Business Commons^™

Fixed Income Fund Report, April 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Equity Fund Monthly Report, April 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

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 …

Equity Fund Monthly Report, March 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Fixed Income Fund Report, March 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

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 …

Fixed Income Fund Report, February 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Equity Fund Monthly Report, February 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Hedge Fund Franchises, William Fung, David Hsieh, Narayan Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the growth strategies of hedge fund firms. We find that firms with successful first funds are able to launch follow-on funds that charge higher performance fees, set more onerous redemption terms, and attract greater inflows. Motivated by the aforementioned spillover effects, first funds outperform follow-on funds, after adjusting for risk. Consistent with the agency view, greater incentive alignment moderates the performance differential between first and follow-on funds. Moreover, multiple-product firms underperform single-product firms but harvest greater fee revenues, thereby hurting investors while benefitting firm partners. Investors respond to this growth strategy by redeeming from first funds of firms …

Portfolio Diversification Using Shape-Based Clustering, Tristan Lim, Chin Sin Ong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Portfolio diversification involves lowering the correlation between portfolio assets to achieve improved risk–return exposure. It is reasonable to infer from the classic Anscombe quartet that relying on descriptive statistics, and specifically, correlation, to achieve portfolio diversification may not derive the most optimal multiperiod portfolio risk-adjusted return because stocks in a portfolio can exhibit different price trends over time, even with the same computed pairwise correlation. This research applied a shape-based time-series clustering technique of agglomerative hierarchical clustering using dynamic time-series warping as a distance measure to aggregate stocks into like-trending clusters across time as a portfolio diversification tool. Results support …

Ai Stock-Screening Methodology For Portfolio Construction, Omar Ahmed Khater

Theses and Dissertations

Selecting profitable stocks is crucial in constructing an all-equity portfolio. Investors need to rely on screening mechanisms to aid investment decision making. New stock selection methods are highly desired, and existing methods are constantly improved. In this research, we investigate the potential of relying on artificial intelligence to guide the stock selection process. The developed model employed genetic algorithms to optimize the selection of screening rules from among a set of widely accepted fundamental indicators. The model robustness and performance are tested using stock market real data over a 14-year period from 2006 till 2019. Based on portfolio quality factors …

Capm And Risk Parity – An Empirical Analysis On China Financial Market, Lixue Zeng

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This article mainly discusses the effectiveness of building a risk parity model in China’s financial market. Starting from Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory, this article explores the mathe- matical foundation of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and its limitations. By exploring the role of Sharpe ratio in CAPM and risk parity, this article proves that risk parity strategy is actually an approximation of optimal Sharpe ratio portfolio. Through an empirical analysis of the Chinese financial market, this article in the last chapter builds a proposed asset allocation portfolio based on the classic risk parity model and backtests by historical data …

Twitter’S Relationship With Overreaction In Individual Security Returns, David Halle

CMC Senior Theses

Using stock market return data from 2007 to 2019 from The Center for Research in Security Prices, I inquire into the impact that Twitter has on the overreactions of individual stock returns by breaking down returns into pre and post-Twitter periods. I examine negative serial correlation, demonstrating return reversals, between a lag crossed Twitter dummy variable and initial returns. With stock reversals serving as an indicator of initial overreaction and assuming stationarity of overreactions over time, I find that the presence of Twitter results in significantly more overreactions for highly followed companies when using monthly returns. However, when assessing Twitter’s …

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 borrowers (homeowners …

Are Investment Banks Helpful Or Hurtful? An Analysis Of Intraday Volatility In The Direct Listing Process As Compared To Investment Bank-Involvement In Traditional Ipos, Alexis Paff

Scripps Senior Theses

In this paper, I carry out an empirical analysis of the pricing volatility of direct listings as compared to traditional IPOs. Direct listings solve an efficiency problem in the US going-public market, in which well-funded, late-stage firms lack incentives to pursue a public listing, which would create liquidity for preexisting shareholders and allow for a more diverse body of public shareholders. Direct listings have been allowed on the New York Stock Exchange since early 2018, and four firms, Spotify, Slack, Asana, and Palantir, have gone public through this new listing mechanism. While underwriters are heavily involved in the IPO process, …

The Archway Investment Fund, Annual Report 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Fixed Income Fund Report, January 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Equity Fund Monthly Report, January 2021, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

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

All Faculty Scholarship

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 …

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 …

Option Implied Volatility's Predictability On Monthly Stock Returns, Hung T. Dao

Senior Independent Study Theses

Since the trading of options is based on underlying stocks, it is reasonable to assume that information from the options market can be used to explain the returns in the stock market. Our independent study investigates the relationship between options implied volatility and stock returns. Previous studies have found significant results in using implied volatility in predicting stock returns. This paper provides a discussion of such studies, the theoretical framework for the research topic, and the Black-Scholes model, which is famous for its application in implied volatility calculation. Monthly returns of 20 large US firms are regressed against implied volatility …

Stock Trend Prediction Using Candlestick Charting And Ensemble Machine Learning Techniques With A Novelty Feature Engineering Scheme, Yaohu Lin, Shancun Liu, Haijun Yang, Harris Wu

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

Stock market forecasting is a knotty challenging task due to the highly noisy, nonparametric, complex and chaotic nature of the stock price time series. With a simple eight-trigram feature engineering scheme of the inter-day candlestick patterns, we construct a novel ensemble machine learning framework for daily stock pattern prediction, combining traditional candlestick charting with the latest artificial intelligence methods. Several machine learning techniques, including deep learning methods, are applied to stock data to predict the direction of the closing price. This framework can give a suitable machine learning prediction method for each pattern based on the trained results. The investment …

What Is The Riskfree Rate? A Search For The Basic Building Block, Aswath Damodaran

Journal of New Finance

In corporate finance and valuation, we start off with the presumption that the riskfree rate is given and easy to obtain and focus the bulk of our attention on estimating the risk parameters of individuals firms and risk premiums. But is the riskfree rate that simple to obtain? Both academics and practitioners have long used government security rates as riskfree rates, though there have been differences on whether to use short term or long- term rates. In this paper, we not only provide a framework for deciding whether to use short or long term rates in analysis but also a …

Fixed Income Fund Report, December 2020, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Equity Fund Monthly Report, December 2020, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Finance For The Individual Investor, Drake Gens

Senior Honors Theses

The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) has been generally accepted in academia despite its well-researched flaws; by understanding how and when markets deviate from efficiency, investors have an opportunity to not only better understand their investing habits, but also possibly generate higher investment returns. Various market anomalies, such as the Value Effect (De Bondt & Thaler, 1985), the Monday Effect (French, 1980), and the January Effect (De Bondt and Thaler, 1958 & 1987), attest to the fact that markets experience periods of deviation from efficiency. Fiévet and Sornette (2016) finding that markets experience inefficiency during periods of significant volatility is confirmed …

Diversification Using International Exchange-Traded Funds, Alese K. Jones

Honors Theses

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are diversified portfolios of assets which trade like stocks and track a benchmark index. This manuscript looks at the diversification and return benefits a U.S. investor would receive by investing in Emerging market (EEM) and Total World (DGT) ETFs over the period of June 2003 to July 2019. We use S&P 500 ETF IVV as a proxy for U.S. market. EEM had the highest absolute return but also the highest risk. However, the U.S. ETF IVV had the greatest risk-adjusted return and the lowest tracking error. International ETFs were also highly correlated with the S&P 500. Overall, …

Insider Trading Enforcement And The Private Information Environment: Evidence From The Newman Ruling, Andrew T. Pierce

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I exploit a shock to U.S. insider trading law to investigate whether a reduction in the enforceability of tipper-tippee insider trading restrictions leads to changes in information parity among investors and the efficiency of price discovery. The December 2014 Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in US v. Newman constrained enforcement by restricting the types of exchanges between managers and investors that trigger tipper-tippee insider trading liability. Following Newman, I find that Second Circuit hedge funds experienced a significant increase in their stock picking ability of Second Circuit stocks in terms of preempting future earnings announcement returns and future …

Is The Synthetic Stock Price Really Lower Than Actual Price?, Jianfeng Hu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conventional wisdom suggests synthetic stock prices are lower than actual prices due to short‐sale constraints and voting premiums. This study finds that such underpricing of the synthetic midquote disappears if arbitrageurs face security borrowing costs. The synthetic spread predominantly contains the actual spread. Synthetic stock overpricing is as common as underpricing but the former is more persistent and more profitable. The difference between synthetic and actual quotes is significantly affected by options market makers' hedging costs and investors' demand for leverage.