Investing in Fictions: Faith, Abstraction and Materiality in Paul Murray’s The Mark and the Void

One of the central contentions of this essay is that Paul Murray's novel, The Mark and the Void, addresses questions of faith, fictionality, literary form and the relationship between abstract finance and material sociality. The novel engages with and exposes the arcane vernaculars of finance capitalism, while at the same time registering the inalienable materiality of their effects in terms of impoverishment, displacement and terminal indebtedness. As we shall detail, for Murray, the purpose of ‘finance fiction’ is neither to confirm nor further mythologize the transcendental fictionality of high finance. In crafting such a literary critique of Celtic Tiger Ireland, Murray invokes an increasingly common trope – the zombie. In doing so, The Mark and The Void partakes of a figuration that acknowledges ‘the deadliness of financialized debt and credit crisis’. In a sense, enlisting the metonymic figure of the zombie speaks to the undead nature of indebtedness, and it is an apt figuration of the past that continues to haunt in the present and into the future. As the narrative suggests, debt is the financial burden that refuses to die, and the literary zombie represents communities of Celtic Tiger debtors metonymically.

Examining the Impact of Movements of the Commodity Price on the Value of the Baltic Dry Index during Covid19 Pandemic

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is one of the most well-known indices, as it is perceived as a leading indicator of economic activity. Reductions in the movement of people, commodities, and capital in the conditions of economic crises, such as the one in 2008 and 2009, as well as the current economic crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, were affected by the reduction of economic activities. It is interesting to point out that the analysis of the basic trend of the BDI movements in the period before the economic crisis shows that the index fell to near record lows just before the derivatives and credit crisis hit stocks full force. This is a clear signal that the index can be used as a tool for stock market forecasting. The paper aims to examine whether the changes in these raw materials affect the changes in the value of BDI. For these purposes in the paper was use GMM and 2SLS estimator. The results show that different raw materials have a different impact on the value of the BDI, which indicates that based on individual movements value of raw materials which composes the BDI cannot forecast its movement.

A Case Study in Crisis Management in the Digital Transformation Era: Wells Fargo & Company

This case study deals with one of the biggest financial scandals in the new millennium among the banking sector in which the banking giant, Wells Fargo & Company (WFC), has opened millions of accounts without acknowledging its customers. It has been charging various fees without the consent of the company's existing clients, and it has involved many people with the personal credit crisis. On the contrary, senior management team was rewarded enormously for the rocketing profits resulting from the phony accounts numerous fees and elevated the bank's share price in a relatively short time. After the accounts scandal was unveiled by its employees and reported by the media, Wells Fargo's reputation was in great danger. While reputation is vital for almost all companies, it is especially essential for the financial services industry, where reputation is a deep-rooted culture. Crisis management strategies in the new era of digital transformation for companies like Wells Fargo as well as other financial services companies are crucial. Risk management is essential in today's business world, but crisis management as contingent plans cannot be ignored since events are not always going as many think they would be.

Options trading strategy based on ARIMA forecasting

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a profitable and original index options trading strategy. Design/methodology/approach The methodology is based on auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) forecasting of the S&P 500 index and the strategy is tested on a large database of S&P 500 Composite index options and benchmarked to the generalized auto regressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) model. The forecasts validate a set of criteria as follows: the first criterion checks if the forecasted index is greater or lower than the option strike price and the second criterion if the option premium is underpriced or overpriced. A buy or sell and hold strategy is finally implemented. Findings The paper demonstrates the valuable contribution of this option trading strategy when trading call and put index options. It especially demonstrates that the ARIMA forecasting method is a valid method for forecasting the S&P 500 Composite index and is superior to the GARCH model in the context of an application to index options trading. Originality/value The strategy was applied in the aftermath of the 2008 credit crisis over 60 months when the volatility index (VIX) was experiencing a downtrend. The strategy was successful with puts and calls traded on the USA market. The strategy may have a different outcome in a different economic and regional context.