W5 and How

Over the next while I hope to answer the W5 and How, the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, of economic news and financial markets. Specifically, I'll try to answer:

• How quickly do financial markets react to news?
• Which announcements matter for which financial markets?
• Are the results stable over time?
• Does bad news matter more than good?
• Does a string of bad news affect financial markets?
• Does volatility, skewness, and kurtosis of expectations affect financial markets?

I am engaged in some research that should be of interest to risk managers, speculators, policy makers and academics. In getting to the answers there are a lot of issues related to data:

• Definition of News
• The Size of the Announcement Window
• The Timing of Announcements
• The Effect of Good News and Bad News
• News in Good Times and Bad

There are also econometric issues related to the estimation of the effect of news on financial markets. But I'll try not to dwell on the details, but rather concentrate on the journalistic approach of getting to the answers. The photos ... sk8brds as art.