Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Determinants Of Dow Jones Returns, Cory Sloan

Honors Projects

As of 2010, there was $14 trillion invested in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and $55 trillion invested in stock markets worldwide. In this study, we use the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) to identify the main determinants of the returns of the stocks that compose the Dow Jones for the period 1990-2011. We test several hypotheses on the relationship between firm specific variables such as Dividend Yield, Earnings Yield, Book-Market ratio, previous returns and the stock returns. We also document the relationship between several macroeconomic factors including T-bill rate, Default Spread, Term Spread, Unemployment, Real GDP and Inflation and …

Finding Profitability Of Technical Trading Rules In Emerging Market Exchange Traded Funds, Austin P. Hallett

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis further investigates the effectiveness of 15 variable moving average strategies that mimic the trading rules used in the study by Brock, Lakonishok, and LeBaron (1992). Instead of applying these strategies to developed markets, unique characteristics of emerging markets offer opportunity to investors that warrant further research. Before transaction costs, all 15 variable moving average strategies outperform the naïve benchmark strategy of buying and holding different emerging market ETF's over the volatile period of 858 trading days. However, the variable moving averages perform poorly in the "bubble" market cycle. In fact, sell signals become more unprofitable than buy signals …

Wisdom From Warren Buffett, Todd A. Finkle

Todd A Finkle

The Implications Of Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment On Capital Markets: A Bottom-Up View, David Fernandez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The buzz around sovereign wealth funds has been turned down a notch, but they remain a hot topic. The accusations of sovereign wealth funds having hidden agendas remain, but with the very public losses suffered by some during the recent financial turmoil, such talk has even less credibility. And given that most of those losses were from investments in US, UK, and European financial institutions, hope that sovereign wealth funds would be the saviors of Wall Street has also faded. At its base, four trends continue to keep sovereign wealth funds in focus. First, there is the phenomenal rise of …

Further Examination Of Equity Returns And Seasonal Depression, Steven D. Dolvin, Mark K. Pyles, Qun Wu

Steven D. Dolvin

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) induces investors to shift resources away from risky investments (such as equity) and towards safer alternatives (such as fixed income) during the Fall, while stimulating the opposite action in the Winter. Existing studies, however, fail to account for the possibility that SAD could further motivate investors to shift exposure among different subsets of equity, rather than simply across broad asset categories. We explore this possibility by examining the impact of SAD on the returns of “safe” and “risky” equity sectors (i.e., industries), as well as on equity at different levels of market capitalization. We find the …

The Road To Retirement: Bumpy Or Smooth, Depends On Your Route, Anand Iyer, Madhusudan Subramanian, Vikash Punglia

WCBT Faculty Publications

Defined Contribution (DC) plans are rapidly becoming the primary retirement investment vehicle for a majority of employees across the US and other markets around the globe. Asset allocation for DC plans has to strike a balance between growth and protection assets over the savings lifecycle while protecting the long-term purchasing power of the nest egg. Due to the long duration of retirement investing and various risks associated with it, implementing the right asset allocation has become critical and challenging for DC plans. The unique Risk Focused methodology presented in this paper aims to address the shortcomings of conventional Target Date …

Is Regime Switching In Stock Returns Important In Portfolio Decisions?, Jun Tu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The stock market displays regime switching between upturns and downturns. This paper provides a Bayesian framework for making portfolio decisions that takes this regime switching into account, together with asset pricing model uncertainty and parameter uncertainty. The findings reveal that the economic value of accounting for regimes is substantially independent of whether or not model and parameter uncertainties are incorporated: the certainty-equivalent losses associated with ignoring regime switching are generally above 2% per year and can be as high as 10%. These results suggest that the more realistic regime switching model is fundamentally different from the commonly used single-state model, …

Further Examination Of Equity Returns And Seasonal Depression, Steven D. Dolvin, Mark K. Pyles, Qun Wu

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) induces investors to shift resources away from risky investments (such as equity) and towards safer alternatives (such as fixed income) during the Fall, while stimulating the opposite action in the Winter. Existing studies, however, fail to account for the possibility that SAD could further motivate investors to shift exposure among different subsets of equity, rather than simply across broad asset categories. We explore this possibility by examining the impact of SAD on the returns of “safe” and “risky” equity sectors (i.e., industries), as well as on equity at different levels of market capitalization. We find the …

Should Individual Investors Use Technical Trading Rules To Attempt To Beat The Market?, Thomas S. Coe, Kittipong Laosethakul

WCBT Faculty Publications

Problem statement: Despite widespread academic acceptance of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, some stock traders still use technical trading rules in an attempt to beat the market. Approach: This study looked at four trading rules, namely, the arithmetic moving average, the relative strength index, a stochastic oscillator and its moving average. These trading rules compare the relationship of current prices to past price patterns to generate a signal when to buy and sell stocks. The trading rules were tested over the years 2000-2009, a period of time that exhibited bull and bear markets, to determine if traders could actively …

Is Regime Switching In Stock Returns Important In Asset Allocations?, Jun Tu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The stock market displays regime switching between upturns and downturns. This paper provides a Bayesian framework for making portfolio decisions that takes this regime switching into account, together with asset pricing model uncertainty and parameter uncertainty. The findings reveal that the economic value of accounting for regimes is substantially independent of whether or not model and parameter uncertainties are incorporated: the certainty-equivalent losses associated with ignoring regime switching are generally above 2% per year, and can be as high as 10%. These results suggest that the more realistic regime switching model is fundamentally different from the commonly used single-state model, …

Lessons Learned From The “Oracle Of Omaha” Warren Buffett, Todd A. Finkle

Todd A Finkle

Supply Based Explanation Of The Equity Premium Puzzle, Richard H. Serlin

Richard H. Serlin

All of the explanations for the equity premium puzzle I have seen in the literature are based on the demand side; trying to find utility functions for a representative investor and ex-ante probability distributions for returns that would explain investors demanding such high average returns for stocks relative to bonds. I suggest a supply side explanation: The long run supply curve for corporate stock may simply be extremely long and flat, and consistently about 5 ½ percentage points in return higher than the premium bonds supply curve, even at stock quantities as high as the entire national savings rate. Why? …

Intertemporal Relations Between Stock Indices-Correlation Analysis For The Stock Markets Of The United States, England, And Singapore, Michael Nabil Razzouk

Theses Digitization Project

This research study examines the relationships between various equity markets throughout the world. In this study, returns from the Chicago Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange and the Singapore Stock Exchange are compared and analyzed to see if correlations between the markets exist.

Household Financial Ratios: A Review Of Literature, Nathan Harness, Michael Finke, Swarn Chatterjee

Swarn Chatterjee

The literature on household financial ratios provides insight into the characteristics related to meeting common investment asset, debt, and liquidity guidelines. We know much about the contemporaneous relation between ratios and household characteristics, but the literature exploring the impact of meeting ratio thresholds on subsequent financial success is in its infancy. Ratios can be useful heuristics that efficiently provide information about financial status as well as a prescriptive guideline to motivate more efficient financial behavior. While the existing literature provides some insight into which households have adequate ratios, there are opportunities for additional empirical scrutiny and application of household resource …

Trust And Investments Across Cultures, Thomas Berry, Omur Suer

Publications – Dreihaus College of Business

This study uses survey data to examine notions of trust relative to investments and perceived risk. Rather than using nation cross-sectional household survey data we target a specific group across four distinct cultures. We survey graduate business students in four countries (Turkey, Bahrain, Czech Republic, and the USA). We attempt to gauge investor perceptions about trust and the potential impact of trust on equity investing. The groups are fairly homogeneous in terms of education and relative social and economic status leaving cultural differences as the main source of observed response differences.

Trust And Investments Across Cultures, Thomas D. Berry, Omur Suer

Thomas D Berry

Behaviors Of The Stock Indexes-Correlation Analyses For The Stock Markets Of Japan, The United States, And China, Kazuma Koseki

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project was to reveal relationships among the stock market performances of the most eye-catching countries the United States, China, and Japan.

Long And Short-Term Effects Of Regime Change On Emerging And Established Markets, Joseph Edward Mayne

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine a 149-day period surrounding the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on December 13th, 2003. Daily stock returns were obtained from ten major stock market indexes, five from emerging Middle Eastern countries and five from established markets such as the United States and Japan. The ultimate significance of this study is that it can provide insight into whether or not the change of regime in Iraq had a stabilizing or destabilizing impact on the emerging markets of Iraq. This can shed light on future political escalation of violent conflict and give …

Employee Incentives To Make Firm Specific Investment: Implications For Resource-Based Theories Of Corporate Diversification, Heli Wang, Jay B. Barney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We argue that the risk associated with the value of a firm's core resources has an impact on employee decisions to make firm-specific investments, independent of the threat of opportunism that might exist in a particular exchange. We further explore mechanisms firms may adopt to mitigate the employee incentive problem stemming from the risk associated with core resource value. These arguments shed new light on resource-based theories of corporate diversification.

Analysis Of Trade Dependence And Correlation Of Market Returns To Hedge Portfolio Risk, Carl Eric Zeise

Theses Digitization Project

The project examines the relationship between trade interdependency and correlation of market returns between the United States and the four emerging economies of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. The author analyzed statistical data for trade interdependency and market return to determine if there is a pattern that would provide the basis for increasing the return of a security portfolio without increasing the risk to the investor. The project analysis relied on mathematical formulas to measure the trade relationships between the selected countries and to calculate the measure of return and measure of risk of investing in each emergent market.

An Investigation Of The Equity Premium Using Habit Utility And Equity Returns: Australian Evidence, Lurion De Mello

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The gap between the return on stocks and the return on the risk free assets represented by bonds is named the 'Equity Premium' or 'Equity Risk Premium'. In the history of asset pricing models, one of the most serious problems for the equity premium is that the average equity premium is too large to be explained by standard general equilibrium asset pricing models. Researcher's have tried to use variables such as dividend yield's to explain the gap between stocks and bonds with mixed results. After retrieving around a one percent equity premium with the most standard consumption base asset pricing …

Impact: What Influences Finance Research?, Tom Arnold, Alexander W. Butler, Timothy Falcon Crack, Ayca Altintig

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Which journal articles have had the most impact on finance research? Which journals dominated finance research in the 1990s? We answer these and similar questions using a comprehensive sample of journals, an extensive time period, and a new ranking method that avoids problems inherent in the existing literature. Among our findings: six of the 10 articles most highly cited by finance journals were published in econometrics or economics journals; Journal of Finance has the most citations, but it accounts for only one of the top 10 articles; and Journal of Financial Economics has the highest impact per article.

Are Sri Funds Different From Non-Sri Funds, From A Financial Asset Perspective?: Evidence From Some Australian Sri Funds, Ingebjørg Kristoffersen

Theses : Honours

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) has seen a remarkable growth in recent years – primarily in the US and UK, but also in other markets including Australia. This growth, along with the development of corporate social responsibility, is suggested to be a result of increased awareness in social, environment and human rights issues. The literature offers several suggestions as to how SRIs and SRI funds may differ from other investments, as financial assets. It has been suggested that SRIs are more likely to represent smaller stocks, and also more likely represent growth rather than value stocks compared to non-SRIs. Furthermore, different …

Finding The True Performance Of Australian Managed Funds, Victor Soucik

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

When making conclusions about the performance of managed funds, it is critical that the framework in which such performance is measured provides an accurate and unbiased environment. In this thesis I search for true performance of the two major classes of funds- equity as well as fixed interest managed funds. Focusing, first on the former class, I examine five measurement models across three risk-free proxies, nine benchmarks proposed by the extant literature (covering conditional and unconditional as well as single and multi factor definitions) and over three independent periods in an effort to identity (in a consistent setting) the most …

International Portfolio Diversification With Special Reference To Emerging Markets, Joseline Chimhini

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study evaluates the potential benefits that investors obtain from diversifying their portfolios into emerging markets when the time varying behavior of assets is considered. It also tests whether the existing asset-pricing model developed in the context of developed markets, which assumes complete integration, can explain the expected returns in emerging markets and determines the risk of investing in these markets using cross section and time series data. An international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) with time varying moments developed by Harvey (1991) is adopted. The conditional asset-pricing model, which takes into account prevailing world economic factors, was used. The …

Measuring The Degree Of International Harmony In Selected Accounting Measurement Practices, Emmanuel N. Emenyonu, Ajay Adhikari

WCBT Faculty Publications

The I-index developed by Van der Tas and chi square tests suggested by Tay and Parker are used to quantify and assess the degree of harmony in selected accounting measurement practices of large companies from France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US. The results indicate significant differences in accounting for inventory, fixed assets, and investments among the countries. The 3 sub-topics that exhibited a high degree of harmony were the treatment of gains or losses on the disposal of fixed assets, short-term investments and long-term investments, a reflection of the preference of regulators and companies in the different countries …