The purpose of this thesis is to identify the factors playing a key role in the determination of the Turkish stock market liquidity in aggregate terms in a time series context and discuss the joint dynamics of the market-wide liquidity with its selected determinants and the trade volume. The main determinants tested are the level of return, the return volatility and the monetary stance of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. The expected positive relationship between the liquidity and the return is confirmed, while the negative effect of the volatility on liquidity appears one-week later. The behavior of various liquidity variables are also examined around the macroeconomic data announcement dates, during the 2008 financial crisis, and after the tick size change in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). The time series dynamics between the trade volume, return, volatility and the liquidity are put forward within the Vector Autoregression analysis framework. The GARCH modeling of the return series, which is an input to the liquidity model estimations, is a byproduct of this thesis. It is observed that the return series exhibits volatility clustering, persistence, leverage effects and mean reversion. In addition, while the level of the ISE market return decreased, the volatility of the return increased during the 2008 crisis. Accordingly, EGARCH model assuming normally distributed error terms and allowing a shift in the variance during the crisis period is chosen as the best model.

The application of the internet technology on securities markets has been increasing over recent years, so is the influence it has caused on the way the stock market is operated. There is no doubt that internet technology is changing the access between investors and issuing firms, as well as the access between investors and exchanges. How would this affect the stock market microstructure? Little study has been done thus far in this regard, and, as far as we know, none has looked into the issue of IPOs on internet and its related impact on IPO returns. In addition to the impact on the primary market, internet tradings also have immense impact on the underlying performance of the secondary market. The purposes of this study are mainly twofold:(1) To explore the related issues in IPOs or DPOs on internet, e.g., the disclosure requirements, the restriction of investors, and the effect it has on IPO discounts,(2) To empirically test how the internet trading affects the daily and intraday performance (i.e., liquidity, volatility and efficiency) of the market.This is the first study attempting to examine the pricing issue of IPOs on the internet. We hope to compare the returns of initial public offerings on the internet with those of the traditional IPOs and analyze the differences, if any. In addition to provide useful analyses to the security authority on DPOs or IPOs on internet, the result of this study should contribute to our understanding of the market microstructure.

This study mainly investgates the investment performance of momentum strategies and contrarian strategies in Taiwan stock market. There are three purposes in this paper. First, we examine whether the momentum strategies and contrarian strategies can create significant profits under different formulation horizons and holding horizons, then we discuss the reasons for the profits of significant profits strategies, including risk, seasonality, industrial momentum, time series predictability of stock returns and cross-sectional variation in the mean returns, and stock underreation, overreaction, and random walk. Second, we derive the mix strategies from the combination of momentum strategies and contrarian strategies for the same holding horizons and test the investment performance of mix strategies empirically. Finally, we study whether the investment strategies of stock mutual funds in Taiwan are industrial momentum strategies or industrial contrarian strategies, and which strategies can create better industrial investment performance. The main conclusions and suggestions are as follows: First, we find the momentum strategies are more successful in Taiwan as a whole, especially from 1991/1/1 to 2000/12/31. There are only three significant profits strategies in 147 strategies totally for three different test periods, including the (24,24) strategy and (36,24) strategy from 1991/1/1 to 2000/12/31, and (1,12) strategy from 1981/1/1 to 1990/12/31. For the reasons of the profits of the three strategies, we find the negative alphas in the F&F three factors model and underreation from the decreasing returns in the post holding horizons, so we should use the momentum strategies very carefully in Taiwan stock market. Second, we find the success of mix strategies theoretically and empirically. Nevertheless, we can¡¦t increase the profits for considering more different sub-strategies if there are no successful sub-strategies with different formulation horizons. Finally, we find the investment strategies of stock mutual funds almost are industrial momentum strategies, which realized significantly better industrial performance then the industrial contrarian strategies. It suggests that the industrial momentum strategies are not irrational and can increase the speed of adjustment of industrial index to its intrinsic value. On the other hand, stock mutual funds can perform well by the momentum strategies without superior information collection and analysis.

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Dividend Valuation Model is a well-known stock pricing model. However, many empirical studies of foreign stock markets do not support the Dividend Valuation Model; most of these studies think stock price is too volatile to explain by expected dividend. Therefore, this article would like to use Stochastic Cointegration to reexamining Taiwan stock market, and observe whether Taiwan stock market supports Dividend Valuation Model. The empirical results showed that stock price and dividends exist a positive comovements relationship in the plastic, steel, electronic, and the banking & insurance industries, but empirical results does not completely support the theoretical value of cointegration vector. Therefore, this study has not been sufficient evidence to support Taiwan stock market is efficient.

Support vector regression has been applied to stock market forecasting problems. However, it is usually needed to tune manually the hyperparameters of the kernel functions. Multiple-kernel learning was developed to deal with this problem, by which the kernel matrix weights and Lagrange multipliers can be simultaneously derived through semidefinite programming. However, the amount of time and space required is very demanding. We develop a two-stage multiple-kernel learning algorithm by incorporating sequential minimal optimization and the gradient projection method. By this algorithm, advantages from different hyperparameter settings can be combined and overall system performance can be improved. Besides, the user need not specify the hyperparameter settings in advance, and trial-and-error for determining appropriate hyperparameter settings can then be avoided. Experimental results, obtained by running on datasets taken from Taiwan Capitalization Weighted Stock Index, show that our method performs better than other methods.

<p>Bachelor thesis within Business Administration</p><p>Title: Behavioral Finance – The Student Perspective</p><p>Authors: Kamran Sairafi, Karl Selleby, Thom Ståhl</p><p>Tutor: Urban Österlund</p><p>Date: 2008-05-30</p><p>Background: History is full of examples on how humans can create investment</p><p>bubbles through speculation; from the Dutch tulip mania to the</p><p>Dot Com bubble humans have proven to be capable of creating</p><p>economical chaos. Classical economical theories hold the assumption</p><p>that individuals act rationally regarding decisions of an</p><p>economical nature. Since the information on the stock market is</p><p>available to everyone who seeks it, the appearance of investment</p><p>bubbles should not be possible. Behavioral finance is an academic</p><p>branch which seeks to explore these phenomenons through the</p><p>psychological factors affecting humans in investment decisions.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of the report is twofold. Firstly it is to examine the</p><p>characteristics of investment interested business students enrolled</p><p>at Jönköping International Business School. Secondly it looks into</p><p>the decision-making process and choices of the population</p><p>from the perspective of behavioral finance.</p><p>Method: This research holds an abductive approach and is based on qualitative</p><p>data. Data collection was done through an Internet-based</p><p>questionnaire containing several different questions on the areas</p><p>related to the inquiries. In some cases statistical analysis was conducted</p><p>to test for significant correlation between key characteristics.</p><p>Results: A statistically proven correlation could be discerned between</p><p>trading experience and frequency; for each additional year an individual</p><p>engaged in trading the frequency increased. Herd behavior</p><p>was detected in a majority of the sample. When faced with a</p><p>scenario in which their immediate surrounding opposed their own</p><p>analysis of a stock, the greater part of the sample would reconsider</p><p>their position. Two main sub-groups were detected. The first</p><p>was characterized by its high tolerance of risk; the second subgroup</p><p>was characterized by its inconsistency in behavior.</p><p>Conclusions: This paper found that the behavior of respondents in the chosen</p><p>population was best described as “student behavior”; a somehow</p><p>irrational behavior explained by the learning process in which</p><p>business students exist.</p>

Unified Stock Market for the Promotion of Business Activities in West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)

This dissertation is divided into an introductory chapter and four essays. Chapter one discusses the importance of the study and describes the development and growth of the market as well. The first part (Chapters 2 & 3) examines stock returns behaviour and trading activity around earnings announcements. The second part (Chapters 4 & 5) examines price impact asymmetry and the price effects of block trades in the market microstructure context. Each essay addresses some aspects of market microstructure and stock returns behaviour in order to aid researchers, investors and regulators to understand a market which lacks research coverage. The research provides empirical evidence on issues such as the efficiency of the market, information asymmetry, liquidity and price impact of block trades. In first part of the thesis, event study and regression analysis were used to measure the price reaction around earnings announcements and to examine trading activity, information asymmetry and liquidity. In second part the determinants of the price impact of block trades were examined with regard to trade size, market condition and time of the day effects using transaction data. Liquidity and information asymmetry issues of block trades were also studied in this part.

This thesis examines the impact of FTSE 100 index revisions on the various aspects of stock market quality and the cost of equity capital. Our study spans over the period 1986-2009. Our analyses indicate that the index membership enhances all aspects of liquidity, including trading continuity, trading cost and price impact. We also show that the liquidity premium and the cost of equity capital decrease significantly after additions, but do not exhibit any significant change following deletions. The finding that investment opportunities increases after additions, but do not decline following deletions suggests that the benefits of joining an index are likely to be permanent. This evidence is consistent with the investor awareness hypothesis view of Chen et al. (2004, 2006), which suggests that investors' awareness improve when a stock becomes a member of an index, but do not diminish after it is removal from the index. Finally, we report significant changes in the comovement of stock returns with the FTSE 100 index around the revision events. These changes are driven mainly by noise-related factors and partly by fundamental-related factors.