This materialized in the form of the fall in global stock prices and the widening of credit spreads of corporate bonds – that is, additional interest rates charged on government bond rates – in Europe and the United States since this past summer.
Correspondingly, assets considered relatively safe have invited investors’ purchases; for example, yields on government bonds issued by the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom were at historically extreme low levels. As for currencies, the Swiss franc, Japanese yen, and U.S. dollar have been regarded as having low risks, and this has led to the rise in these currencies in the exchange market.