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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator,
today publishes its second Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities (TRV) Report of 2021.
ESMA continues to see elevated risks and fragile fundamentals, with an outlook for continued
high risk and uncertainty over the sustainability of corporate and public debt as well as rising
inflation expectations. Current market trends need to show their resilience over an extended
period of time to allow for a more positive risk assessment. The extent to which these risks will
materialise will critically depend on market expectations on the continuation of monetary and
fiscal policy support, as well as on the pace of the economic recovery and on inflation
expectations.
Investor confidence has increased, linked to rising asset valuation and strong performance of
retail investor instruments. A surge in retail trading since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
has been driven by a range of factors, including innovation. New online and mobile trading
platforms offer convenient, easy-to-use investment services, and zero-commission business
models and gamified features may further attract consumers. These features can prompt
investor protection concerns, as does the rise of trading encouraged by social media and online
message boards.
Also, rising valuations across classes, massive price swings in crypto assets and event-driven
risks observed amid elevated trading volumes raise questions about increased risk-taking
behaviour and possible market exuberance.
In addition to its risk monitoring, ESMA provides four in-depth articles looking at financial
stability risks of cloud outsourcing, Credit Rating Agencies and green bonds:
• Cloud outsourcing and financial stability risks: The article analyses the growing
use of cloud service providers by financial institutions and how the concentration of
those providers can create financial stability risks in case of outage.
• COVID-19 and credit ratings: The analysis investigates how credit ratings evolved
during the exceptional period of early 2020, exploiting ESMA’s RADAR database.
• Market for small credit rating agencies in the EU: Using SupTech-related
techniques and the CRAR database, the article assesses the network of CRAs and the
concentration in the CRA market.
• Environmental impact and liquidity of green bonds: In this article, ESMA
investigates the CO2 emissions of green bond issuers, and then compares the liquidity
of green and conventional corporate bonds.