NEWSLETTER of November 7, 2025

The following content has been added at finexpert:

Houlihan Lokey
FINTECH MARKET UPDATES: Q3 2025
Houlihan Lokey is pleased to present its FinTech Market Updates, which highlight major trends and investment activity in the sector. We continue to work closely with our colleagues in the Technology and Financial Services groups, particularly those focused on the end markets served by the FinTech sectors we cover. We invite you to connect with us and discuss what we see in the space in more detail. >more

European Investment Bank
EIB Investment Survey 2025
The EIB Investment Survey is conducted annually and includes data from approximately 13 000 firms in all EU Member States plus a sample from the United States. The survey provides information on firm characteristics and performance, past investment activities and future plans, sources of finance and the financing issues businesses face. >more

BCG
THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DEALMAKING: THE 2025 M&A REPORT
In October 2025, the global M&A market’s volatile recovery continues, marked by renewed optimism. After navigating significant turbulence earlier this year, the market has shown its resilience, driven by strategic adaptability among experienced dealmakers. The trend in BCG’s M&A Sentiment Index, a leading indicator of future deal activity, has been increasingly positive across all sectors recently, with particularly strong confidence in the technology and energy industries going forward. Yet this recovery unfolds amid persistent geopolitical tensions, regulatory shifts, and economic uncertainties, all of which continue to affect market dynamics. >more

Deutsche Bank Research
WIE KANN DEUTSCHLAND DEN POTENZIELLEN „CHINA-SCHOCK“ MEISTERN?
Germany’s trade deficit with China has been growing and will likely reach a record level of over 2% of GDP this year. At the same time, Chinese export restrictions for on certain chips and several raw materials threaten German supply chains. Against this backdrop the German government is currently working on a new China action plan. In this note we first discuss three key themes defining the evolving relationship with China. We then outline our own thoughts on how to be best cope with the potential “China shock” and existing asymmetric dependencies. >more

BELIEFS AND STOCK MARKET FLUCTUATIONS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE PAST SEVEN DECADES 
David Thesmar, and Emil Verner
2025
We build a new dataset with subjective expectations of equity returns and earnings from an independent equity analysis firm spanning 1956 to 2024. Our new measure of expected returns is highly correlated with the earnings-price ratio, is contrarian in response to past stock returns, and predicts future stock returns. These findings contrast with subjective expectations of individual investors and professional forecasters, which are weakly, or even negatively, correlated with our new expected return series. Disagreement between sophisticated and individual investors is associated with higher trading volume. Our findings are consistent with a model of heterogeneous beliefs, where naive investors extrapolate past returns (rather than past dividends) while sophisticated investors are close to rational. >more

TRADING AHEAD OF BARBARIANS' ARRIVAL AT THE GATE: INSIDER TRADING ON NON-INSIDE INFORMATION
Georgy Chabakauri, Vyacheslav Fos, and Wei Jiang
2025
Privately informed about firm fundamentals, corporate insiders detect activism-motivated trades better than other traders. This paper solves the model of this novel form of insider trading motivated by non-insider information and presents empirical evidence. Corporate insiders preserve their ownership (restraining from selling or buying more) before activist interventions go public to benefit from price appreciation and to defend their private benefits of control. Response to real-time (pre-disclosure) activist trading is stronger precisely when positive information about firm fundamentals is absent, supporting the mechanism that insiders attribute order flows to activist interest when speculation on fundamentals can be ruled out. >more