Anyone who hoped that 2020’s dramatics were over is now disappointed. The first working week of 2021 was a doozy. Markets may have taken last week in stride, but a range of simmering issues — some technical, some potentially dramatic — promise that headline risk will soon drive volatility again. …

Active policy formation processes provide excellent examples of how alternative data sourced from the public policy process can deliver material informational advantages to early adopters. Technical policy processes increase informational asymmetries because most media outlets will not cover complicated new developments. Monday’s flurry of LIBOR-related policy activity in the end…

The steady year-long momentum increase in sovereign digital currencies — interrupted only by COVID-19 — continues to intensify. As the time series data from our PolicyScope Platform indicates on the left, policymakers are making up for lost time in the spring with a stream of speeches and actions that illustrate…

Throughout 2019 and 2020, we have periodically pointed out to blog readers and PolicyScope Risk Monitor readers how policymakers have been steadily, incrementally, and subtly expanding the regulatory perimeter to cover cryptocurrency markets and issuers. …

By Barbara C. Matthews on The Capital — During July, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a report recommending a range of mechanisms to improve data gathering concerning FinTech companies. Most people yawned and moved on to more exciting issues, like 5G regulation or the geopolitical struggle between China and the United States. However, the report provides…

First, we need to thank the European Central Bank (ECB) for its action earlier today. They have helped prove a point we have been making for quite some time. Earlier this month, on July 7, we published a White Paper regarding LIBOR Reform. In that paper, we noted that the…

When operating at the tail of the distribution, scenario analysis can be extremely helpful in identifying vulnerabilities. As we noted earlier this week, applying scenario analysis effectively to the growing number of public policy risks embedded in portfolios requires risk managers and quantitative analysts to stop approaching scenario analysis as…

Today’s research release from the European Central Bank (ECB) — discovered via our PolicyScope Platform — impacts profoundly how central banks and markets will communicate with each other in the near future. …

Last week, explained why the pandemic creates a “when bad data happens to good models” situation. To catch up, see: Two Data Deficits and Why Data Deficits Matter. We also de-bunked the misconception that scenario analysis when applied to public policy risks is not the equivalent of playing darts. Today…