CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET TRENDS AND FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC INDICATORS: CORRELATION AND REGRESSION ANALYSIS

The first cryptocurrency was born in 2008. Already today, virtual financial assets and tokens are a significant part of trading in global financial markets. The cryptocurrency market capitalization currently exceeds 600 billion U.S. dollars. However, there is a lot of discussion about cryptocurrency functions and the correlation between Bitcoin prices and the basic economic indices. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to define the statistical substantiation of the influence of fundamental economic indicators on the market of virtual financial assets and the possibility of using cryptocurrency as the investment assets. This article is based on the theoretical principles and methods of econometric analysis; the system approach methods to define the main vehicles and trends of the international financial market. The study presents correlation analysis, regression models with paired and multiple variables. For these models, R-Studio instruments are the main tools of quality estimation and results interpretation. The article shows the results of the correlation analysis of Bitcoin’s U.S. dollar price dynamics and changes in the main stock, monetary market indicators, cryptocurrencies market tendency, levels of the United States fundamental economic indicators for the period from 2014 to 2021. Traditional multifactorial regression models are used to determine the level and the impact of individual indicators of the world stock market at the U.S. dollar price of Bitcoin. A comparison of the level of volatility of key investment financial assets in the market of cryptocurrencies and stock markets is carried out. The authors determine the level of correlation dependence and make a regression model of the impact of fundamental economic indicators and stock market trends on the dynamics of U.S. dollar prices for key cryptocurrencies. The article presents conclusions on trends and problems of using cryptocurrencies as an investment asset, considering volatility and profitability. Implementation of the results allows to clarify the economic essence of cryptocurrencies as a specific financial vehicle, as well as improving the existing models of investment management, considering the statistical characteristics of the virtual financial assets. The main direction of further research is to build models of medium-term prediction of prices for the main cryptocurrencies as an investment asset in conditions of changes in global financial markets, which must consider the fundamental economic indicators of the world economy and trends on key stock and commodity markets. Keywords: virtual financial asset, cryptocurrency, bitcoin, econometric model, financial market, economic indicator, investment asset. JEL Classification D53, E44, G15, C58 Formulas: 3; fig.: 3; tabl.: 3; bibl.: 31.

Pharmacist assistance for patients on oral oncologic therapy: Impact on adherence and costs.

e19198 Background: Oral cancer treatment has becoming progressively more frequent and its costs are rising. To implement strategies that monitor adverse effects, adherence and manage financial resources is of utmost importance. Our goal is to develop an intervention based on pharmaceutical monitoring that promotes the correct use of medication through the early identification of adverse events, as well as to describe an economic analysis of this intervention. Methods: Quasi-experimental study, which included consecutive patients from a private oncologic clinic in Belo Horizonte, Southeast Brazil, who were taking oral medications for the treatment of cancer. Patients had regular consultations with pharmacists, at the beginning of each treatment cycle. The consultation consisted of the assessment of adherence (if they took at least 80% of the pills on a specific period of time) and adverse effects. The number of pills dispensed in the new cycle was adjusted by the number of pills remaining in the previous cycle. Prices were calculated using Brasindice and the dollar price of Feb/2020. Follow-up period was from Oct/2018 to Nov/2019. Results: Throughout the study, 1224 patients were included: 86% female, mean age 63 years, 37% had at least 7 years education. Breast cancer accounted for 77% and prostate cancer for 6% of the patients, and 23% of all patients were treating stage IV cancer. The most used treatments were tamoxifen (44%) anastrazole (34%) and capecitabine (3%). In total, 10.640 pharmacists consultations were performed, which corresponds, on average, 887 consultations per month and 8.7 per patient. On average, 88.6% were adherent to the medication. In 50% of those consultations, patients reported adverse effects (hot flashes 42%, musculoskeletal syndrome 22%, fatigue 14%, cramps 7%). In that scenario, pharmaceutical care has resulted in total savings of 4067 pills or $ 136,854.89 (Table). Conclusions: Pharmaceutical care was responsible for high rates of adherence, despite the high frequency of adverse effects, and also promoted cost savings. [Table: see text]

Inclusive wealth with total factor productivity: global sustainability measurement

Non-technical abstract Wealth commonly refers to the measure of the value of all assets or capital owned by an individual, community, company or nation. Sustainable development requires that the per capita productive base or comprehensive wealth of an economy should at least not decline over a period of time. We present here a comprehensive assessment of cross-country productivity over a study period of 1990–2010 for 140 countries. We used the concept of inclusive wealth introduced by the United Nations to assess the social value, rather than dollar price, of all each country's assets, including produced, human and natural capital.

The Gold Pool (1961–1968) and the Fall of the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for Central Bank Cooperation

The Gold Pool was probably the most ambitious case of central bank cooperation in history. Major central banks pooled interventions to stabilize the dollar price of gold. Why did it collapse? From at least 1964, the fate of the Pool was, in fact, tied to sterling, the first line of defense for the dollar. Sterling’s devaluation in November 1967 eventually spurred speculation and unbearable losses for the Pool. Inflationary U.S. policies were weakening confidence in the dollar. The demise of the Pool provides a striking example of contagion between reserve currencies and the limits of central bank cooperation.

Dissection of Bitcoin’s multiscale bubble history from January 2012 to February 2018

We present a detailed bubble analysis of the Bitcoin to US Dollar price dynamics from January 2012 to February 2018. We introduce a robust automatic peak detection method that classifies price time series into periods of uninterrupted market growth (drawups) and regimes of uninterrupted market decrease (drawdowns). In combination with the Lagrange Regularization Method for detecting the beginning of a new market regime, we identify three major peaks and 10 additional smaller peaks, that have punctuated the dynamics of Bitcoin price during the analysed time period. We explain this classification of long and short bubbles by a number of quantitative metrics and graphs to understand the main socio-economic drivers behind the ascent of Bitcoin over this period. Then, a detailed analysis of the growing risks associated with the three long bubbles using the Log-Periodic Power-Law Singularity (LPPLS) model is based on the LPPLS Confidence Indicators , defined as the fraction of qualified fits of the LPPLS model over multiple time windows. Furthermore, for various fictitious ‘present’ times t 2 before the crashes, we employ a clustering method to group the predicted critical times t c of the LPPLS fits over different time scales, where t c is the most probable time for the ending of the bubble. Each cluster is proposed as a plausible scenario for the subsequent Bitcoin price evolution. We present these predictions for the three long bubbles and the four short bubbles that our time scale of analysis was able to resolve. Overall, our predictive scheme provides useful information to warn of an imminent crash risk.

CO- Integration Approach Study of Crude Oil Prices and USD/ INR

The crude oil price and US dollar/INR influence the value of Indian rupee as well as values of currencies of other countries . Over the past decades, oil price and US dollar dominate the overall global markets. The crude oil price and US dollars instability bond with the economic growth and welfare of a country. Hence the study examined the volatility of crude oil price and US dollar in the Indian commodity market, during the study period from 2009 to 2018. US dollar price were collected from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and crude oil price were collected from Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). To check the volatility, the following statistical tools namely descriptive statistic, ADF and GARCH (1,1) model were used. Based on the result, crude price recorded low volatility compared to U.S dollar price during the study period.

Oil Price Volatility, Exchange Rate Movements and Stock Market Reaction: The Nigerian Experience (1985-2017)

Given the observed volatility in crude oil prices in the international oil market and the role which oil and gas play in the Nigerian economy, this paper is an attempt to investigate the impact of crude oil prices and foreign exchange rate movements on stock market prices in Nigeria. In addition, the paper examined whether there is any volatility pass-through between the dollar price of Nigerian crude oil, foreign exchange rate of the Naira and stock market prices respectively. Data employed for the study are monthly values of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI), Dollar price of Nigerian Crude Oil (DPO) and the Official Exchange Rate of the Naira to the US Dollar (FXR) from January, 1985 to August, 2017. The methodology adopted for the study include the ADF unit root tests, Johansen co-integration tests, the ECM technique, Granger causality tests, variance decomposition as well as the GARCH(1,1) to model the volatility relationships among the variables. Findings reveal that there is one long-run dynamic co-integrating relationship among the variables ASI, DPO and FXR while the ECM results indicate that Crude oil price (DPO) significantly impact on Stock market prices. The Granger causality test reports a bi-directional causality relationship between ASI and DPO and a unidirectional causality running from FXR to ASI. The ARCH-GARCH volatility analysis demonstrates vividly that stock market prices in the NSE exhibit ARCH effect with a significant and positive first order ARCH term. The GARCH term is also positive and significant indicating that previous month’s stock market price volatility significantly influences current stock market volatility in the NSE. In addition, findings show that the volatility of dollar price of Nigerian oil (DPO) in the world oil market is significantly transmitted to the volatility of stock market prices in Nigeria. The pass-through effect of the volatility of exchange rate (FXR) to the volatility of stock market prices is also positive and significant. These findings offer significant informational signal to policy makers, portfolio managers/advisors and the investing public in achieving optimal asset and portfolio profile.

Progress in DNA sequencing

The first human genome sequence took about a decade to complete and cost more than two billion dollars. This shows the major limitations of time and cost, and the development of recent technologies for DNA sequencing ultimately aimed at reducing these two factors. The major milestone of the HGP was the sequencing of the first billionth base out of the three billion base pair human genome. However, depending on the platform used in sequencing, the cost has drastically plummeted to about five thousand dollars and this is the work of a single day. The ultimate target of the HGP is to reach a one thousand dollar price mark to sequencing an entire human genome with the highest throughput, and this is slowly but steadily approaching, thanks to the refinements of existing methods, which are reducing the cost per base by the day. This review looks at the advancement of the DNA sequencing methods from the standard Sanger method, through to those applied in today’s research and also focuses on the technologies that have evolved throughout the past three decades with a possible comparison between them and finally a look at some of the limitations of these technologies.Keywords: Human genome project, DNA sequencing, Sanger method

How to Explain Number Theory at a Dinner Party

This chapter continues the discussion began in Chapter α‎. It presents the fourth and final part of author's response to the question, “What is it you do in number theory, anyway?” Here he deals with the Birch–Swinnerton–Dyer (BSD) conjecture. The BSD conjecture was the guiding problem for the first part of his career and has the distinction of being one of the seven Clay Millenium Prize Problems, whose solution carries a million dollar price tag. The BSD conjecture is an attempt to discern order in the apparently unpredictable nature of solutions to elliptic curves, following Hasse's theorem, which places strict limits on the numbers of approximate solutions for varying p.

The Price of Gold as a Hedge Against the US Dollar

We address the issue of whether the dollar (US dollar) price of gold can be used to hedge the external purchasing power of the dollar. We decompose the dollar price of gold into two parts: a global price of gold and a global price of the dollar. We find that there is no correlation between fluctuations in the global price of gold and fluctuations in the global price of the dollar, or fluctuations in the global price of any individual currency. We show that the observed negative correlation reported in the literature between fluctuations in the dollar price of gold and fluctuations in the dollar is caused by the appearance of the dollar in both variables. The dollar appears in the dollar price of gold with a negative sign that tilts the correlation with fluctuations in the dollar towards negative one.