No description available.

The literature reveals that, behavioural finance lends some support to the methodologies of both fundamental and technical analysis. Behavioural Finance supports the concept of investment behaviour being grounded in two dimensions, viz., the dimensions of emotion and rationality. The evidence, presented in the literature suggests that fundamental analysis is grounded in the rational investor, while technical analysis is an attempt to model the behavioural side of investing through trend following, charting and the use of indicators (e.g., momentum, stochastic, etc.). Typically large investment houses tend to use both technical and fundamental analysis; technical analysis appears to be used primarily for timing, while fundamental analysis is used to establish intrinsic or fair value of the share under focus – thus making it easy to establish whether the share is cheap or expensive.

The literature reveals that, behavioural finance lends some support to the methodologies of both fundamental and technical analysis. Behavioural Finance supports the concept of investment behaviour being grounded in two dimensions, viz., the dimensions of emotion and rationality. The evidence, presented in the literature suggests that fundamental analysis is grounded in the rational investor, while technical analysis is an attempt to model the behavioural side of investing through trend following, charting and the use of indicators (e.g., momentum, stochastic, etc.). Typically large investment houses tend to use both technical and fundamental analysis; technical analysis appears to be used primarily for timing, while fundamental analysis is used to establish intrinsic or fair value of the share under focus – thus making it easy to establish whether the share is cheap or expensive.

Background: Investing internationally is easier than ever before, with the rise of the internet, unification of accounting standards, and faster flow of information. Yet, many argue that due to increasing global equity market correlations, it is getting increasingly hard to attain benefits from international diversification. Therefore, it is important to know if there are any benefits attainable from international diversification for Swedish investors. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if there are any benefits achievable from international diversification for Swedish investors, if those benefits have changed from before and after the financial crisis in 2007/2008, as well as where Swedish investors might attain the greatest benefits from diversification; namely in developed- or emerging markets. Method: Correlations are measured over the time periods before and after the financial crisis, using both a 61-month correlation window (the entire periods) as well as a 12-month rolling correlation window.  To test diversification benefits, different portfolios are created using the Markowitz Portfolio Optimizer, such as a Maximum Sharpe portfolio and an Equal Weighted portfolio. Conclusion: Correlations have increased from before and after the financial crisis, both for developed- and emerging markets. Diversification benefits exist for Swedish investors, but they have decreased from before and after the financial crisis, and they appear slightly greater in emerging markets than in developed markets.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2013. / This paper analyses the provision of development finance to oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) firms through Development Finance Institutes (DFIs) in Africa. The paper aims to determine the state of equity markets and development finance in Africa and the level at which they contribute to the financing of oil and gas projects in Africa. The main question to be answered: is small firm participation sustainable in the oil and gas industry if equity markets do not develop to meet the financing needs in Africa? It is found that development finance contributes a small proportion of capital into oil and gas deals and financial equity markets play an even smaller role in garnering finance for capital intensive projects in the oil and gas industry as most finance is sourced externally or from internal cash flows. Small firms tend to reduce their interest in oil and gas projects based on lack of access to domestic finance through equity markets and limited development finance availability.

This dissertation addresses two major issues. First, it investigates whether currency risk commands a significant premium in representative equity markets in Africa. The International Arbitrage Pricing Theory and the Stochastic Discount Factor model respectively provide the analytical frameworks for the unconditional and the conditional asset pricing models used to investigate currency risk pricing. Empirical data analysis uses the Generalized Method of Moments estimation technique. Second, it examines the nexus between real foreign exchange rates and net international portfolio flows in representative capital markets in Africa. Time series and panel data techniques are employed to this end. The study covers seven major African countries: Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa over the period January 1997 through December 2009. Foreign exchange risk is found to be non-priced unconditionally when returns are measured in the US dollar; weakly priced unconditionally when returns are measured in the euro; and priced with time-varying risk premia in the conditional sense. Africa’s equity markets are found to be partially integrated with the rest of the world. Monthly international portfolio flows to Africa are found to be low, non-persistent and relatively volatile. Using monthly data, Granger causality tests and innovation accounting from vector autoregressions (VARs), the study shows that the dynamic relationship between the real exchange rates and net portfolio flows is both country-dependent and time-varying. The findings are robust to alternative VAR specifications. However, annual data exhibit strong causality moving from real exchange rates to net portfolio flows, suggesting that fluctuations in real exchange rates inform the investment decisions of foreign investors in Africa’s capital markets. Among the key policy implications, it is recommended that, in addition to the US dollar and precious metals, Africa’s monetary authorities should regard the euro as an important reserve currency; that policies be put in place to expedite the development of private fixed income securities and derivatives markets; that sound monetary policies be instituted to ensure that interest rate changes are market-determined and inflationary pressures are well-managed; and that regional markets integration and financial sector development policies be pursued more meticulously by governments in Africa.

This thesis investigates the profitability of the Momentum and Contrarian strategies in international equity markets. In particular, I introduce for the first time the use of countries' indices performance to momentum and contrarian portfolio selection. I show that investors can switch back and forth from one country to the other in designing worldwide strategies. The global momentum strategy is consistently profitable between 1969 and 2014. The most successful momentum strategy selects stocks based on their previous performances over 9 months and then holds the portfolio for the next 3 months. This strategy yields 3% per month (42.57% per year). Interestingly, countries' indices' portfolios formed based on prior 48 months; prior losers outperform prior winners by 0.83% per month (10.40% per year) during the subsequent 60 months. The reversal effect is substantially stronger for emerging countries where it yields 1.37% per month (17.70% per year). It remains profitable in the period post-globalization. In addition, I examine for the first time the role of world risks factors in explaining the global momentum and contrarian profits and find that the global momentum strategies obtain significant abnormal returns after adjusting consecutively for world Fama and French risks (0.9% per month or 11.35% per year), and world market states risks (1.31% per month or 16.76% year). Of particular interest, I find a strong relation between world macroeconomic risks factors, notably world industrial production and the momentum return. Second, I find no substantial relation between world risks factors and the contrarian profit. These results suggest that excess return can be earned in the long run by using global investment strategies based on historical prices, challenging the weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. In Chapter 1, I explain the momentum and the contrarian strategies, motivate the importance of what I propose as global momentum and contrarian strategies, and present the results obtained. In chapter 2, I review the Efficient Market Hypothesis' literatures in conformity with the Standard Finance theory. Additionally, I review the Behavioural Finance literatures with a focus on the psychology of investor decision, and the stock market under-reaction and overreaction approach of explaining the momentum and contrarian profitability. In chapter 3, I explain in details the main methodologies used to examine the global momentum and contrarian strategies profitability, and motivate the dataset used. In Chapter 4, I examine the new global momentum strategy profitability internationally. In Chapter 5, I examine the new contrarian strategy profitability internationally. In Chapter 6 I examine the role of global risks factors in explaining the momentum and contrarian profits. Finally, in Chapter 7 I conclude and highlights the limitations of the thesis.

This thesis focuses on five of the founding nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The countries are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines (ASEAN5). Asset pricing for the ASEAN5 equity markets is the main focus of this thesis, although we also develop vector error correction models (VECM) for GDP, trade and local equity market returns for the ASEAN5. While this allows further analysis of the robustness of asset pricing models, it also facilitates study of the fundamental links that exist within these economies. The traditional CAPM and the four factor-model that include market, size, value and momentum effects (Fama and French, 1993; Carhart, 1997) are employed in testing the variation in size/book-to-market equity (size-BTME) and industry portfolio returns for these markets for the period from January 1990 to March 2006. Three macro factors as well as world excess returns are then added to the basic four-factor asset pricing model. These macro factors include unexpected GDP, unexpected total trade and unexpected equity market returns, which are derived from VECM or VAR estimates for ASEAN5 GDP, total trade and equity market returns. This model is referred to as the macro-factor model. The results suggest that the explanatory power of the four-factor model consistently exceeds those of the one-factor CAPM in explaining size-BTME and industry portfolio returns. Further, the macro-factor model analysis suggests that collectively, this model does not substantially improve the explanatory power of the basic four-factor model, suggesting that the variation in portfolio returns is mostly captured by the four-factor model. There is some cross-country variation in these results. Regardless, these macro factors − taken as a group or individually − are statistically significant, particularly for Thailand and Malaysia. In addition, the cointegration test results document evidence of long-run linkages for the equity markets within the ASEAN5. This is also true for GDP within the ASEAN5. In both cases, closer links prevail in the post-crisis period. This is not the case for trade where there is little consistent evidence of close links between the countries. Mixed results are found for different ASEAN5 trade measures where the linkages for total trade, import and exports vary substantially according to the selected period of study, whether full period, pre-crisis or post-crisis period.

<p>This thesis examines the influence of investor protection and legal origin on equity market size. Previous studies have shown a relationship between legal origin and equity markets as well as quality of law. We examine whether there are any relationship between stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP, private property rights, anti director rights and legal origin.</p><p>We use data from 49 countries in our sample that is collected from the World Bank, Heri-tage foundation and La Porta et al. (1998). Our study is based upon a cross-sectional re-gressions and a variance analyzes.</p><p>Our results show that property rights as well as anti director rights have a positive relation-ship to stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP. We could not find any signifi-cant results in our regressions that stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP can be explained by legal origin.</p><p>We consider previous conducted studies regarding legal origin to have exaggerated legal origins’ impact on equity markets. Equity markets are more related to the level of develop-ment in countries, no matter legal origin.</p>

This thesis examines the influence of investor protection and legal origin on equity market size. Previous studies have shown a relationship between legal origin and equity markets as well as quality of law. We examine whether there are any relationship between stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP, private property rights, anti director rights and legal origin. We use data from 49 countries in our sample that is collected from the World Bank, Heri-tage foundation and La Porta et al. (1998). Our study is based upon a cross-sectional re-gressions and a variance analyzes. Our results show that property rights as well as anti director rights have a positive relation-ship to stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP. We could not find any signifi-cant results in our regressions that stock market capitalization as a percentage of GDP can be explained by legal origin. We consider previous conducted studies regarding legal origin to have exaggerated legal origins’ impact on equity markets. Equity markets are more related to the level of develop-ment in countries, no matter legal origin.