The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, has today published its latest edition of the Spotlight on Markets Newsletter.

Your one-stop-shop in the world of EU financial markets focused in April on the DORA preparations for the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the industry: the arrangements for the next implementation stage, the consultation on for joint examination teams, and the first recruitments to set up the oversight team.

In addition, ESMA published an article that aims to improve the understanding of crypto-asset trading and the extent to which it resembles or differs from traditional financial markets. An article showing the correlation between social media interactions and stock excess returns at the very short term has also been shared.

ESMA has responded to the European Commission’s request on amendments to the European long-term investment fund (ELTIF) technical standards. In the letter, we suggest that there should be a limited number of changes to find the right balance between protecting retail investors and contributing to the capital market union objectives. We also released a follow-up report to share the main outcomes of the global CCP fire drill that took place in November 2023, as well as the fourth edition of its Report on the Quality and Use of Data.

ESMA has contributed to its financial stability objective with the publication of a report on EU securities financing transactions (SFT) markets, providing a first comprehensive market-level overview of the EU repo market, based on information reported by market participants.

Finally, the newsletter features some photos of Verena Ross’ visit to the USA, with several meetings and events taking place in Washington and New York.