Over the last decade, researchers have attempted to show how efficient the markets are by using Fama’s Efficiency Market Hypothesis (EMH). The theory states that an investor cannot increase his returns without taking additional risk. The markets can be efficient in different forms depending on the information included in the traded asset. It is quoted that: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". However, the topic still remains disputable since researchers have introduced controversial findings after investigating different markets. Overall, emerging markets have been characterized with higher volatility which consequently declares for market imperfections. Commonly, these market inefficiencies are quickly captured by the eye of the investors who are lurking for potential benefits through exploiting them. These are the so called arbitrage opportunities which exist on different level of impact, depending on the attitude of the market. The existence of arbitrage is clear evidence against Fama’s theory and it has been documented in numerous studies. Unfortunately those events occur rarely and disappear in a matter of seconds, thus; is highly competitive to capitalize. Over the last decade high frequency trading (HFT) became popular on different markets and it allowed traders to make decisions and execute transactions in a matter of milliseconds using algorithms. The market we are interested in is the Forex market which is a decentralized market where currencies from all over the world are traded. Main participants include multinational banks which rely heavily on HFT. The method used to benefit from inefficiency is called triangular arbitrage and it involves selling and buying 3 sets of currency pairs in times when a parity is violated. The goal of this study is to answer the following research question, “Is there a difference in triangular arbitrage opportunities between emerging markets and developed ones?” The main objective of this research is to examine how the number of arbitrage occurrences varies considering different market characteristics. Furthermore, the originality of the research stems from the comparison between strategies using currencies from developed economies and emerging ones. Moreover, the additional academic value comes from the analysis of a new dataset that has not yet been examined. Lastly, our results make an empirical contribution into a country’s economy by reducing market inefficiencies and increasing economic stability. Our sample consists of quantitative data totaling to 2.4 million observations per quotation taken from 2011 and 2013 for currencies picked using a non-probability convenience method based on their property to be converted to EUR and USD currency and availability of information. The research revealed that differences between the two types of market exist, and indicates that the “early” markets possess higher arbitrage activity in contrast to the mature economies. These results should boost the potential for a better trading management and upgrade the profit growth.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. "Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, namely, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Morocco." -- Abstract. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 247-261.

Ο αντικειμενικός σκοπός της συγκεκριμένης εργασίας είναι να διερευνηθεί κατά πόσο και αν ισχύει η θεωρία της αποτελεσματικότητας των αγορών που πρωτοεισήχθη από τους Fama και French σε εβδομαδιαία δεδομένα που προέρχονται από το Χρηματιστήριο Αξιών της Μ. Βρετανίας για την περίοδο 1/1/2000 μέχρι 1/1/2010. / The investigation of the efficient market hypothesis with daily U.K. data, testing period from 1/1/2000 to 1/1/2010.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A alteração feita pelo IASB em 2008 na classificação dos instrumentos financeiros para reduzir as perdas bancárias com a crise do subprime e de títulos soberanos dos países-membros da União Europeia, após um pedido protocolado pela Comissão da União Europeia, motivou esta pesquisa. A referida alteração ensejou a mudança do critério de avaliação, que passou de valor justo para valor amortizado, para os instrumentos reclassificados, muito embora alguns bancos não tenham aderido à reclassificação, mantendo a orientação original que determinava a avaliação pelo valor justo. Através de Estudo de Evento testou-se a Hipótese de Eficiência de Mercado - HEM, analisando 33 instituições bancárias detentoras de títulos soberanos gregos. Embora a alteração tenha colaborado para que essas instituições bancárias protelassem essas perdas no resultado, não afetou os fluxos de caixa futuros. E como evidenciam os resultados da pesquisa, o mercado foi equitativo com essas instituições, penalizando-as com base no grau de exposição aos títulos gregos, independentemente do critério utilizado, corroborando a HEM: o valor de um ativo é o valor presente dos fluxos de caixa futuros e não dos lucros. Uma consequência importante foi que os governos, através da terceira revisão do Acordo de Capital de Basileia, adotaram medidas para regulamentar com mais rigor as instituições financeiras, no intuito que essas instituições, futuramente, possam suportar melhor os efeitos de uma crise financeira. / The changes made by the IASB in 2008 on the classification of financial instruments to reduce bank losses due the subprime crisis and sovereign bonds of member countries of the European Union, following a request filed by the Commission of the European Union, stimulated this research. This change gave rise to the change of the evaluation criterion, which went from fair value to amortized value for the reclassified instruments, although some banks have not adhered to the reclassification, keeping the original direction that determined the valuation at fair value. Through Event Study tested the hypothesis Market Efficiency - HME, analyzing 33 banks holding Greek sovereign bonds And as evidenced by the survey results, the market was fair to those institutions, penalizing them based on the degree of exposure to Greek bonds, regardless of the criteria used, confirming the HEM: the value of an asset is the present value of future cash flows and not profits. An important result was that governments, through the third revision of the Basel Capital Agreement, adopted measures to regulate more strictly the financial institutions, in order that these institutions in the future to better withstand the effects of a financial crisis.

This thesis investigates how the U.S President’s Twitter mentions of individual companies’ investment announcements influence the short-term price of their stock. By assuming that the President’s comments on a company’s plans should be incorporated by markets as new information, testing the Efficient Market Hypothesis assumption that the markets incorporate all new information, the thesis seeks to contribute to a new, unexplored and growing, research field. This thesis utilizes a qualitative analysis method, studying Twitter mentions on the topic of Trump’s Tax Reform. The data in this thesis is derived from the President’s personal Twitter-account, company announcements, stock price charts, and the Standard & Poor’s S&P500 Index. To conclude, this study finds that although the President’s Twitter comments may signal his public approval of a company and its plans, it appears that any market reaction is only short-term, and that as the market incorporates additional information it returns to an informed state in terms of stock valuations. This study suggests that there are few observable indicators that Trump’s positive mentions on Twitter causes any significant market reaction.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A alteração feita pelo IASB em 2008 na classificação dos instrumentos financeiros para reduzir as perdas bancárias com a crise do subprime e de títulos soberanos dos países-membros da União Europeia, após um pedido protocolado pela Comissão da União Europeia, motivou esta pesquisa. A referida alteração ensejou a mudança do critério de avaliação, que passou de valor justo para valor amortizado, para os instrumentos reclassificados, muito embora alguns bancos não tenham aderido à reclassificação, mantendo a orientação original que determinava a avaliação pelo valor justo. Através de Estudo de Evento testou-se a Hipótese de Eficiência de Mercado - HEM, analisando 33 instituições bancárias detentoras de títulos soberanos gregos. Embora a alteração tenha colaborado para que essas instituições bancárias protelassem essas perdas no resultado, não afetou os fluxos de caixa futuros. E como evidenciam os resultados da pesquisa, o mercado foi equitativo com essas instituições, penalizando-as com base no grau de exposição aos títulos gregos, independentemente do critério utilizado, corroborando a HEM: o valor de um ativo é o valor presente dos fluxos de caixa futuros e não dos lucros. Uma consequência importante foi que os governos, através da terceira revisão do Acordo de Capital de Basileia, adotaram medidas para regulamentar com mais rigor as instituições financeiras, no intuito que essas instituições, futuramente, possam suportar melhor os efeitos de uma crise financeira. / The changes made by the IASB in 2008 on the classification of financial instruments to reduce bank losses due the subprime crisis and sovereign bonds of member countries of the European Union, following a request filed by the Commission of the European Union, stimulated this research. This change gave rise to the change of the evaluation criterion, which went from fair value to amortized value for the reclassified instruments, although some banks have not adhered to the reclassification, keeping the original direction that determined the valuation at fair value. Through Event Study tested the hypothesis Market Efficiency - HME, analyzing 33 banks holding Greek sovereign bonds And as evidenced by the survey results, the market was fair to those institutions, penalizing them based on the degree of exposure to Greek bonds, regardless of the criteria used, confirming the HEM: the value of an asset is the present value of future cash flows and not profits. An important result was that governments, through the third revision of the Basel Capital Agreement, adopted measures to regulate more strictly the financial institutions, in order that these institutions in the future to better withstand the effects of a financial crisis.

Aktiemarknaden har en mängd olika teorier som förklarar hur människor agerar och hur de grundar sina beslut, de valda teorierna i studien är portföljteorin, den effektiva marknadshypotesen (EMH), beteendeekonomi, beteendeportföljteori och den adaptiva marknadshypotesen (AMH). De valda teorierna förklarar samma områden men på olika sätt, portföljteorin och EMH som säger att marknaden är effektiv och att människor är rationella. Beteendeekonomi, beteendeportföljteorin (BPT) och AMH säger istället att människor inte är rationella utan att de är normala; investerare har olika bias och agerar utifrån sina egna bedömningar. AMH skiljer sig något från beteendeekonomi och beteendeportföljteorin, men det de har gemensamt är att de förklarar investerares agerande med bland annat psykologi och beteendemönster. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur investerare agerar, hur mycket de diversifierar och hur riskbenägna de är, sedan jämföra resultatet med vad de olika teorierna inom aktiemarknaden säger, för att kunna dra slutsatser om investerarnas agerande. Studien använder sig av tvärsnittsdesign i form av en enkät för att samla in kvantitativ data. Herfindahl-Hirscher index (HHI) kommer att användas för att mäta koncentrationen (diversifieringen) i respektive respondents portfölj. För att kunna göra regressionsanalyser och leta efter samband behövs information om vem respondenten är och hur hans/hennes bakgrund ser ut. Det är 287 respondenter som har lämnat fullständiga svar på enkäten och är underlaget för studiens empiriska resultat. Studiens resultat jämförs med vad teorierna säger om diversifiering, riskbenägenhet och självsäkerhet (overconfidence). Slutsatserna som studien kommer fram till är att de investerare som är mest självsäkra är de som är aktieägare, har studerat ekonomi, arbetar på bank och de som hellre köper aktier själv, samt att män tenderar att vara mer självsäkra än kvinnor. Ju självsäkrare investeraren är desto mer riskbenägen är han/hon, de som arbetar på bank och/eller är aktieägare är de som är mest riskbenägna. De som diversifierar mest är yngre investerare och de som studerat ekonomi, är aktieägare och/eller föredrar att handla aktier själva, vilket betyder att ju mer relevant kunskap och erfarenhet investerare har om aktier desto mer diversifierar de. Det har inte gjorts någon slutsats om vilken teori som förklarar investerarnas agerande på bästa sätt, då resultatet har kopplats och förklarats av de flesta teorierna som omfattas av studien. / The stock market has a variety of theories that explains how people act and how they base their decisions. The chosen theories in the study are portfolio theory, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH), behavioral finance, behavioral portfolio theory and the adaptive market hypothesis (AMH). The study uses cross-sectional design in the form of a survey to collect quantitative data. The purpose of the paper is to examine how investors act, how much they diversify and how risk averse they are, and then the results are compared with the theories of this thesis. The conclusions drawn by the study are that investors who own stocks are the ones that are the most confident, have studied economics, work at banks and those who prefer to buy stocks themselves, and that men tend to be more confident than women. Those who diversify most are younger investors, those who study economics, are shareholders and/or prefer to trade shares themselves, which means that the more relevant knowledge and experience investors have about stocks, the more they diversify. It has not been decided which theory best explains how investors act; most theories are rather used to clarify the results.

Can momentum trading strategies beat Dutch or German stock market indices? If so, dothose strategies show significant positive net returns? For the period from March 2009 to March 2016this appears to be the case for only one out of the nine momentum trading strategies investigated withrespect to the Dutch stock market and for none of those same momentum trading strategiesinvestigated with respect to the German stock market. Furthermore, this research finds that the netmomentum returns seem to be winner- instead of loser-portfolio driven and that the longer the holdingperiod, the higher the net momentum returns realized.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The primary objectives of this research are to determine whether indices constructed from fundamental attributes of ALSI constituents outperform indices weighted by market capitalisations; and whether the performance of fundamental indices could be explained by size and value risk factors. The examination period is 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2009. The JSE ALSI constituent’s fundamental attributes; book values, dividends, earnings and sales together with their market values are extracted from DataStream International. Indices are subsequently constructed according to share’s market values and the four aforementioned fundamental attributes as well as a composite metric. The composite metric is a combination of all four fundamental attributes. Fundamental indices are found to be more mean-variance efficient than cap-weighted indices, whilst displaying moderate value bias and minor size bias. Fundamental indices exhibit lower risk-adjusted returns when rebalanced less frequently, except for sales-weighted indices which justly capture undervalued shares that mean revert throughout the year. Fundamental indexation is therefore, adjudged to be superior to cap-weighted methods and only relatively affected by value effect

Purpose The main purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the investment attractiveness of oil and gas stocks (registered on Nasdaq Stockholm) in face of the increasing campaigns for the adoption of clean energy. The findings can help in the formulation of relevant policy implications on the campaign for a cleaner environment Design/Methodology/Approach The authors assume positivism and objectivity as the philosophical aspects for the purpose of this study. Following these initial considerations, the nature of the study was adopted as quantitative. This follows a longitudinal design and a deductive approach, basing the paper on previous literature in the areas of environmental sustainability, market efficiency, financial news items and their effect on stock volatility in order to test own hypothesis.    Theory Following the methodological assumptions and the adoption of a deductive approach, relevant theory was selected to address the focus of previous research on which the research gaps and purpose are based. It also plays a role in introducing the reader to the relevant theories which will aid comprehension of further sections of this paper. Theories surrounding market efficiency, risk and return, the oil and gas industry and sustainability have all been mentioned.  Findings In order to fulfil the purpose of the study, the authors studied whether the volatility of oil and gas stocks are affected by clean energy related news. The empirical results suggest that the volatility of oil and gas stocks decline whenever news of clean energy is introduced, implying clean energy news cause lower volatility. To this end, oil and gas stocks are better off whenever clean energy/sustainability news are introduced into the market.  Analysis The empirical results seem to point to the fact that oil and gas firms may be benefiting from the investment they have made within the last two decades towards the issue of doing business in a more sustainable and socially responsible manner. It is therefore possible that investors get to reward them whenever news relating to sustainability and clean energy are announced. Conclusions  This thesis confirms the attractiveness of oil and gas stocks notwithstanding the increasing campaigns and initiatives aimed at promoting the adoption of clean energy.  Research limitations The research was limited in terms of setting since it only covered Sweden and therefore cannot answer questions regarding the overall attractiveness of oil and gas stocks across the globe.