Financial Instruments Analytics and Financial Fragility

The foreign currency exchange market is one of the most influential markets in the world today, the New York stock exchange, the Nasdaq and the Tokyo stock exchange the three largest securities markets in the world have a daily trading volume of around 300 billion USD combined. Well, in this book the author wants to explore three things: Why is the foreign exchange market so large and influential? Who actually conducts these trades and how? And while we are at it, why is it that the UK pound is so valuable compared to all other currencies?The world of cryptocurrency began as little more than an experiment in computer engineering circles and has since evolved into (arguably) the most dynamic and volatile asset class ever conceived.Let's approach the topic of cryptocurrencies pragmatically and how they fit into the world of investments.In July of 2009, the Central Bank of Sweden lowered its overnight deposit rate to negative 0.25% - effectively charging the country's retail banks to pay it to look after it's money.At the turn of the millennia, negative interest rates were somewhat of an economic fantasy: the same way that lightspeed travel is a fantasy for theoretical physicists. Economists had speculated about what negative interest rates would mean, but nobody actually ever expected this phenomenon to exist in the real world.Today negative interest rates dominate the market for sovereign bonds and are the staple of many central banks. But how in the world does this make sense? Who in their right mind would pay someone to take their money?It goes without saying that oil should be a relatively valuable commodity, given how useful it is, how limited its supply is and how expensive its alternatives are. However, in late April 2020, we have started seeing articles noting that oil prices have now gone into the negatives. People are literally paying to give other people one of the most influential and useful commodities in the world.So what is going on here, how does this make sense? We as always with these weird and wonderful things it all basic economics and to properly understand this we are going to need to look at 3 things: Negative value items, the 2020 oil market, and how we actually sell oil! The age of the automated trading machines is upon us, most trading today is happening to, from and between computers that all have very clever programs to consistently and reliably invest into the stock market better than a human could. These computer programs come in all shapes and sizes but the most controversial of all of these are high frequency trading algorithms.It looks like this external shock will snowball on top of some underlying faults in the economy to cause an economic crisis that eclipses the 2000's tech bible and the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. Most people of note from policymakers to money managers agree that this is pretty bad and it only looks like it is getting worse ... so why is it then, that amidst all of this chaos and uncertainty the stock market is on the rise again?