Portfolio and Security Analysis Commons^™

Investment Behavior During Covid Pandemic: An Evidence From Emerging Asian Markets, Sana Tauseef

Business Review

This study investigates the investor behavior in Asian emerging markets during the COVID pandemic period and assesses the asymmetric patterns and the influence of global and regional return dynamics on local investor behavior. It uses daily firm-level data from January 2001 to December 2020 for nine Asian emerging countries: China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand to estimate the impact of extreme price movements, market liquidity and US and Chinese market returns on local return dispersions using a non-linear specification. The findings indicate that rational price behavior prevailed in all markets over the COVID period. Though herding ...

Stock Market Manipulation Detection Using Continuous Wavelet Transform & Machine Learning Classification, Sarah Youssef

Theses and Dissertations

Stock market manipulation detection is important for both investors and regulators. Being able to detect stock manipulation and preventing it gives investors the confidence in the market fairness and integrity. It also helps maintaining liquidity of the stocks and market efficiency. Implementing data mining algorithms in manipulation detection is a relatively recent technique but in the past few years there has been an increasing interest in it's applications in this domain. The benefit of monitoring manipulative trade behavior is that it can be implemented on live feed of stock data, which saves a lot of time in detecting stock ...

Do Esg Mutual Funds Deliver On Their Promises?, Quinn Curtis, Jill E. Fisch, Adriana Z. Robertson

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law

Corporations have received growing criticism for their role in climate change, perpetuating racial and gender inequality, and other pressing social issues. In response to these concerns, shareholders are increasingly focusing on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) criteria in selecting investments, and asset managers are responding by offering a growing number of ESG mutual funds. The flow of assets into ESG is one of the most dramatic trends in asset management.

But are these funds giving investors what they promise? This question has attracted the attention of regulators, with the Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC ...

Hedge Funds And Their Prime Broker Analysts, Sung Gon Chung, Manoj Kulchania, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Are sell-side analysts reluctant to go against the investment views of their hedge funds when these hedge funds are their prime brokerage clients? We show that prime broker analysts tend to upgrade stocks recently bought by their clients. For stocks with upgraded recommendations, post-announcement cumulative abnormal returns are significantly lower for those purchased by the prime brokerage clients. Our results are stronger with high-dollar-turnover clients who generate more trading commissions. We also find that a hedge fund with a large bet on a stock has a stronger incentive to pressure the fund’s prime brokers to issue a favorable recommendation ...

Bitcoin As A Viable Alternative To Legacy Reserve Assets: Reasons, Risks, And Adoption, Jeffry Blake Dunson Ii

Senior Honors Theses

Reserve assets include commodities, currencies, or other capital held by institutions as a hedge against the fluctuations of external factors. While the United States’ rise to power helped establish the US dollar as the most predominant reserve asset of the past fifty years, current events & the fast pace of technological advancement has exposed some limitations in the system. Blockchain technology has allowed for assets with cryptographically verifiable integrity that fundamentally depart from the US dollar standard and has potential to overhaul reserve assets as we know it. The course of this research details the downsides of legacy reserve assets, the ...

Capital Allocation Imbalance And The Effects On Monetary Policy, Peter G. George

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This paper examines the association between liquidity injections and capital allocations in the United States. In the analysis, liquidity injections are proxied by monetary base and the capital allocations are reflected by excess reserves, vault cash, total bank credit, and M2-M1. Monthly data are utilized for all variables for the sample period March 1984 – June 2020. Four Bai-Perron multiple breakpoint regressions and Markov switching estimations are employed to examine changeable patterns and interactions. The results indicate that liquidity injections are imbalanced and are allocated to total bank credit prior to quantitative easing, excess reserves prior to QE through post-QE, vault ...

How The Growth Of Technology Has Forced Accounting Firms To Put An Emphasis On Cybersecurity, Holden Halbach

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

The advancement of technology has brought many changes to accounting firms. Computer applications such as Microsoft Excel have made calculators and physical spreadsheets obsolete. Then with the introduction of cloud computing employees can store, access, and exchange large amounts of data instantaneously from any location. These technological innovations have increased the accuracy and efficiency of firms substantially. However, this growth in technology has shown the importance of putting an emphasis on cybersecurity throughout the accounting industry. The emphasis placed on cybersecurity throughout accounting firms is more prevalent than any other industry. This is primarily because accounting firms not only deal ...

Evaluating Methods Of Calculating Country-Specific Market Risk Premium, Lora Taylor

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this paper I will discuss three different methods for calculating country specific market risk premium will be discussed. The methods that will be discussed are that of a historical moving average, Aswath Damodaran’s method, and the methodology and survey results from Pablo Fernandez. The weaknesses of the different methods will also be discussed. Additionally, the CAPM model of valuation will be explained as well as the three different concepts that are used interchangeably under the term market risk premium.

Hedge Fund Performance With The Treynor-Black Model, Gurkamal S. Pannu

Honors Theses

This paper seeks to analyze the information ratio differences between long/short hedge funds over the past two decades using the Treynor-Black model. The Treynor-Black model is a method to derive an optimal portfolio allocation across safe and risky assets, based off of expected alphas of active investments and the unsystematic volatility that can be attributed to each given security. We first developed and implemented a model to forecast information ratios on a database of long/short hedge funds. With the predicted information ratios, we calculated out-of-sample allocation weights from a Treynor-Black active portfolio model. These weights were then tested ...

Short Selling Around Reverse Stock Splits, Ryan Voges

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

I examine whether short selling increases around reverse stock splits using 2019 daily short selling data instead of bimonthly short interest data required by FINRA. In my difference-in-difference analysis, I find that average short selling increases significantly for firms that reverse split their stock, relative to matched control firms that do not, around the split dates. I also find that firms that reverse split their stock experience negative cumulative abnormal returns in the 20-day period after the reverse stock splits, particularly for those firms that are heavily shorted. These results are in agreeance with existent literature and suggest that short ...

The Role Of The Iex In A Fragmented Market System, Cameron Spicer

Honors College

Over the past several decades, the secondary market system has evolved into a more complex and fragmented system than it once was. The Investor’s Exchange (IEX) emerged in 2014 in rebellion of purportedly unethical High-Frequency Trading (HFT) behaviors in the markets. Using a novel, proprietary model for trade matching along with providing other services, the IEX has become a respectable player in the market system that prides itself on transparency and fairness. This paper explores the role that IEX has played in market fragmentation since its inception using empirical and historical analysis. The empirical analysis focuses primarily on a ...

Global Recognition Of Sustainable Companies And The Search For Meaningful Returns, Jenny Gyurova Hite

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

Can an investor realize meaningful returns by choosing sustainability? Global Knights publishes an annual 100 Global Most Sustainable companies list which has been announced each January in Davos, Switzerland since 2005. This paper examines the global recognition of the US sustainable companies which make that list and the presence of cumulative abnormal returns of their portfolio. Event study methodology is used to assess short and long term cumulative abnormal returns of a dynamic portfolio updated annually over 16 years to include those names. Standard Deviations and Sortino Ratios are evaluated to determine the comparative level of risk a potential investor ...

Do Students Buy Attention-Grabbing Stocks? A Field Experiment, George Psaradakis

Business and Economics Honors Papers

In this paper, we look to find out whether or not student investors are drawn to “attention-grabbing” stocks. We define “attention-grabbing” stocks as those that are issued by companies with either large numbers of Twitter followers, large general marketing budgets, or both. Our theory is that the more followers that a publicly traded company has on Twitter and/or the more money the company spends on marketing and advertising, the more likely a student would be to invest in its stock.

A field experiment was conducted in which undergraduate students constructed their own virtual stock portfolios. A treatment group was ...

The U.S. Presidential Election Cycle And Stock Market Returns, Georginus Ejiofor Ugwu

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This paper analyzes the relationship between the presidential election year and the stock market returns in the United States by examining the monthly returns of the Standard &Poor’s 500 stock index from January 1959 to December 2019. In essence, I test whether stock market returns improve during presidential election year, consistent with the political business cycle (PBC) and its later offshoot, the ‘presidential election cycle (PEC) hypothesis, which assumes that incumbent presidents and their parties improve economic growth and the stock market outlook by embracing expansionary macroeconomic policy. I employ the Least Squares Regression tests on monthly S&P ...

Ursinus College Women's Investment Management Company, Taylor Beaumont, Shannon Blessing, Olivia Defusco, Julia Ewing, Angela Gervasi, Wendy Luo, Eve Peiffer, Becca Lewis, Ellie Templeton, Emily Benning, Rebecca Lam, Maddy Sorokanych, Theodora Zeibekis, Marcella Thanh-Guyet, Delanie Rogers

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. In 2020, a group of women students began to manage their own fund. This presentation reviews activities of the previous year and analyzes the stock performance of various companies including: Anthem, Inc., American Well Corporation, SNAP, Inc., Yatsen Holdings Ltd. and Yum China Holdings.

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company Newsletter, Spring 2021, Scott Deacle, George Psaradakis, Jacob Kang, Kareem Elghawy, Wendy Luo

Investment Management Company Newsletter

Inside this issue:

Letter from Kareem Elghawy '22

Letter from Wendy Luo '21

At a Glance

Investment Strategies

Endowment at Work

UCIMCO Updates

Fall Semester Investment Performance

Endowment Outlook

Stock Selection Picks

Women's Fund Picks

Our Team

Supporters

How to Contribute

Dispelling The Hype: An Examination Of Spac Common Equity Performance, Lauren Helen Chamberlain

Economics

The U.S. SPAC market has faced explosive growth in recent years, but the financial performance of these investments is weakly understood. Therefore, this paper contributes an analysis on the long-term performance of SPAC common equity for SPACs that completed acquisitions between 2016 and 2018. Using hand-collected data from the Compustat – Capital IQ and SEC EDGAR databases, this paper runs a two-sample t-test assuming unequal variances and constructs an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model. In conclusion of the t-test, the results suggest that SPAC common shares do not outperform the market over a three-year holding period. In addition, the ...

Japanese Monetary Policy And Its Impact On Stock Market Implied Volatility During Pleasant And Unpleasant Weather, Marinela Adriana Finta

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the effect of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting releases on the intraday dynamics of the Nikkei Stock Average Volatility Index and its futures during pleasant and unpleasant weather. We show that at the time of a monetary policy release when the temperature is pleasant, there is a significant decline in Japanese equities’ implied volatility and futures, which lasts for about 10 minutes and 5 minutes, respectively. This decline is longer and exhibits a greater variation when releases occur during cold days. Finally, we emphasize the achievable economic profits and losses, given the reaction of Nikkei VI futures to ...

The Virus, Risk, And Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities: Examining Dodd-Frank’S Impact In The Midst Of A Pandemic, Owen Haney

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

When lawmakers sought to reshape the financial industry through the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, they specifically attacked the “moral hazard” in the asset-backed securities market that they believed was partly responsible for the collapse of global financial markets. Congress identified several practices in asset-backed securitizations that posed a risk to the world economy. In particular, regulators believed that the “originate-to-distribute” model, whereby loan originators—those parties armed with the best knowledge regarding the quality of the loans in the transaction and who consequently set underwriting standards—could sell off the loans without bearing any risk should those ...

Synthetic Governance, Byung Hyun Anh, Jill E. Fisch, Panos N. Patatoukas, Steven Davidoff Solomon

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law

Although securities regulation is distinct from corporate governance, the two fields have considerable substantive overlap. By increasing the transparency and efficiency of the capital markets, securities regulation can also enhance the capacity of those markets to discipline governance decisions. The importance of market discipline is heightened by the increasingly vocal debate over what constitutes “good” corporate governance.

Securities product innovation offers new tools to address this debate. The rise of index-based investing provides a market-based mechanism for selecting among governance options and evaluating their effects. Through the creation of bespoke governance index funds, asset managers can create indexes that correspond ...