Business Commons^™

Confidence Weighted Mean Reversion Strategy For On-Line Portfolio Selection, Bin Li, Steven C. H. Hoi, Peilin Zhao, Vivek Gopalkrishnan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

On-line portfolio selection has been attracting increasing attention from the data mining and machine learning communities. All existing on-line portfolio selection strategies focus on the first order information of a portfolio vector, though the second order information may also be beneficial to a strategy. Moreover, empirical evidences show that the stock price relatives may follow the mean reversion property, which has not been fully exploited by existing strategies. This article proposes a novel on-line portfolio selection strategy named ``Confidence Weighted Mean Reversion'' (CWMR). Inspired by the mean reversion principle in finance and confidence weighted online learning technique in machine learning, …

Refund Anticipation Loan, Ann House

All Current Publications

This fact sheet defines a refund anticipation loan and gives the benefits to considering other options.

The Corporate Choice Between Public Debt, Bank Loans, Traditional Private Debt Placements, And 144a Debt Issues, Matteo P. Arena

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

The main purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of the corporate choice between different forms of debt financing. By analyzing the most comprehensive sample of U.S. corporate debt issues to date, I find that firms that issue 144A debt have significantly lower credit quality and higher information asymmetry than firms that issue traditional non-bank private debt. Further, the study shows that traditional private placements, rather than bank loans, are the favorite private debt source for firms with good credit quality. I also show that the firm characteristics of traditional private debt issuers have significantly changed after 1990 …

Ua3/9 201 Advanced Practice Doctorates & Budget Reductions, Wku President's Office, Gary Ransdell

WKU Administration Documents

Memo entitled 1) 2011 General Assembly / Action on Advanced Practice Doctorates / Doctor of Physical Therapy at WKU; and 2) Budget Reductions for 2011-2012 issued by President Gary Ransdell to faculty and staff. Gives detailed budget reductions by department.

Virtualness Of The Cost Estimating Community, Whiticar S. Darvill

Theses and Dissertations

Many researchers have sought to identify the sources for cost and schedule growth, most researchers failed to analyze the resource utilization of the cost community. This research explores how the cost community allocates its time. Furthermore, by examining how resources are spent, this research will juxtapose the desires of recent Congressional and Department of Defense policies against the current demands of the cost community. A thorough understanding of resource allocation requires research into the inherent virtualness of the community. Early virtualness predicated the notion of extremes, either virtual or not. However, recent literature expands virtualness into gradients and explains that …

Alternative Active Duty Military Retirement Plan, Amy L. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Using Earned Value Data To Detect Potential Problems In Acquisition Contracts, C. Grant Keaton

Theses and Dissertations

Government contractors report earned value (EV) information to government agencies in monthly Contract Performance Reports (CPR). Though major differences may exist in the data between subsequent CPRs, we know of no government effort to detect these occurrences. The identification of major changes may locate and isolate problems and thus prevent million and billion dollar cost and schedule overruns. In this study, we develop an approach to identify changes in the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) that may indicate problems with contract performance. We find the detection algorithm indentifies changes in the CPI and the SPI …

Impact Of The Economic Downturn On Local Governments In South Carolina, William Tomes

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Across the country local government revenues have decreased while operating costs such as fuel, materials, equipment, and health insurance costs have significantly increased. In addition to reduced revenues, interest earnings for city and county government investments are low. These factors combined have created a difficult financial arena in which local governments must operate. While economists are reporting signs of economic recovery, many city and county budgets are just now feeling the full brunt of the economic downturn that began in 2008. On a daily basis, news media nationwide report local governments addressing budget deficits by cutting services, eliminating positions, or …

Profitabliltiy Analysis Of A Hard Apple Cider Company, Erik R. Johnson

Agribusiness

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether a hard cider company could be profitable in San Luis Obispo, CA in a 3 year period. A business plan was created to analyze the potential profitability of the company and included an analysis of the market, competition, consumers, the industry, and finances.

Background information was provided on the history of the hard apple cider industry, the use and importance of a business plan and the permit and license requirements to run an alcohol business.

The CEO and founder of the future company, Erik Johnson, determined the company would be named …

Hedge Funds, Managerial Skill, And Macroeconomic Variables, Doron Avramov, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

Duplicate, see https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/1867/. This paper evaluates hedge fund performance through portfolio strategies that incorporate predictability based on macroeconomic variables. Incorporating predictability substantially improves out-of-sample performance for the entire universe of hedge funds as well as for various investment styles. While we also allow for predictability in fund risk loadings and benchmark returns, the major source of investment profitability is predictability in managerial skills. In particular, long-only strategies that incorporate predictability in managerial skills outperform their Fung and Hsieh (2004) benchmarks by over 17 percent per year. The economic value of predictability obtains for different rebalancing horizons and alternative benchmark …

Evaluation Of A Walnut Orchard And A Cost Study Of The Redevlopment Of A Walnut Orchard, Jacob F. Samuel

Agribusiness

A comprehensive study of the redevelopment of a walnut orchard taking into consideration all the factors from planting to harvest. Also a comparison of two orchards where orchard A is well producing and orchard B is poor producing. The study examines the value of the two orchards, where their profitabliltiy is, and whether or not the poor producing orchard should be redeveloped.

(Wp 2011-01) It Takes Two: The Incidence And Effectiveness Of Co-Ceos, Matteo P. Arena, Stephen P. Ferris, Emre Unlu

Department of Finance Working Papers

This study examines the phenomenon of co-CEOs within publicly traded firms. Although shared executive leadership is not widespread, it occurs within some very prominent firms. We find that co-CEOs generally complement each other in terms of educational background or executive responsibilities. Our results show that firms most likely to appoint co-CEOs have lower leverage, a more limited firm focus, less independent board structure, fewer advising directors, lower institutional ownership and greater levels of merger activity. The governance structure of co-CEO firms suggest that co-CEOships can serve as an alternative governance mechanism, with co-CEO mutual monitoring substituting for board or external …

Trend Of The Future, Not Flavour Of The Month: The Changing Private Equity Industry In Emerging Markets, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

With memories of the recent global financial crisis still fresh in many people's minds, investors are shying away from anything that may sound too risky or complex. TPG Capital, on the other hand, is taking this opportunity to place their bets on the emerging markets. To secure its investments, Ashish Shastry, managing director and Southeast Asia head of this prominent private equity firm, recommended to the audiences at SMU's BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre, a road less travelled – engagement and consulting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Common Economic Space For The West African Monetary Zone (Wamz): Imperatives For Financial Systems Development, A. O. Adenuga, K. K. Ogunjuiba, M. E. Obiechina

Bullion

The international financial turmoil of the 21 century has provoked much reflection and analysis within the international community on ways to strengthen the international financial architecture. It left behind important lessons, while exposing the limitations of individual country policy frameworks for preventing a systemic crisis. However, the issue of whether a common economic space is feasible within the West African Monetary Zone is still doubtful, given current efforts towards monetary union in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper adopts an empirical review approach, identifying benefits and key constraints to a common economic space in the WAMZ vis-à-vis macroeconomic development in the WAMZ, …

Consolidating Information In Option Transactions, Richard Holowczak, Jianfeng Hu, Liuren Wu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Underlying each stock trades hundreds of options at different strike prices and maturities. The order flows from these option transactions reveal important information about the underlying stock price. How to aggregate the trade information of different option contracts underlying the same stock presents an interesting and important question for developing microstructure theories and price discovery mechanisms in the derivatives markets. This paper takes options on QQQQ, the Nasdaq 100 tracking stock, as an example and examines different order flow consolidation mechanisms in terms of their effectiveness in extracting information about the underlying stock price and volatility movements. The analysis leads …

Executive Compensation: The Role Of Shari’A Compliance, William Martin, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illuminate issues surrounding executive compensation as it relates to current understandings of Islamic business law. Methodology We review the emerging bodies of literature in the fields of executive compensation and opinions of stock options under Shari’a law. Findings It appears that the trend in offering employee stock options as part of a Shari’a compliant compensation package is acceptable in most cases, yet because of its close association with the more problematic idea of derivative transactions, the company must be vigilant in obtaining the approval from its Shari’a Standards Board before offering …

Resume, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

Hedge Funds, Managerial Skill, And Macroeconomic Variables, Doron Avramov, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper evaluates hedge fund performance through portfolio strategies that incorporate predictability based on macroeconomic variables. Incorporating predictability substantially improves out-of-sample performance for the entire universe of hedge funds as well as for various investment styles. While we also allow for predictability in fund risk loadings and benchmark returns, the major source of investment profitability is predictability in managerial skills. In particular, long-only strategies that incorporate predictability in managerial skills outperform their Fung and Hsieh (2004) benchmarks by over 17% per year. The economic value of predictability obtains for different rebalancing horizons and alternative benchmark models. It is also robust …

The Unintended Effects Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Vidhi Chhaochharia, Clemens A. Otto, Vikrant Vig

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was passed in the wake of several scandals that rocked corporate America in 2001 and 2002. The objective behind SOX was to improve corporate governance by improving accounting disclosures. Compliance with Section 404 is considered by many to be the most costly requirement of SOX and has been argued to be a disproportionate burden for small firms. Consequently, firms with a public float below $75 million were granted several exemptions from compliance. We document an unintended effect of these exemptions: a weakening of corporate governance through a weakening of the market for corporate control.

A Divertissement On The Financial Crisis: We've Been Speculating, Stefano Harney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We’ve been speculating. They say our speculation is going to make things worse. But we keep speculating. We’re on the porch, on the corner, in the bar, at the stove, speculating. We’re with others speculating. We’re in debt, bad debt, with others. We’re speculating on others and they’re speculating on us at the table, round the playground, on the bus. We’ve been speculating, banking on each other. We’ve been counting on others, speculating about them. We’re with them and they’re with us, speculating. Our speculation is scattered. Our speculation is scattered among others. Our speculation is valued among others, others …

Pairwise Correlations, Tarun Chordia, Amit Goyal, Qing Tong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Pairwise stock correlations increase by 27% on average when stock returns are negative. It is trading activity in small stocks that leads to higher correlations when returns are negative. We provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that co-ordinated selling by retail investors drives this asymmetry in correlations. The co-ordinated selling activity by retail investors is triggered by negative market returns.

Cash Flow Management For Sda Organizations, Annetta M. Gibson

Faculty Publications

A presentation on managing cash flow in SDA organizations. Given to the East Central Africa Division on March, 2011.

Red Lion Hotel Corporation, Yin-Chia Shao

MBA Student Scholarship

This paper is a strategy executing research project of Red Lion Hotels Corporation. The research content includes the nature of the business, environmental analysis, strategy position within the industry, competitive advantage, strategic history, evaluate strategy and a conclusion. The company grew from a focused differentiation strategy to a broad differentiation diversification. Examining the business environment analysis, the external environment has a moderately strong impact on the company and the internal environment has a moderately weak position. The inferior position is a disadvantage to the Red Lion Hotel Corporation's growth. In addition, compared the company with Choice International Hotels, Inc and …

Out-Of-Sample Industry Return Predictability: Evidence From A Large Number Of Predictors, David E. Rapach, Jack K. Strauss, Jun Tu, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We uncover extensive evidence of out-of-sample return predictability for industry portfolios based on a principal component approach that incorporates information from a large number of predictors. Moreover, we find substantial differences in the degree of return predictability across industries. To understand these differences, we propose a decomposition of out-of-sample industry return predictability into beta and alpha shares, where the former corresponds to a conditional beta pricing model. A conditional version of the popular Fama-French three-factor model accounts for nearly all out-of-sample industry return predictability, with exposures to time-varying market and size risk premiums especially important for explaining differences in return …

Explosive Behavior In The 1990s Nasdaq: When Did Exuberance Escalate Asset Values?, Peter C. B. Phillips, Yangru Wu, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A recursive test procedure is suggested that provides a mechanism for testing explosive behavior, date stamping the origination and collapse of economic exuberance, and providing valid confidence intervals for explosive growth rates. The method involves the recursive implementation of a right-side unit root test and a sup test, both of which are easy to use in practical applications, and some new limit theory for mildly explosive processes. The test procedure is shown to have discriminatory power in detecting periodically collapsing bubbles, thereby overcoming a weakness in earlier applications of unit root tests for economic bubbles. An empirical application to the …

Spring Clean Your Financial House, Ann House

All Current Publications

This publication suggests 5 simple steps to reviewing and improving your financial status.

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 …

2011 Private Capital Markets Report, John K. Paglia

Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report

The Pepperdine private cost of capital survey was originally launched in 2007 and is the first comprehensive and simultaneous investigation of the major private capital market segments. This year’s survey specifically examined the behavior of senior lenders, asset‐based lenders, mezzanine funds, private equity groups, venture capital firms, angel investors, privately‐held businesses, investment bankers, business brokers, limited partners, and business appraisers. The Pepperdine survey investigated, for each private capital market segment, the important benchmarks that must be met in order to qualify for capital, how much capital is typically accessible, what the required returns are for extending capital in today’s economic …

A Peer-Based Financial Planning And Education Service Program: An Innovative Pedagogic Approach, Joseph W. Goetz, Dorothy B. Durband, Ryan Halley, Kimberlee Davis

Faculty Publications - College of Business

This paper presents a peer-based financial planning and education program as a strategy to address the lack of financial literacy among college students and provide an experiential/earning opportunity for students majoring in financial planning or other financial services-related disciplines. Benefits of such programs to campus communities are addressed by illustrating the current trends regarding student debt and financial literacy. The paper provides a specific description of a successful peer-to-peer financial planning and education program and encourages its replication at other colleges and universities. Through the review of this program, other schools may emulate effective strategies to assist in the implementation …

A Survey Of Clergy Practices Associated With Premarital Financial Counseling, Ryan E. Halley, Dorothy B. Durband, William C. Bailey, A. William Gustafson

Faculty Publications - College of Business

The purpose of this exploratory study was to gain an understanding of the state of clergy-led premarital financial counseling. Clergy respondents (n =223) indicated that they often include a financial component in their formal premarital counseling. The most frequently discussed financial topics are budgeting, managing debt and credit, and saving. The most frequently cited obstacles to providing premarital financial counseling are lack of time and lack of subject matter expertise.