In July, the prices on global financial markets kept growing for almost all types of assets. The panic of June due to the unexpected results of the referendum concerning the membership of Great Britain in the European Union subsided rather quickly, and investors returned to the market. It can be partly explained by common understanding that the process of Great Britain leaving the EU will be quite long, thus preventing strong negative consequences. The statements of central banks, especially the ECB and Bank of England, regarding their readiness to provide support to financial markets and defuse the effect caused by Brexit, if necessary, played their role as well.

In June, the focus of the market players’ attention was the sessions of main central banks of the world and the UK referendum on the EU membership. However, it is fair to say that the results of central banks’ sessions were of much smaller concern for the investors, since no particular surprises were expected. The only thing that aroused some interest was the statement made by the FRS Chair Janet Yellen, namely, that ‘forces holding down interest rates may be long-lasting’, referring, inter alia, to the results of voting for Brexit.

Starting from 13 June 2016, changes in the Basic Information for Investors on ABLV Global Corporate USD Bond Fund become effective.

In May, the global stock market was still in a consolidation phase which started in April. Given the absence of some notable events, the main capital market indexes fluctuated between 3-5%. At the beginning of the month, some players tried once again to test the validity of the expression ‘Sell in May and go away’, due to which many stock markets experienced the pressure from sellers in the first half of the month. However, wide range of investors did not support this ‘initiative’, which added to the market recovery by the end of the month.

In April, the global stock market took a little time off after quite good growth in March. Market participants again focused on the actions of central banks and corporate reports. Nothing specific was expected from the FRS or ECB, nevertheless, everybody was interested in the declamations of the heads of the central banks regarding the further monetary policy. The ECB highlighted the slight improvement of forecast of economic performance in the Eurozone and confirmed the will to use “all instruments”, if necessary, in order to achieve the target rate of inflation.

On 26 April, 2016, the Council of the Financial and Capital Market Commission approved registration of the Base Prospectus of ABLV Bank, AS, Sixth Bond Offer Programme, allowing the bank to perform public offering of debt securities amounting to EUR 400 million or equivalent amount in USD, pursuant to the particular final terms of public offer.

In March, global financial markets demonstrated positive mood which emerged in the second half of the previous month. Support provided to the markets by the ECB and FRS eventually affected investors. On 10 March, during its meeting, the ECB lowered the refinancing rate from 0.05% to 0.00%, the deposit rate from -0.3% to -0.4%, the credit interest rate from 0.3% to 0.25%, as well as announced the expansion of the quantitative easing programme from EUR 60 to 80 billion per month including corporate bonds and new series of targeted long-term repo operations (TLTRO) for a term of 4 years.

February turned out to be as stressful for global financial markets as January. It seemed that the massive “January counterattacks” of the leading central banks, namely, their promises to apply additional means for priming of economy, if necessary, suspended panic sales on risk asset markets, which were due to the “inadequate situation” in Chinese capital market.

Under the bond issue programme, ABLV Bank, AS has performed two new coupon bond issues, their total size amounting to USD 75 million and EUR 20 million at face value. During initial placement, the bonds were acquired by more than 190 investors.

In the financial markets January appeared to be depressing. For the global stock market the beginning of the year was among the worst ones in recent decades. Sharp drop of prices in the markets once again started with the collapse at the Chinese stock exchange.