Date: 19th January 2018
Earlier this week, the the European Capital Markets Institute released two valuable research reports on aggregate indicators of the Capital Markets Union, both domestic and in comparison to three other mega-economies of the world. The reports focus on five key sectors in the EU-28 capital markets: equity, debt securities, exchange-traded derivatives, over-the-counter derivatives and mutual funds.
First, while the E.U.-28 was the leader in publicly listed companies with equity securities originating from 7,353 businesses, their market capitalisation represents a mere €1.4 billion on average, which means that ‘trading on equity markets is concentrated in a small number of companies’, compared to the U.S market.
Second, the ECB’s Quantitative-Easing programmes of 2015 caused a slight contraction of the debt securities markets and the volume of collateral-backed bonds has remained stable, with 86% representing mortgage-backed ones.
Third, the market for exchange-traded derivatives (ETD) and over-the-counter derivatives (OTCD) is continuing its growing trend, reaching ‘a 10 year high’ with an increase of 6%, or €421 million, in Europe.