The Covid-19 pandemic created some waves in the foreign exchange markets over the last couple of years, but the re-emergence of global inflation and inflation-fighting central banks has truly rocked the currency world this year.
The largest company in the world can fluctuate day to day, even minute by minute, depending what measurement is used. Tesla began 2022 as the world's fifth largest company by market cap and ended the year in 11th place after their CEO Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.
Global Finance editor Andrea Fiano interviews Ásgeir Jónsson, Central Bank Governor of Iceland during Global Finance's World's Best Bank Awards at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on October 15th.
Butting heads:Cheney and Putin exchange harsh words
Relations between Russia and the US plumbed new post-Cold War depths as US vice president Dick Cheney labeled Russia’s energy resources “tools of intimidation and blackmail” and knocked Moscow for backsliding on democracy. Reflecting general sentiment in Russia, business newspaper Kommersant compared the comments to Winston Churchill’s 1946 Fulton speech, when he first warned of an Iron Curtain across Europe. In his state of the union address a few days later, Russian president Vladimir Putin took a veiled swing at what is viewed in Russia as the American my-way-or-the-highway attitude, although he dedicated most of the speech to addressing Russia’s demographic catastrophe, launching an effort to boost the country’s birthrate and reverse the population decline through financial incentives.
The war of words between the EU and Russian gas monopoly Gazprom continued, with the EU calling for increased access for European companies to invest in Russian energy supplies. The company’s CEO had earlier warned that attempts by the EU to restrict Gazprom’s activities in Europe would “not lead to good results.” Meanwhile, in early May Gazprom became the world’s third-largest company by market capitalization, passing the $300 billion threshold.
The Russian IPO boom continued, with regional food retailer Magnit raising $368 million and sausage maker Cherkizovo raising $229 million—even though two of the three lead underwriters resigned in the midst of marketing the deal, claiming that valuations were too high. The size of the IPO of state-owned oil company Rosneft was halved from $20 billion, however. The company said that high oil prices had reduced its need for capital, although adverse publicity over Russian corporate governance practices probably played a significant role as well.