ICMA Centre graduate and senior research fellow publish article in The Moscow Times

Momentum trading is a popular strategy in the commodity futures markets. The idea is simple. Suppose that an investor wants to invest in the first nearby contract of several commodity markets, e.g. crude oil, live cattle and gold. At the end of each month, the trader ranks these assets according to their past return performance, observed over a measurement period of 12 months for example, from the top performing asset to the bottom performing asset. The investor opens a long position in the first nearby of the markets that performed well and a short position in the first nearby of the markets that underperformed. These positions are held throughout the next month. This strategy has performed historically well historically and has attracted the interest of investors.

A new supplementary paper from the ICMA’s European Repo Council, written by Richard Comotto, explains the importance of collateral to the stability and efficiency of the financial system. The paper highlights how the proposed Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) would impact the movement of collateral, posing significant systemic risks and interrupting the flow of money between banks, to governments and to the real economy.

An unprecedented new study by academics at the Henley Business School into financial risk has shown that while women remain significantly more risk averse than men in the investment domain, the disparity is declining.