Business Commons^™

Stimulating Investments In Haitian Smes, Laura Hartman

Laura Hartman

A Peer-to-Project site to link lenders, donors and investors with SMEs and social projects in Haiti.

Goals: Long-term sustainable operation, Increased access to development capital for entrepreneurs, Spurring large-scale economic development in Haiti.

Three Essays On Real Estate Equities And Real Estate Investment Trusts, Fahad Almudhaf

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three distinct essays. The first essay provides initial empirical evidence on the usefulness of consumer confidence index and investor optimism index in predicting REIT price movements. I find evidence of uni-directional Granger causality from REIT returns to the change in Michigan consumer sentiment index for the period 1978 - 2008. I find a negative and statistically significant relationship between the level of Michigan consumer sentiment index in one month and the FTSE/NAREIT US REIT returns in the next one, six, and twelve months. On the other hand, I find a positive and statistically significant relationship between …

Determinants Of Implied Volatility Movements In Individual Equity Options, Christopher G. Angelo

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

In this study, I introduce a parsimonious model that explains implied volatility time series for individual stock options. The current state of risk management for individual equity options still seems to lack the presence of pertinent exogenous variables. This study suggests a few easily observable variables that can be used to explain the changes in implied volatilities of stock options. These variables can be used in the risk models in order to more accurately manage option positions for individual stocks. The first chapter provides a motivation for the VIX as the primary explanatory variable for changes in implied volatility. It …

The 2008 Short Sale Ban: Did We Sell Price Discovery Short, Yen-Ling Chang

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the impact of a short sale ban on the stock market and the options market and the interrelation between the two markets during the US financial crisis of 2008. The first essay focuses on the impact of the short sale ban on financial stocks between September 18, 2008 and October 8, 2008. I examine how daily returns responded to the ban. Non-banned firms with similar sizes and standard deviations of past stock returns as the banned firms served as a control group. An event study shows significant positive cumulative abnormal returns which might indicate that the banned …