The March 2018 Monthly Report sheds light on Germany’s balance of payments for 2017 and provides an insight into demand for euro banknotes at the Deutsche Bundesbank. It also includes an article on the design, regulation and use of contingent convertible bonds.

Are asset prices driven by news or by factors unrelated to economic fundamentals, such as market sentiment? In most asset pricing models news play a dominant role, but most empirical applications find only a low explanatory power of news. A new study examines this problem using an extensive time-stamped event database and finds that about half of all high-frequency market movements can be attributed to news.