Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

The Archway Investment Fund Semi Annual Report, Spring 2013, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Revenue Diversification And 501 (C) 6 Nonprofit Trade Associations: Technology Councils Of North American And The Pittsburgh Technology Council, Reuben Dacher-Shapiro

MPA Capstone Projects 2006 - 2015

Since 2009 the Pittsburgh Technology Council (PTC) has been experiencing a decrease in the revenue they generate from the sale of insurance to its members. This decrease is a significant problem because it is non-program related unrestricted revenue. This type of revenue is vital for PTC because it allows them to constantly adapt to the needs of their members in the volatile economic environment of the Southwestern Pennsylvania technology sector.

American Consumer Confidence & Income: Relationship With The Stock Market, Caitlin C. Tappan

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Patron-Driven Acquisition Optimization At Liberty University, Erin Crane, Lori Snyder

Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2010 Liberty University began a Patron-Driven Acquisition pilot program with ebrary. Since then, the program has grown dramatically. The presenters describe how the library uses past usage data to create a predictive formula for ebook use. New ebook titles were added to the program based on formula selections. Success of the formula was evaluated, and overall the results are positive. The presenters also explain how the library handles the purchasing and cataloging of the ebooks.

What Causes Bank Failures During The Recent Economic Recession?, Qingyu Li

Honors Projects

More than 400 banks failed during the recent financial crisis. Bank failures have a significant impact on the financial system and the economy as a whole. It is important to identify factors that may contribute to bank failures so that banks can take measures to reduce their default risk. This paper examines how bank specific characteristics and economic conditions affect bank failures during the recent financial crisis. We employ the logistic regression model to study this issue using the U. S. commercial bank data over the sample period 2007-2012. We find that the ratio of the loan and leases to …

Suntrust Portfolio Recommendations: Crummer Investment Management [2013], Soumya Terala, Peter Harvey, Kevin Mayo, Bhawna Talwar, Pankaj Patil, Chris Enger

Crummer Truist Portfolios

We believe that the U.S. economy will continue growing modestly through 2013 and pick up speed in 2014. We have positioned the portfolio to take advantage of a slowly growing economy by slightly over-weighting the consumer discretionary, energy, industrials, technology, and health care sectors as these have traditionally benefited from recoveries. Accordingly, the consumer durables, financials, materials, telecommunications, and utilities sectors were under-weighted. Although the future is unusually cloudy, we reached this conclusion based on expected economic growth rates, favorable market P/E ratios and continued low interest rates.

Uncovering Hedge Fund Skill From The Portfolio Holdings They Hide, Vikas Agarwal, Wei Jiang, Yuehua Tang, Baozhong Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies the “confidential holdings” of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a delay through amendments to Form 13F and are usually excluded from the standard databases. Funds managing large risky portfolios with nonconventional strategies seek confidentiality more frequently. Stocks in these holdings are disproportionately associated with information-sensitive events or share characteristics indicating greater information asymmetry. Confidential holdings exhibit superior performance up to 12 months, and tend to take longer to build. Together the evidence supports private information and the associated price impact as the dominant motives for confidentiality.

Can Us Economic Variables Predict Chinese Stock Market?, Jeremy C. Goh, Fuwei Jiang, Jun Tu, Yuchen Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the last few decades, we observed a significant increase in global economic activities and these activities may have an impact on both China’s economy and stock market. Given the potential impact, we empirically examine whether US economic variables are leading indicators of the Chinese stock market. Prior to China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the end of 2001, we find no statistical relationship between US economic variables and the Chinese stock market returns. However, we find US economic variables have statistically significant predictive power for periods after China's admission into the WTO. In addition, we show that …

Three Essays On Corporate Liquidity, Financial Crisis, And Real Estate, Kimberly Fowler Luchtenberg

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The first essay examines why firms with access to lines of credit (LOC) have different drawdowns and their implications for asset pricing, investment and profitability. Utilizing a hand-collected LOC dataset that extends the sample of Sufi (2009) to 2010, our principal finding is that firms with greater LOC usage are more financially constrained than firms with lower LOC usage. We also document that high users of credit lines have higher risk-adjusted returns, less investment in capital expenditures and employment, and lower profitability than low LOC users. An interesting implication of our evidence is that high LOC drawdowns could serve as …

Hill, J. Murray, Sr., 1891-1961 (Sc 963), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 963. Letters, 1918, written by prominent Bowling Green, Kentucky, businessmen, attesting to the good character and competencies of J. Murray Hill, Sr. Also Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, Bowling Green, stock certificate, 1942.

Exit Strategies, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Unfortunately, picking the next winning stock is only half the battle. Many investments have strong gains, but end up losing because investors fail to exit their holdings at the right time. Trailing stop orders are one way to help mitigate this issue. (See article here, Yahoo Finance.)

Health Care And The Cross-Section Of Us Stock Returns, Brian C. Payne, John Geppert

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

Health care costs represent a large and growing component of business and consumer expenditures in the US. Medical inflation represents these costs, and it differs from aggregate inflation and other market factors with respect to its rate of growth, statistical properties and the extent to which it can be hedged by households and firms. Using multiple model specifications for the 25-year period from 1985 to 2009, we find medical inflation is robustly priced in the cross-section of US stock returns. It commands a risk premium of between 31 and 51 basis points per annum per unit change in beta. Medical …

History Lesson: Momentum, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

We often talk about buying low and selling high, but many individual investors often do the opposite. Particularly in retail accounts and 401(k) plans, investors are often "late to the party," waiting until the market hits a high to reenter. This behavioral bias results in momentum that may drive the market higher, but how long is the key question. Further, investors would be better suited taking a more disciplined periodic investment approach. With the market just hitting a high, this issue is currently at play. (See article here, WSJ.)

Purdue Road School: Funding, Funding, Funding, Gregory T. Guerrettaz

Purdue Road School

Municipal entities are facing many issues which are causing financial distress. This presentation will discuss strategies to assist in these difficult times. The strategies to be discussed will include short and long-term financial planning, board discussions and the creation of a capital improvement plan.

Moving Ahead For Progress In The 21st Century: Map 21, Mark D. Newland

Purdue Road School

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP- 21) was signed into law by President Obama on July 6, 2012. It funds surface transportation programs in (FY) 2013 and 2014. This session covers the general funding allocations, development of the rulemaking process, and the establishment of FHWA Performance Measures.

Indiana Motor Vehicle Highway Fund: A Discussion On Revenues, Distributions And Expenses, Dan Bastin

Purdue Road School

This session discusses the revenues, distributions, and expenses that make up the MVH fund. Presenters will cover the different types of revenue that make up Indiana’s transportation funding and follow the path of those revenues through the funding formula. Also discussed will be the different expenses incurred by the fund each year and formulas as described in the Indiana Code.

Agricultural Credit Analysis, Tyler Culp

Agribusiness

This project was a case study completed to find a specific time where an agricultural borrower’s credit began to have problems, and to find new measures agricultural lenders can utilize as a way to predict future defaults and better analyze credit risk.

These calculations were used on actual borrower information generously provided by Farm Credit West. All information that could divulge the identity of the borrower and any private business measures taken by Farm Credit West have been purposefully omitted from this report. This project used common credit risk ratios and values: Current Ratio, Debt-to-Equity, Loan-to-Value, and Debt Coverage Ratio. …

2013 Q1 Market Pulse Report, John K. Paglia

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.

Assessing The Financial Literacy Of Domestic And International College Students, Jane Boyland, Rex Warren

MBA Student Scholarship

Improving student financial literacy has become a major goal of colleges and universities within the United States in recent years. Many schools are now instituting programs to increase student financial literacy in order to improve their students’ later quality of life and decrease student loan default rates. The purpose of this study is to assess the current financial literacy of undergraduate students at a southern New England university in order to provide insights on how such a program could be customized to the unique needs of its student body. The Jump$tart Survey was administered to 92 junior and senior students …

The Discretionary Effect Of Ceos And Board Chairs On Corporate Governance Structures, Matteo P. Arena, Marcus V. Braga-Alves

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

In this study we analyze the effect of latent managerial characteristics on corporate governance. We find that CEO and board chair fixed effects explain a significant portion of the variation in board size, board independence, and CEO-chair duality even after controlling for several firm characteristics and firm fixed effects. The effect of CEOs on corporate governance practices is attributable mainly to executives who simultaneously hold the position of CEO and board chair in the same firm. Our results do not show a decline in CEO discretionary influence on corporate governance after the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and stock exchange …

Corporate Boards’ Political Ideology Diversity And Firm Performance, Incheol Kim, Christos Pantzalis, Jung Chul Park

Finance Faculty Publications

We investigate whether diversity in points of view within corporate boards, as captured by the diversity in political ideology of board members, can affect a firm's performance. We employ personal political contributions' data to measure political ideology distance among groups of inside, outside directors and the CEO. Our empirical evidence strongly supports the notion that outside directors' monitoring effectiveness is more likely to be enhanced when their viewpoints are distinct from those of management. We find that ideologically diverse boards are associated with better firm performance, lower agency costs and less insiders' discretionary power over the firm's Political Action Committee …

Financial Inclusion Initiatives And National Economic Development, Paul N. Eluhaiwe

Bullion

The paper present a clear understanding of the term financial inclusion, its role in economic development, measures being adopted to forge financial inclusion by selected countries and the attempt being made by Nigerian to follow suit. Section two of this paper gives an overview of the concept financial inclusion, section three highlights the difference between financial inclusion and economic development. Section four presents country experiences on financial inclusion followed by highlights of the current state of financial inclusion in Nigeria.

Core Resources Of Corporate Strategy And Performance-Oriented Bank Management Practice: A Lesson For Nigeria, Andrew O. Agbada

Bullion

In the past three decades, the Nigerian banking industry has suffered from a host of vices namely miss-management, financial misappropriation, administrative recklessness, etcetera, reflecting incompetence on all levels of management and those have had dire consequences in the economy. In an attempt to re-position the industry on the path of performance, different governments in the past took various corrective steps to no avail. Thus this study seeks to explore the Core Resources of Corporate Strategy and Performance-oriented Bank Management best practice with a view to creating sustainable best practices in bank management in Nigeria. The findings from the study are …

Palliative Care And The Health Care Crisis In The United States: A Candid Conversation With Dr. Diane Meier, Diane E. Meier

Center for Policy Research

This paper is a synthesis of the 2012 Lourie Lecture, framed as a series of questions and responses, and supported by images used in the lecture. I’m going to focus on the growth of this new field called palliative care and will make the connection that the crisis afflicting healthcare in the United States cannot be addressed without widespread scaling and implementation of palliative care across the system. My subject is not end-of-life care, but rather care during serious illness. A serious illness is something a person can live with for many years, such as emphysema, or end-stage renal disease …

In Defense Of The Traditional Ira, Charles J. Higgins

Finance Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Investor Protection And Cash Holdings: Evidence From U.S. Cross-Listing, Ying Huang, Susan Elkinawy, Pankaj K. Jain

Finance Faculty Works

This paper examines (i) whether the level of firms’ cash holdings differ depending on the strength of investor protection, (ii) whether excess cash holdings are valued more with better investor protection, and (iii) whether cross-listed firms that improve investor protection through “bonding” hold relatively more cash than non-cross-listed firms. We analyze 1405 ADR firms and their corresponding matched firms from 39 different countries and document that ADR firms have significantly higher cash holdings relative to their non-cross-listed peers, especially in recent years. The increase in cash holdings is much higher for emerging market firms because of their transition from particularly …

Confidence Weighted Mean Reversion Strategy For Online Portfolio Selection, Bin Li, Steven C. H. Hoi, Peilin Zhao, Vivekanand Gopalkrishnan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online portfolio selection has been attracting increasing attention from the data mining and machine learning communities. All existing online 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 evidence shows that relative stock prices may follow the mean reversion property, which has not been fully exploited by existing strategies. This article proposes a novel online 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, CWMR …

Death Cross For Gold, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

For technical traders, a death cross is definitely a sell sign. A death cross occurs when a shorter term moving average (such as the 50 day) crosses a longer term moving average (such as the 200 day) to the downside. Gold recently experienced such an event. However, fundamental traders are often at odds with this belief. (See article here, Yahoo Finance.)

Which Students Trade The Most? – Five Years Of Evidence From Simulations In An Introductory Investments Course, Steven Welch

Accounting and Finance Faculty Publications

In investment literature, overconfidence among male investors has been shown bytheir relatively high trading frequency in spite of the evidence that more trading reduces returns by way of transactions costs. In this study, given the assumption that modern, college-educated students taking an investments class should be better educated than the average investor, we posit that female and male students should not have a significant difference between them in (over)confidence, and therefore, trading frequency. We also introduce a new concept of whether domestic or international students trade more frequently, and posit some possible explanations for the results.

Corporate Governance, Institutional Ownership, And The Decision To Pay The Amount Of Dividends: Evidence From Usa, John Obradovich, Amarjit Gill

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The decision to pay dividends is influenced by many financial factors. The purpose of this study is to find the relationships between corporate governance, institutional ownership, and the decision to pay dividends in American service firms. A sample of 296 American firms listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for a period of 3 years (from 2009-2011) was selected. This study applied a co-relational and non-experimental research design. The findings of this study indicate that the decision to pay dividends is a positive function of board size, CEO duality, and internationalization of the firm, and a negative function of institutional …