, and a new breed of market maker has emerged with the rise of electronic trading. The “flash rally” of October 15, 2014 provides a clear example of how those risks can materialize. Based on an in-depth analysis of the event—complementing the authorities’ work—we suggest i) providing incentives for liquidity provision, ii) improving market safeguards, and iii) enhancing the regulation of the Treasury market.

Commodities have become an important component of many investors' portfolios and the focus of much political controversy over the past decade. This book utilizes structural models to provide a better understanding of how commodities' prices behave and what drives them. It exploits differences across commodities and examines a variety of predictions of the models to identify where they work and where they fail. The findings of the analysis are useful to scholars, traders and policy makers who want to better understand often puzzling - and extreme - movements in the prices of commodities from aluminium to oil to soybeans to zinc.