BIS Quarterly Review, September 2014

Following a prolonged period of unusual tranquillity, volatility in financial markets ticked upwards in early August. Risk appetite took a dent, as escalating geopolitical tensions added to renewed concerns about the recovery. Equity prices fell, especially in Europe, high-yield credit spreads widened significantly, and yields of safe haven assets such as short-maturity German bunds fell into negative territory. More...

The BIS, in cooperation with central banks and monetary authorities worldwide, compiles and disseminates several data sets on activity in international financial markets. This chapter summarises the latest data for the international banking market, available up to end-March 2014, and analyses those for the international debt securities market, available up to end-June 2014. More...

The turbulence in emerging market economies (EMEs) in mid-2013 has reminded policymakers and investors of the importance of actions by large asset managers for relatively small and illiquid EME asset markets.

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Corporates in many EMEs have taken advantage of unusually easy global financial conditions to ramp up their overseas borrowing and leverage. This could expose them to increased interest rate and currency risks unless these positions are adequately hedged.

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Cross-border bank lending to emerging markets slowed sharply during the taper tantrum. The abruptness of this slowdown varied considerably across both lenders and borrowers. We use newly available data to explain the drivers of this cross-sectional variation.

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Despite their importance in macroeconomic and financial stability analysis, residential property data are not easily available on a comparable basis. The BIS currently publishes more than 300 price series for 55 countries, among which it has selected one representative series for each country.

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