The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)’s latest report on Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities No. 2, 2017 (TRV) identifies high asset price valuations as the major risk for European financial markets in the second half of 2017. The main risk drivers are uncertainties around geo-political developments, the resilience of economic growth as well as debt sustainability. Market and credit risks, as a result of geopolitical, growth and debt concerns, continued to be very high, while liquidity and contagion risks remained stable but high. The outlook on operational risk remains elevated but the outlook is now negative due to heightened concerns around cyber security. Overall, ESMA’s risk assessment for the second half of 2017 remains unchanged from 1H17.

The purpose of this document is to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of MAR and its implementing measures. It does this by providing responses to questions posed by the general public and competent authorities in relation to the practical application of the MAR framework

The content of this document is aimed at competent authorities to ensure that in their supervisory activities and their actions are converging along the lines of the responses adopted by ESMA and at helping issuers, investors and other market participants by providing clarity on the content of the market abuse rules, rather than creating an extra layer of requirements.