Business Commons^™

Assessing Diversification Of S&P500 And Cdx Indexes, Jeffrey A. Palma

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

In this paper, I conduct a study of comovement between equity and corporate bonds using S&P500 and Investment Grade and High Yield CDX Indexes to evaluate the diversification benefits of holding these assets in portfolios. I assess comovement and diversification potential using DCC-GARCH and copulas. This approach allows for a review of equity and credit linkages through multiple lenses and evaluation of how these relationships have evolved over time. In general, I find only modest potential for diversification between equity and CDX markets and strong evidence of increased comovement over time.

Impact Of Geographical Diversification And Limited Attention On Private Equity Fund Returns, Victor Ong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article analyzes the effect of geographical diversification on global private equity (PE) fund returns. We find that there is a negative correlation between geographical diversification and PE fund returns. To establish the causality between geographical diversification and PE fund returns, we employ an instrumental variable analysis where the instrument used is the stock market capitalization of the host country where the PE fund is based. Our results apply to Net IRR, TVPI and DPI as dependent variables used to proxy for PE fund returns in the main regression model. A one standard deviation increase in geographical diversification results in …

Using Acquisitions As A Growth Strategy From Single Concept To Multiple Concepts: A Case Study, Francis A. Kwansa, Eliza Ching-Yick Tse

Journal of Hospitality Financial Management

From the day a business is conceived, it is constantly faced with numerous strategic challenges that have impact on its survival, success, and/or failure. Many independent businesses fail within the first three years. For the ones that survive and prosper, they may remain as independents, private and or family businesses, while some transform into corporations and even become publicly traded entities. We use FAT Brands as a case study to examine the evolution of a company from a single restaurant concept and expanding by diversifying into a multi-concept and publicly traded corporation. Internal and external factors such as the impact …

The Portfolio Advantages Of Sukuk: Dynamic Correlations Between Bonds And Sukuk, Abdullah Alfalah, Simon Stevenson, Eamonn D'Arcy

Finance Faculty Publications

The growth of the Islamic finance sector has been well-documented. One of the most booming sectors has been Sukuk. According to several past studies, non-Islamic investors' interest in Sukuk is due, at least in part, to the diversification benefits that Sukuk provides in the context of a fixed-income portfolio. This paper compares a pair between Sukuk and Bonds in the Malaysian market issued by the same issuer to have an unbiased comparison. Using unconditional correlation methodology provides an initial examination of the relationship between the matched pairs. In addition, this paper adopts the standard GARCH-DCC approach of Engle (2002). This …

Two Essays On The Information Embedded In Flow Of Exchange-Traded Funds (Etfs), Hamed Yousefi

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a pooled investment vehicle with shares similar to common equities, and it can be bought or sold on the stock exchanges. As more money flow into an ETF, its assets increase as do the number of shares outstanding. The demand for ETFs, especially after the 2008 crisis, has grown remarkably in the United States. Features such as intraday tradability, tax efficiency, low fees, and transparency have contributed to the ETFs’ appeal to investors. According to Bloomberg terminal data, as of January 2021, there were 2584 U.S.-registered ETFs, with over $5.5 trillion assets under management. Recent …

Insider Ownership And The Performance Effects Of Firm Diversification In Nigeria, Ibeawuchi Ibekwe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite the preponderance of diversified firms, the diversification–performance (D–P) relationship and how insider ownership moderates it in Nigeria remains unclear and a concern for decision makers interested in the survival of firms and their contributions to society. This quantitative study was conducted to examine the D–P relationship and how it is associated with insider ownership in Nigeria. Agency theory and institution-based theory formed the theoretical foundation of this study. Four research questions that focused on how diversification is related to firm performance and how insider ownership moderates this relationship were answered using the panel design variant of correlational research. Data …

Diversifying Investment Portfolios With Collectible Sneakers: Expected Returns And Benefits Of Diversification, Samuel Soo

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to identify if collectible sneakers can provide diversification benefits to an investor’s portfolio. Using data from a global collectible sneaker marketplace, StockX, I constructed an index to compare it with other traditional assets, including the S&P 500 index and 5-year US Treasury Bills. By calculating key metrics including expected returns, volatility, and correlation, I analyzed the risk-return characteristics of the collectible sneaker asset class compared to other traditional asset classes. From the data analysis I performed, I found that collectible sneakers did not outperform returns significantly compared to traditional asset classes, but had low correlations, which provides …

International Portfolio Prospects And Concerns, Dimitrios V. Siskos

Publications

The recent financial crisis amplifies the need for an updated and more universal investment strategy for both individuals and corporate investors. Diversification satisfies that condition, as it provides access to different economies operating in different countries while, simultaneously, it spreads the risk across different asset allocation[1]. However, to benefit the advantages of a diversified portfolio, a sophisticated decision making process and appeal to re-planning are required. Otherwise, international investors have to face the consequences of political-country risk and currency risk. The goal of this research is to correlate the benefits of diversification with risk undertaking for either individual …

The Effects Of Inter-Industry Mergers And Acquisitions On The Long-Term Volatility Of Equity Returns, Collin Myers

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this research was to discover whether a significant relationship exists between the theoretically diversifying effects of inter-industry mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) and changes in the volatilities of acquisitive firms’ publicly-traded equity security returns (measured as the standard deviation of percentage changes in price) from pre-transaction announcement to post-transaction completion. My hypothesis is that a negative relationship should exist between changes in a firm’s equity return volatility over time and whether the firm completes a diversifying acquisition, which I define as one in which the target firm primarily operates in a different industry than the acquirer. 980 diversifying …

Management Accounting Systems For Small Business's Competitive Advantage, Renato (Denver) Alcazar

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractSmall businesses providing ancillary services to the motion picture industry fail at alarming rates due to leadership's lack of strategies for service diversification and business expansion. Grounded in the contingency theory of management accounting, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore management accounting systems (MAS) strategies leaders of ancillary service providers use for business diversification. The data collection included face-to-face semistructured interviews with 10 small business owners who successfully used MAS strategies for business diversification in California. The data analysis entailed using keyword frequency comparisons and coding techniques that facilitated the verification and triangulation of key …

Effective Revenue Diversification Strategies In Nonprofit Organizations, Jennifer R. Niswonger

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit organization leaders increasingly encounter social burdens and financial difficulties, jeopardizing ongoing success and organizational sustainability. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore revenue diversification strategies used by 3 leaders of a small nonprofit organization in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States through the conceptual lens of modern portfolio theory. Data were collected via in-depth semistructured interviews, and member checking was used to facilitate accuracy, consistency, and integrity. Methodological triangulation included a document review and analysis of financial statements, tax returns, strategy objectives, the organizational website, social media, and nonprofit data reports. Data from documents and interviews …

Portfolio Optimization With International Diversification, Sardar Adam Saeed Khan

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Uganda Invest In Foreign Markets: Uganda As A Case Study, Morgan T. Lynch

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Two Essays In Economics And Finance, Phuvadon Wuthisatian

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays. The first essay investigates the measure of FX liquidity and determinants of the change in FX liquidity. Using 20 cross currency exchange rates over spanning period of 1999 to 2016, funding constraints and global risks are responsible for the main drivers of changing in FX liquidity. The magnitudes of both G7 and emerging volatility index are offsetting each other in all the regression models indicating that FX investors take diversification trading strategies to diversify their portfolios. The financial crisis provides an evidence that the more financial constraint issues contribute to the change in FX market …

The Market At Work, Patrick Flynn

Honors Projects

I believe my project will be the best project for me using both of my majors. It is a great way for me to take some of the knowledge I learned here at BGSU and apply it to a real life scenario I could pursue in future years. Investing at a young age is very important to help raise a lot of money for my retirement, something that I am learning right now in class. People coming out of college usually aren’t very concerned with investing at such a young age. I want to take advantage of this opportunity that …

The Risk-Return Characteristics And Diversification Benefits Of Fine Wine Investment, Tania Salomon

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis evaluates the risk-return characteristics and diversification benefits of fine wine investment. It compares the historical performance of wine to that of equity, fixed income, real estate, and commodities. I calculate the correlation, volatility, and expected returns of these assets to examine whether adding wine to a portfolio increases its risk-adjusted return. I do this through the Markowitz portfolio optimization technique. The findings suggest that wine has a low correlation with traditional assets, providing diversification benefits. My results also show that adding wine to a portfolio increases its risk-adjusted return only when there is an allocation constraint of 0 …

Product Diversification To Improve Investment Returns For High-Net-Worth-Individuals In Ghana, Suzy Aku Akpene Puplampu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The population of high-net-worth-individuals (HNWIs) in Ghana is projected to increase from 2,400 in 2015 to 4,900 by 2024. HNWIs in Ghana desire to have access to alternative investment instruments to enhance diversification and improve investment returns on their portfolios. Guided by the product-market-grid-model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore diversification strategies some fund managers use to improve returns for HNWIs. Twelve participants from 3 investment firms in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, including CEOs and fund managers with more than 5 years of professional and industry experience, participated in semistructured interviews. Observations and …

Diversification And Market Neutral Portfolios In S&P500, Alan S. Agnew

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our goal is to investigate strategies to deal with the risks associated with holding asset in the stock market. We first deal with risk of holding a specific stock, by the use of diversification. Later, we’ll attempt to deal with the market risk, which is the risk of entire market going up and down. Data used in this project comes from daily adjusted closing price of stocks listed in the S&P500 index ranging from January 3^rd, 2000 to December 31^st, 2015 and the data is processed using statistical software R.

Sections 2 through 4 of this …

Two Essays In Finance: “Selection Biases And Long-Run Abnormal Returns” And “The Impact Of Financialization On The Benefits Of Incorporating Commodity Futures In Actively Managed Portfolios”, Ramesh Adhikari

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays. First essay investigates the implications of researcher data requirement on the risk-adjusted returns of firms. Using the monthly CRSP data from 1925 to 2013, we present evidence that firms which survive longer have higher average returns and lower standard deviation of annualized returns than the firms which do not. I further demonstrate that there is a positive relation between firms’ survival and average performance. In order to account for the positive correlation between survival and average performance, I model the relation of survival and pricing errors using a Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern joint distribution function and fit …

Time Diversification: Tool, Fallacy Or Both?, Ladd Kochman, Randy Goodwin

Ladd Kochman

It seems fair to conclude that time diversification is more nearly a fallacy than a tool. Total periodic returns based on random annual outcomes expose the practice of diversifying with time not only as unproductive but as extremely risky as well. Yet, as the contrived distribution of alternating returns of 30% and -10% demonstrated, it is impossible to completely reject the idea that risk can actually decrease over time.

Managerial Expertise, Corporate Decisions, And Firm Value: Evidence From Corporate Refocusing, Sheng Huang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates how managerial expertise—specifically, industry expertise—affects firm value through divestiture. Using CEOs’ managerial experiences in industries throughout their careers as a measure of their industry expertise, I find that CEOs in diversified conglomerates are more likely to divest divisions in industries in which they have less experience. This finding is consistent with CEOs who divest such divisions in order to refocus on those divisions in which they have specialized—that is, to achieve a better match between their expertise and their firms’ retained assets. Firms that divest for a better CEO-firm match experience significant improvements in operating performance, as …

Essays On Corporate Finance, Hari Prasad Adhikari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We compare acquisition activity, method of payment choice, and the long-run value implications of acquisitions by newly public single-class and dual-class US companies. Our results show that dual-class IPO firms make relatively more acquisitions in innovative industries and are less likely to pay with stock as compared to single-class IPO firms. We provide evidence that the reluctance of dual-class firms to pay with stock is not related to the insiders' cash-flow rights but it is significantly positively related to the insiders' voting rights and wedge between the insiders' voting rights and cash-flow rights. We also find that acquiring dual-class IPOs …

Is Geographic Diversification Associated With Increased Risk? Evidence From The Spanish Banking Crisis, Briana Anderson

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This paper examines the association between geographic diversification and Spanish savings bank (caja) failure. The paper focuses on the geographic expansion of cajas between 2002 and 2012 and failure of several cajas between 2008 and 2011 during the Spanish banking crisis. Employing financial statement and branch location data collected from the CECA, logit models were used to test the association between failure and geographic and cultural diversification. This paper finds that, depending on the model estimated, geographic and cultural diversification of cajas either reduced or had no effect on the odds ratio of failure, suggesting that the benefits …

Us Real Estate Investment Performance: 1983-2012, John F. Kerrigan

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study provides an overview of real estate investment performance over a 1983-2012 time period. The results show that although equity REITs outperformed all other assets on average annual return, on a risk-adjusted basis both private retail and apartment real estate outperformed all other assets. The study also found a recent trend in increased correlation between common stocks and REITs.

How Large Are The Benefits Of Emerging Market Equities?, C. Mitchell Conover, Gerald R. Jensen, Robert R. Johnson

Finance Faculty Publications

We perform a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of emerging market equities by extending previous research in four fundamental ways. The contribution of this study is that it 1) evaluates a more complete sample; 2) examines performance measures that account for asymmetric return distributions; 3) separates emerging markets by region; and 4) considers the influence that the market environment has on the benefits of emerging market investments. Our results suggest that previous research has understated the benefits associated with investing in emerging markets. We find that broad emerging market indices have relatively low downside risk, which results in Sortino ratios …

Comparing Portfolio Diversification Strategies In Different Market Environments, Kyle Tobias Koerten

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Diversification In Hedge Fund Portfolios, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

We explore the diversification benefits of increasing the number of hedge funds in an investment portfolio. Conventional wisdom suggests that investors should construct a portfolio of 20 to 30 hedge funds in order to achieve a reasonably low portfolio variance. We show using Monte Carlo simulations that the marginal benefit of including an additional hedge fund in a fund portfolio diminishes significantly once the number of hedge funds increases beyond ten. Specifically, the annualized standard deviation of a fund portfolio diminishes from 16.55 percent to 7.40 percent as we increase the number of funds from one to ten. However, the …

Three Essays On Investments: An Examination Of The Effects Of Diversification And Taxes, Matthew Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 examines the effect of property-type diversification in equity real estate investment trusts (REITs) from 1995 to 2006. A strong positive relationship is documented between property-type diversification and return on assets, return on equity, and Tobin’s Q. The diversification benefit comes from both the ability to select better performing property types in “hot” markets and the limited exposure to poorly performing property types in “cold” markets. Diversified REITs produce higher cash flows relative to equity as a result of a broader opportunity set; moreover, return on assets increases with the degree of diversification, which suggests significant shielding to property-type …

Firm Value And Investment Policy Around Stock For Stock Mergers, Adel Bino, Elisabeta Pana

Elisabeta Pana

We study a sample of publicly traded firms that expand by acquiring other firms in pure, stock-for-stock mergers. After these mergers, we find that the diversification premium decreases for the acquiring firm due to having added a target firm trading at a discount. Furthermore, the acquiring firm experiences a decrease in investment opportunities and a decrease in leverage. This is an effect confined only to non-diversifying mergers. Our results indicate that the acquirer’s investment efficiency at the firm level remains unchanged after the merger.

Bank Risk And Return: The Impact Of Bank Non-Interest Income, Barry Williams, Laurie Prather

Laurie Prather

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact on bank risk of portfolio diversification between traditional margin income and fee-based income for banks operating in Australia.Design/methodology/approach – Considering several performance variables, this analysis compares the benefits of diversification across different bank types relative to margin income and fee income. Further, regression analysis considers bank risk and revenue concentration.Findings – This paper documents that fee-based income is riskier than margin income but offers diversification benefits to bank shareholders. While improving bank risk-return trade-off, these benefits are of second order importance compared to the large negative impact of …