This thesis seeks to address three important issues relating to the efficient functioning of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. In particular the thesis seeks to answer the following questions 1. What makes markets informationally efficient or inefficient? 2. Has increased stock market volatility had an impact on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms? and 3. How is it possible to reconcile the view that markets are weak form efficient and technical analysis is a pervasive activity in such markets? Unlike previous studies, this thesis seeks to examine the issue of efficiency when institutional features specific to the market under investigation are taken into account. Specifically, the thesis adopts a testing methodology which enables us to recognize possible non-linear behaviour, thin trading and institutional changes in testing market efficiency. The results from this investigation show that informationally efficient markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the results suggest that emerging markets may initially be characterised as inefficient but over time, with the right regulatory framework, will develop into efficient and effective markets. The second important issue to be examined in this thesis concerns the impact of regulatory changes on market volatility and the cost of equity capital to firms. It is not sufficient to simply examine whether volatility has increased following a fmancial market innovation such as changes in regulation. Rather, it is necessary to investigate why volatility has changed, if it has changed, and the impact of such a change on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms. Only then can inferences be drawn about the desirability or otherwise of innovations which bring about increases in volatility. Surprisingly, these issues have not been addressed in the literature. The evidence presented here suggests that the innovations which have taken place in the ISE have increased volatility, but also improved the pricing efficiency of the market and reduced the cost of equity capital to firms. Finally, the thesis tries to identify the conditions under which weak-form efficiency is consistent with technical analysis. It is shown that this paradox can be explained if adjustments to information are not immediate, such that market statistics, in particular statistics on trading volume contain information not impounded in current prices. In this context technical analysis on volume can be viewed as part of the process by which traders learn about fundamentals. Therefore, the thesis investigates the issue whether studying the joint dynamics of stock prices and trading volume can be used to predict weakly efficient stock prices. In summary, the findings of this thesis will be of interest to international investors, stock market regulators, firms raising funds from stock markets and participants in emerging capital markets in general. The implication of the results presented here is that informational efficient emerging markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the evolution in the regulatory framework of, and knowledge and awareness of investors in, emerging markets may mean that they will initially be characterised by inefficiency, but over time will develop into informational efficient and effectively functioning markets which allocate resources efficiently. In addition, the results of this thesis have important implications, for emerging markets in general, in identifying the regulatory framework that will achieve efficient pricing and a reduction in the cost of equity capital to firms operating in the economy.

This thesis investigates the pricing relationship between the FTSE 100 Stock Index and the FTSE 100 Stock Index futures market. We develop and apply a framework in which it is possible to evaluate whether or not markets can be said to function effectively and efficiently. The framework is applied to both the daily and intra-daily pricing relationship between the aforementioned markets. In order to analyse the pricing relationship within days, we develop a new method to remove the effects of nonsynchronous trading from the FTSE 100 Index. We find that on a daily basis the markets generally function effectively, although this does not carryover to the intra-daily pricing relationship. This is especially true during the October 1987 stock market crash, where it is argued that a possible cause of the breakdown lies with the stock market. If this is the case, then any regulation should be aimed at the stock market, not the stock index futures market.

Background: Since the early 60’s, the CAPM or Capital Asset Pricing Model, has been an invaluable tool for assessing an asset's expected return, assuming that the asset is added to an already well-diversified portfolio of assets. CAPM theory assume that the unsystematic risk can be diversified and that the systematic, market-specific, risk is determined by the Beta value, from the Greek β. An investor who takes big risks expect higher returns. One of the CAPM’s basic assumptions is that disruption in the market is not taken into account. This assumption may lead to results that do not correspond to reality. Objective: This study examined the relationship between systematic risk, and return on a stable and volatile market. Methodology: The study was performed using a quantitative research with secondary data, in which 30 companies listed on the OMX 30 on the Stockholm stock exchange was studied. The investigation period was from 2003 to 2012 and was divided into three parts. Using the statistics program SPSS and Excel the data required to answer the purpose of the essay was calculated. Results: The analysis of the first time period between 2003 and 2007 showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between beta value and the average return for the period. The second time period between 2008 and 2012, which was characterized by an extremely volatile stock market, showed different results. The result of this period showed no statistical relationship existed when the market was characterized by high volatility. The third and final period between 2003 and 2012, which was a combination of a stable and a volatile market. The results for this period showed no significant association between beta value and average returns. The conclusion of this study is therefore that the CAPM model to assess an asset's return fails when the market is unstable, e.g. due to a financial crisis. To compensate for this error that is built into the model, one should therefore use alternative models, or revised versions of the CAPM, if the aim is to produce data in a realistic way that can be used as basis for investment decisions. / Bakgrund: Sedan början av 60-talet har CAPM, eller Capital Asset Pricing Model, varit ett ovärderligt instrument för att bedöma en tillgångs förväntade avkastning, där man antar att tillgången läggs till i en redan väldiversifierad portfölj av tillgångar. CAPM teorin antar vidare att den osystematiska risken diversifieras bort samt att den systematiska, marknadsspecifika, risken bestäms med hjälp av Beta-värdet, från grekiskans β. En investerare som tar stora risker förväntar sig högre avkastning. Ett av CAPM:s grundantaganden är att störningar på marknaden inte tas hänsyn till. Detta antagande kan leda till resultat som inte stämmer överens med verkligheten.   Syfte: I denna studie undersöktes sambandet mellan systematisk risk, samt avkastning på en stabil respektive volatil marknad. Metod: Undersökningen genomfördes med en kvantitativ forskningsmetodik med sekundära data där 30 bolag noterade på OMX30 på stockholmsbörsen studerades. Undersökningsperioden var mellan 2003 till 2012 och delades upp till tre delar Med hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS samt Excel beräknades nödvändiga data för att svara på uppsatsens syfte. Resultat: Analysen av den första tidsperioden mellan 2003-2007 visade att det förelåg ett statistiskt signifikant samband mellan betavärdet och den genomsnittliga avkastningen för perioden. Den andra tidsperioden mellan 2008-2012, som kännetecknades av en mycket volatil aktiemarknad, visade annorlunda resultat. Resultatet av denna tidsperiod visade att inget statistiskt samband förelåg när marknaden kännetecknades av en hög volatilitet. Den tredje och sista och perioden mellan 2003-2012, som alltså var en kombination av en stabil och en volatil marknad. Resultatet för denna tidsperiod visade inget signifikant samband mellan betavärdet och den genomsnittliga avkastningen. Slutsatsen av denna studie blir därmed att CAPM som metod för att bedöma en tillgångs avkastning fallerar när marknaden är ostabil, t.ex. beroende på en finanskris. För att kompensera för detta fel som är inbyggt i modellen bör därför alternativa modeller, eller justerade versioner av CAPM, användas om syftet är att ta fram data som på ett verklighetstroget sätt kan vara underlag för investeringsbedömningar.

The objective of the study is to analyze the effects of two breakpoints on the relationships of Istanbul Stock Exchange with the European stock markets and on the relationships among these European stock markets to increase the economic integration. The breakpoints are the execution of the Customs Union Agreement of Turkey with the European Union in 1/1/1996 and the introduction of the Euro in 1/1/1999. While both breakpoints have effects on Turkey&rsquo / s economic relations, the European Union countries are expected to be influenced by only the introduction of the Euro. Stock market indices provided by DataStream is utilized. The statistical techniques used include the correlation and cointegration analysis. Results indicate that when examined on pair wise basis Turkish stock market has more liaisons with the European stock markets, in general, after the Customs Union / but less liaisons after the conversion to Euro. However, when examined as a group, the cointegration result finds the Euro as influential as the Customs Union. Alternatively, the European stock markets have decreasing integrations as a result of correlation analysis after the Euro, but it is an influential breakpoint according to cointegrating structures.

Doctor of Philosophy / The motivation for the research presented in this thesis stems from the recent availability of high frequency limit order book data, relative scarcity of studies employing such data, economic significance of transaction costs management, and a perceived potential of data mining for uncovering patterns and relationships not identified by the traditional top-down modelling approach. We analyse and build computational models for order submissions on the Australian Stock Exchange, an order-driven market with a public electronic limit order book. The focus of the thesis is on the trade implementation problem faced by a trader who wants to transact a buy or sell order of a certain size. We use two approaches to build our models, top-down and bottom-up. The traditional, top-down approach is applied to develop an optimal order submission plan for an order which is too large to be traded immediately without a prohibitive price impact. We present an optimisation framework and some solutions for non-stationary and non-linear price impact and price impact risk. We find that our proposed transaction costs model produces fairly good forecasts of the variance of the execution shortfall. The second, bottom-up, or data mining, approach is employed for trade sign inference, where trade sign is defined as the side which initiates both a trade and the market order that triggered the trade. We are interested in an endogenous component of the order flow, as evidenced by the predictable relationship between trade sign and the variables used to infer it. We want to discover the rules which govern the trade sign, and establish a connection between them and two empirically observed regularities in market order submissions, competition for order execution and transaction cost minimisation. To achieve the above aims we first use exploratory analysis of trade and limit order book data. In particular, we conduct unsupervised clustering with the self-organising map technique. The visualisation of the transformed data reveals that buyer-initiated and seller-initiated trades form two distinct clusters. We then propose a local non-parametric trade sign inference model based on the k-nearest-neighbour classifier. The best k-nearest-neighbour classifier constructed by us requires only three predictor variables and achieves an average out-of-sample accuracy of 71.40% (SD=4.01%)1, across all of the tested stocks. The best set of predictor variables found for the non-parametric model is subsequently used to develop a piecewise linear trade sign model. That model proves superior to the k-nearest-neighbour classifier, and achieves an average out-of-sample classification accuracy of 74.38% (SD=4.25%). The result is statistically significant, after adjusting for multiple comparisons. The overall classification performance of the piecewise linear model indicates a strong dependence between trade sign and the three predictor variables, and provides evidence for the endogenous component in the order flow. Moreover, the rules for trade sign classification derived from the structure of the piecewise linear model reflect the two regularities observed in market order submissions, competition for order execution and transaction cost minimisation, and offer new insights into the relationship between them. The obtained results confirm the applicability and relevance of data mining for the analysis and modelling of stock market order submissions.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-139).

O propósito dessa pesquisa é estudar a relação entre a revelação de informação corporativa e o comportamento de uma seleção de empresas com fortes políticas de revelação de informação e alto grau de capitalização do Mercado Acionário da Colômbia, para o ano 2014. Mediante esse estudo, é analisada a microestrutura utilizando informação de alta frequência e notícias corporativas publicadas na plataforma de Bloomberg Professional Services. A metodologia de análise para prover evidência da relação foi o estudo de eventos, testando a significância da diferença entre as médias e medianas pré-evento e pós-evento de alguns indicadores de liquidez, retorno e volatilidade. Os resultados permitem concluir que a disseminação de informação tem um impacto sobre a liquidez e a volatilidade do mercado. Percebe-se que no período posterior à publicação das notícias, o tamanho dos bid-ask spreads e a volatilidade do midquote diminui, os investidores negociam em média menores volumes e quantidade de operações e submetem menor quantidade de intenções de compra e venda. / The purpose of this investigation is to study the relationship between corporate disclosure and the behavior of a selection of companies, with strong disclosure policies and high market capitalization ratio of the Colombian Stock Market, for the entire year 2014. The idea of this investigation is to analyze the market microstructure using high frequency data and corporate information publicized through the Bloomberg professional services platform. The estimation technique to provide evidence of the relationship is the event study, testing the significance of the difference between the pre-event and post-event average and median of some indicators of return, liquidity and volatility. The results prove that the disemintation of information impact the market liquidity and volatility. It is noticed that in the post-event window, bid-ask spreads and volatility of the midquote decreases, traders negociate on average lower volums and number of transactions and submit fewer buy and sell order intentions.

Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de analisar a importância do Novo Mercado da BM&FBOVESPA para o desenvolvimento do mercado de capitais brasileiro. O Novo Mercado é um segmento especial de empresas listadas na bolsa de valores que adotam boas práticas de Governança Corporativa em sua gestão. Aderindo a tais práticas, as empresas assumem compromissos de informação e transparência adicionais aos existentes na legislação, favorecendo o monitoramento das companhias pelo mercado e oferecendo maior proteção aos acionistas e credores. Dessa forma, a Governança Corporativa facilita o acesso das empresas aos mercados financeiros e de capitais para financiar suas atividades e auxilia na redução dos riscos das operações. Adicionalmente, minimiza os problemas de informação assimétrica existentes nos mercados financeiros e de capitais, melhorando sua eficiência. A partir da implementação do Novo Mercado, em dezembro de 2000, o mercado de capitais brasileiro vem passando por mudanças significativas. Cresceu em volume de negócios, liquidez e valorização das ações. Aumentou significativamente o número de empresas que vem se utilizando do mercado de capitais para captar recursos e financiar seus projetos e atividades através de emissões de ações em bolsa, com destaque para as adesões das novas empresas ao Novo Mercado da bolsa. Nesse contexto, este estudo aborda em que medida o Novo Mercado da BM&FBOVESPA vem contribuindo para o processo de desenvolvimento recente do mercado de capitais nacional. / This dissertation aims at analyzing the importance of the Novo Mercado at BM&FBOVESPA for the development of the Brazilian stock market. Novo Mercado is a special segment of the companies listed in the stock market that adopted good practices of Corporate Governance in their management. By adopting these practices, the companies accept additional commitment about information and transparency to the existing ones in the legislation, favoring the monitoring of the market over the companies and offering more protection to the shareholders and creditors. Thus the Corporate Governance facilitates the access to the financial and capital markets in order to finance their activities and help reduce the operation risks. Moreover, it reduces the problems about asymmetric information existent in the financial and stock markets, improving their efficiency. After the introduction of the Novo Mercado, on December 2000, the Brazilian capital market has changed significantly. The amount of business has increased - as well as liquidity. Stocks have gone up. There has been an increase in the number of companies using the capital market to raise money to finance their projects and activities through public stock offering. It is important to notice that new companies have adopted the Novo Mercado. In this context, this study looks into the contribution of the Novo Mercado of BM&FBOVESPA to the recent process of development of the national stock market.

Submitted by Joao Mendes (joao_mendes14@msn.com) on 2015-10-19T11:06:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 JMendes_Thesis FGV(14Aug2015).pdf: 1007852 bytes, checksum: b388f2d8462fe2b91d4eed87ab68fbd5 (MD5) / Rejected by Ana Luiza Holme (ana.holme@fgv.br), reason: Prezado João, Segundo as normas da ABNT o titulo do trabalho não aparece em todas as paginas do trabalho somente na capa, lombada e folha de aprovação. Tirar também das paginas acima mencionadas a palavra "Title". Tirar também seu nome do rodapé do trabalho. Faltou a introdução. A numeração das paginas não pode ser em numeral romano e deve aparecer a partir da introdução, sendo contada a partir da capa. o agradecimento é antes do resumo. Ana Luiza Holme 3799-3492 on 2015-10-19T12:16:52Z (GMT) / Submitted by Joao Mendes (joao_mendes14@msn.com) on 2015-10-19T15:49:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 JMendes_Thesis FGV(19OUT2015).pdf: 965643 bytes, checksum: f2221c6075ea24b3c800c2f507e8435a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Luiza Holme (ana.holme@fgv.br) on 2015-10-19T15:59:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 JMendes_Thesis FGV(19OUT2015).pdf: 965643 bytes, checksum: f2221c6075ea24b3c800c2f507e8435a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-19T16:03:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JMendes_Thesis FGV(19OUT2015).pdf: 965643 bytes, checksum: f2221c6075ea24b3c800c2f507e8435a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-24 / Este trabalho estuda se existe impacto na volatilidade dos mercados de ações em torno das eleições nacionais nos países da OCDE e nos países em Desenvolvimento. Ao mesmo tempo, pretende, através de variáveis explicativas, descobrir os fatores responsáveis por esse impacto. Foi descoberta evidência que o impacto das eleições na volatilidade dos mercados de ações é maior nos países em Desenvolvimento. Enquanto as eleições antecipadas, a mudança na orientação política e o tamanho da população foram os factores que explicaram o aumento da volatilidade nos países da OCDE, o nível democrático, número de partidos da coligação governamental e a idade dos mercados foram os factores explicativos para os países em Desenvolvimento. / This project studies whether there is impact in stock market volatility around national elections in OECD countries and Developing countries. At the same time, it pretends, through a set of explanatory variables, find the factors that are responsible for that impact. It was found evidence that the impact of elections in stock market volatility is bigger in Developing countries. While early elections, the change in political orientation and the size of population were the factors that explained the abnormal volatility in OECD countries, the level of democracy, the number of parties of the governmental coalition and the age of the stock markets were the ones for Developing countries.

This study examines how stock market returns and volatility responses to macroeconomic news announcements in US and Europe, and oil prices. Moreover, the market risk associated with these stock markets based on selected countries and regions is also analyzed here. In all chapters, the data is in a weekly time horizon and it covers 21 countries from different contents. In particular, Data covers three different time periods, i.e. full sample from 1/1/2000 to 12/31/2015, before the financial crisis, i.e. from 1/1/2000 to 9/27/2008 and after the financial crisis, i.e. from 10/11/2008 to 12/31/2015. Chapter 2 studies the impact of macroeconomic news announcements on stock markets in 21 countries using US and European countries macroeconomic news announcements. The first part investigates the impact of macroeconomic news announcements surprises in US and European Countries on stock markets returns in these countries. The second part analyzes the impact of macroeconomic news announcements in US and European Countries on stock markets volatility in these countries. Our results show that stock markets in selected countries react differently to macroeconomic news announcement in US and Europe. Chapter 3 study the interaction and volatility spillover between oil prices and stock markets returns and volatility in selected countries and regions. Oil prices are based on West Texas Intermediate (WTI). The analysis use VAR(1)-GARCH(1,1) model to capture the interdependence between stocks market and oil prices. The findings show that there is interdependence between stock markets and oil price changes in most selected countries and regions. Chapter 4 study the market risk in stock markets returns in selected countries and regions using IGARCH(1,1) and GARCH(1,1) to obtain the value at risk (VaR) and the expected shortfall (ES). The findings of chapter 4 show that market risk was high for most selected countries before the financial crisis and low after the financial crisis.