Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

2013 Q4 Market Pulse Report, Craig R. Everett

Pepperdine Market Pulse Report

The quarterly IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse Survey was created to gain an accurate understanding of the market conditions for businesses being sold in Main Street (values $0-$2MM) and the lower middle market (values $2MM -$50MM). The national survey was conducted with the intent of providing a valuable resource to business owners and their advisors. The IBBA and M&A Source present the Market Pulse Survey with the support of the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project and the Graziado School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

A Theoretical Analysis Of Iso9000 Suppliers, Chiaho Chang

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper looks at the economic behavior of suppliers under different ISO9000 standards, especially that of ISO9001 and ISO9002. Considering the information asymmetry, given the same quality provided, the cost-reducing efforts of the ISO9001 SUPPLIER and ISO9002 SUPPLIER under a fixed, cost-plus contract are investigated. The result shows that the cost-reducing effort of the ISO9002 SUPPLIER is in line with the main manufacturer's expectations while the ISO9001 SUPPLIER is able to keep some of the information rent and exerts less effort. The bargaining power of the ISO9001 SUPPLIER is also stronger relative to that of the ISO9002 SUPPLIER. It is …

Two Essays In Empirical Asset Pricing, Abdullah M. Noman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay investigates the ability of prior returns, relative to some aggregate market returns, to predict future returns on industry style portfolios. By pooling time series of returns across industries for the period between July 1969 and June 2012, we find that prior returns differential predicts one month ahead returns negatively, even in the presence of a set of popular state variables. The predictability remains significant and negative for up to 5 month ahead returns. The predictability is shown to be robust to alternative specifications, estimation methodology and industry classifications. A possible explanation …

Analysis Of Investment Strategies: A New Look At Investment Returns, Jose F. Rubio

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1:

Intuition suggests that constraint investment strategies will result in losses due to a limited portfolio allocation. Yet prior research has shown that this is not the case for a particular set of constraint mutual funds so-called Socially Responsible Investing, SRI. In this paper I show that such assets do face loses to portfolio efficiency due to their limited asset universe. I contribute to the literature by employing two techniques to estimate asset performance. First, I estimate a DEA based efficiency score that allows for direct comparison between ex-post efficiency rankings and test the ex-ante relevance of such scores …

Financial Literacy In Retirement Planning, Jennifer Potts

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Studying finance, I have been exposed to the retirement plan options and how they work in most of my classes. But when I would talk to my family and friends about what I was learning, I quickly discovered that many people simply had no interest or understanding about the subject. I believe everyone needs to have a basic understanding of where income will come from once they retire. This realization pushed me to study the level of financial literacy about retirement and plan options of adults in the working world and determine how I could bring information about this topic …

Disproportional Ownership Structure And Ipo Long-Run Performance Of Entrepreneurial Firm In China, Jerry X. Cao, Gary Gang Tian, Vincent Tang, Xiaoming Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the relationship between ownership structures and IPO long-run performance in China. Although entrepreneurial firms underperform the market in general after IPO but the poor performance is mainly caused by the IPOs with ownership control wedge. Entrepreneurial firms with one share one vote structure outperform those with ownership control wedge by 30% for 3 years post-IPO in either buy-and-hold or cumulative monthly returns. Entrepreneurial firms with excess ownership control wedge have higher frequency of undertaking value-destroying related party transactions. These findings suggest that entrepreneurial firms need to improve corporate governance such as disproportional ownership structure to better safeguard …

The Impact Of Securitization, Bank Liquidity Shocks, And Government Intervention On Lending And Banks' Asset Composition: Evidence From The U.S. 2007-2009 Financial Crisis, Peter V. Egly

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The 2007- 2009 financial crisis creates a new wave of research opportunities in part due to the transformation of the banking system that led to the development of securitized banking that is supported by short term funding sources provided through the money and capital markets. The near collapse of the financial system ultimately led to the ensuing government intervention by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury department to revive the frail U.S. economy. This dissertation has two basic research objectives: 1) investigate the impact of securitization and the subprime mortgage collapse on bank lending during the crisis and 2) …

Examining The Predictors Of Fbs Football Revenue, Hayden Redd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

College football, specifically the Football Bowl Subdivision, is an ever growing industry. As revenues continue to rise, it is important to be able to predict these revenues. A series of correlations and least square analysis were run on data from 2007-2011 to test their significance to football revenue. The analysis found strong correlations between all-time wins and all-time bowl appearances, average attendance, and historical grade. Strong correlations are seen between all-time bowl appearances and average attendance, historical grade, and recent grade. Strong correlations are seen between wins from 2007-2011 and recent grade. Strong correlations are seen between average attendance and …

What Are Analysts Really Good At?, Ohad Kadan, Leonardo Madureira, Rong Wang, Tzachi Zach

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Sell-side analysts employ different benchmarks when defining their stock recommendations. For example, a ‘buy’ for some brokers means the stock is expected to outperform its peers in the same sector (“industry benchmarkers”), while for other brokers it means the stock is expected to outperform the market (“market benchmarkers”), or just some absolute return (“total benchmarkers”). We use these benchmarks to analyze the role of stock picking, industry picking and market timing in contributing to the performance of stock recommendations. We are able to do so given that different benchmarks suggest the use of different sets of abilities. Analysis of the …

Economic Effects Of Sox Section 404 Compliance: A Corporate Insider Perspective, Cindy Alexander, Scott Bauguess, Gennaro Bernile, Alex Lee, Jennifer Marietta-Westberg

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We use survey responses from 2,901 corporate insiders to assess the costs and benefits of compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The majority of respondents recognize compliance benefits, but they do not perceive these benefits to outweigh the costs, on average. This is particularly true among smaller companies where the start-up costs are proportionately larger. However, the perceived efficiency of compliance increases with auditor attestations, years of compliance experience, and after the remediation of a material weakness. Notably, the perceived effects of compliance depend largely on firm complexity, but are mostly unrelated to firm governance structure.

Firm Strategy And The Internet In U.S. Commercial Banking, Kim Huat Goh, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As information technology (IT) becomes more accessible, sustaining any competitive advantage from it becomes challenging. This has caused some critics to dismiss IT as a less valuable resource. We argue that, in addition to being able to generate strategic advantage, IT should also be viewed as a strategic necessity that prevents competitive disadvantage in rapidly changing business environments. We test a set of hypotheses on strategic advantage and strategic necessity in the context of Internet banking investments among the entire population of the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) banks from 2003 to 2005. We seek to understand whether …

Institutional Presence, Johan Sulaeman, Chi Shen Wei

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose an Institutional Presence (IP) measure to capture the latent role of non-owner institutional investors who nevertheless may be observing a firm. We employ this measure to examine whether the ‘presence’ of institutional investors reduces information asymmetry in the market. Firms in areas with high institutional presence experience higher liquidity, faster information incorporation, lower costs of equity capital, and less financing frictions relative to firms in low IP areas. The results hold after controlling for firm and geographical characteristics including institutional ownership and urban locality. Our findings indicate that being in the presence of institutional investors brings tangible benefits.

What Are Analysts Really Good At?, Rong Wang, Leonardo Madureira, Rong Wang, Tzachi Zach

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Sell-side analysts employ different benchmarks when defining their stock recommendations. For example, a ‘buy’ for some brokers means the stock is expected to outperform its peers in the same sector (“industry benchmarkers”), while for other brokers it means the stock is expected to outperform the market (“market benchmarkers”), or just some absolute return (“total benchmarkers”). We use these benchmarks to analyze the role of stock picking, industry picking and market timing in contributing to the performance of stock recommendations. We are able to do so given that different benchmarks suggest the use of different sets of abilities. Analysis of the …

The Impact Of Us Political Pressure On The Rmb Exchange Rate, Wenjie Zhang

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

The US-China game of Renminbi (RMB)/US Dollar exchange rate has aroused increasing attention recently. From the US perspective, appreciation of RMB exchange rate could reduce the US-China trade deficit, boost the US economy and thus lower the unemployment rate (Cheng and Zhang, 2012). Therefore it is crucial for the US government to figure out whether there is an influence from US political pressure on RMB flexibility and the most effective way to accelerate the appreciation of RMB exchange rate. Aminian et al (2008) believed that US political pressure may be one of the causes for the appreciation of RMB exchange …

Loan Loss Reserves, Regulatory Capital, And Bank Failures: Evidence From The Recent Economic Crisis, Jeffrey Ng, Sugata Roychowdhury

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Floating Rate Notes, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

As interest rates rise, bond prices fall. Given historically low interest rates, many investors are concerned about bond prices, particularly since the loose monetary policy being implemented by the Fed may trigger inflation and therefore higher future interest rates. To hedge away this interest rate risk, some investors have used inflation protected securities. The Treasury, however, just launched another alternative -- floating rate notes. The interest paid on these notes rise as market rates rise, thereby also protecting the bond's price. See article here, WSJ.

Systems And Methods Of Derivative Strategy Selection And Composition, Greg Hammond

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

A method and apparatus of selecting derivative strategies, where candidate derivative strategies are selected from a set of essentially all possible derivative strategies available for an underlying, based upon a user's market sentiment for an underlying, to perform favorably under the foreseen conditions being most appropriate to the user's strategic intent and the choices afforded by the relevant markets.

Timing Matters -- Dollar Weighted Returns., Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

While a mutual fund manager may make good decisions that result in a positive return, if investors time cash flows incorrectly, they will end up with lower (even negative) returns. This illustrates the difference between time weighted and dollar weighted returns. Unfortunately, the average investor succumbs to human nature, buying high and selling low, instead of the opposite. See a good summary article here, WSJ.

An Epidemiological Approach To Opinion And Price-Volume Dynamics, Dong Hong, Harrison G. Hong, Andrei Ungureanu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop a simple and tractable model of opinions and price-volume dynamics based on a word-of-mouth communication process widely used in epidemiology. Risk-averse investors have different opinions depending on whether they heard the news from a friend. Opinions initially diverge and then converge over time as news spreads, which leads to price adjustment and trading volume. News released to many leads to an expected difusion rate (the change in the fraction of investors with the news) that declines with time. But news initially released to few leads to an expected diffusion rate that initially increases in time and only then …

Health Promotions 2.0: The Future Of Wellness Programs In America, Rajiv Kumar

Center for Policy Research

In no small part because of technology, the way we live and work is being transformed. I believe that those of us who are interested in health policy can play an important role in guiding that transformation. I submit to you that unhealthy living is a social issue; that conditions such as obesity and diabetes are social diseases and that their prevalence is a social problem. If we have a social problem, then we need a social solution. I believe part of that solution can be found in the worksite health promotion and wellness programs that have taken root across …

Institutional Trading Frictions, Chiraphol New Chiyachantana, Pankaj K. Jain

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose and empirically examine a comprehensive measure of institutional trading frictions to include the dimensions of price impact, quantity of execution, return dynamics, speed of execution or order splitting, and trading commissions. Our empirical analysis reveals that various hidden components of institutional trading frictions such as adverse selection and clean-up costs are persistent and could add significantly to previously measured directly observable components of transaction costs. Our simultaneous system of equations accounts for the endogeniety in institutional order aggressiveness based on potentially superior information as well as order splitting strategies in the implementation stage to reduce transaction costs. Order …

Covered Calls, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

A Covered Call is created by purchasing stock and simultaneously writing a call on that stock. The position limits upside, as the stock will be called away if the price rises above the exercise price. But, the premium from selling the call provides extra income, which is the primary reason for executing such a strategy. See the article here, WSJ.

Retirement Planning -- Start Early, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Many people are not prepared for retirement. Older workers do not have enough money saved, and younger workers are not starting soon enough. See some survey results here, WSJ. You should also take the quiz to see where you stand.

Bankruptcy In Utah, Ryan Wilson, Rebecca Wilson, Dr. Ned Hill

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this study, we analyzed 100 randomly selected Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases filed in 2002 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Utah. In addition to these cases, we personally interviewed five local bankruptcy attorneys and court officers addressing the issue of Utah’s high bankruptcy rate. We also researched national statistics and other previous research with the purpose of identifying who in Utah is filing for bankruptcy and what factors are leading to these bankruptcies.

Insider Trading In Taiwan, Gabby Hsin-Yo Wang, Dr. Michael J. Pinegar

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Insider trading has been a much-rumored phenomenon in Taiwan. In a newspaper article headlined Bitter Fruit of Stock Investment, the author states, “…Taiwan has a stock market culture which is — on the surface at least — quite egalitarian in its nature. Insider trading? Everyone is doing it.” Ironically, very little government action has been taken to track down insider traders, and the academia has been reluctant to search for evidence of insider trading in Taiwan in fear that such a sensitive research would result in serious ramifications.

The January Effect: An Empirical Test Of The Existence Of A Stock Market Anomaly, T. Lance Toler, Dr. Steven R. Thorley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The idea of capitalism is based on the theory of an efficient market, or of an “invisible hand” that works tirelessly to distribute resources in the most efficient way. The stock market version of this idea is called the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This idea claims that all available information is absorbed immediately into the prices of stocks. Stock market anomalies, or any predictable patterns for high or low stock prices, therefore, should not exist. If any anomalies appear to be persistent, this suggests the market is not completely efficient.

Changing Tick Sizes?, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

In 2001, exchanges began listing stock prices in penny increments, as opposed to fractions such as 1/8th or 1/16th of a dollar. The change was intended to simplify pricing and reduce bid-ask spreads. Recently, however, there has been an increasing call to move to higher increments (such as nickel or dime pricing). The rationale is that such a move would promote trading and reduce volatility. It doesn't hurt that it would also allow trading firms to generate more profit. See article here, WSJ.

Investigation Of Learning Style Preferences Of Business Students, Chen Wu, Dominick E. Fazarro

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

This study investigates learning style preferences of college business majors. We find they prefer the Structure learning style as defined by the Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model (1978). Modification of instructional techniques to suit this preference generates a marginal significant increase in the performance of students in the experimental group relative to the control group as measured by their Final Course Grade Average (FCGA).

Hedge Fund Managers Who Eschew Asset Gathering, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

Fund managers may eschew financial rewards for the non-pecuniary benefits from investment management. They may be highly focused on leaving a legacy of stellar returns when they retire and prefer to preserve their ability to generate those returns by staying small. Others may prefer to run small firms so as to devote more of their time and energy into investment activities as opposed to managing people. We empirically zero in on such managers by focusing on funds that have delivered superior returns but do not take advantage of their stellar performance track records to grow capital aggressively. We find that …

Efinancial Health Synergy And Prevention Science, Nan Taylor

Cornerstone 1 Reports : Expansion and Enhancements of the Thinkfinity Platform

No abstract provided.