"This paper describes our work in exploring trading strategies for the leveraged exchange-traded funds, Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X (FAS) and Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X (FAZ) over the first three quarters of 2009. Using minute-by-minute stock data we are able to verify the accuracy of these ETFs in regards to their target of the Russell 1000 Financial Index (RIFIN). We are then able to quantify the returns and risks involved with trading strategies that seek to exploit the ETFs objectives, specifically momentum trades, tracking-error discrepancy trades, and a combination of the two strategies we term “discount-and-up.” Bootstrap simulation techniques are employed to measure values at risk and conditional tail expectations over 30 day time horizons for each strategy. Lastly, we demonstrate the dangers of traditional buy-and-hold investing with regards to leveraged ETFs."

Background: Ever since Sharpe, Treynor and Jensen advanced the methods of fund performance evaluation in the 60’s it has been a popular field of study in academia. As the intricacies of fund performance was untangled it became clear that paying for active management doesn’t yield higher cost adjusted returns. An Index investment strategy is the most sensible approach and it’s the associated cost which separate index vehicles. Exchange traded funds have risen as a competitor to the conventional index mutual fund but the research evaluating these is very scarce. The research conducted comparing the costs of the two vehicles do not take into account implicit transaction costs that in turn depend on specific market microstructure designs and could affect the cost relationship. The problem: Do liquidity and market structural disparities between markets affect the cost relationship between exchange traded funds and index mutual funds, through the implicit transaction cost? Objective of the research: The objective of this paper is to examine whether structural differences between markets affect implicit transaction costs to the extent that the cost relationship between index funds and exchange traded funds differ from earlier findings. Method: The need to generalize the findings prompted a quantitative approach to the research. Comparative examination will be done on the microstructure and liquidity of two different markets. The transaction costs will then be measured with statistical means and incorporated in a cost comparison model. Result and conclusion: There are architectural and liquidity differences between the two sample markets allowing for systematic differences in transaction cost, which were found but were not a significant contributor to the tracking error cost of the index mutual funds. The Swedish ETF do not get more profitable as the investment sum increases. A finding which contradicts earlier findings and is likely a consequence of the Swedish tax-laws for capital gains as well as the higher levels of management fees for ETFs. ETFs might still be a worthwhile investment since they possess unique qualitative benefits.

[pt] O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a eficiência na precificação de três dos Exchange-Traded Funds brasileiros mais líquidos (BOVA11, SMAL11 e PIBB11), buscando determinar se eles seguem com bastante proximidade os índices que procuram replicar, comparando com o que é observado na literatura internacional no que diz respeito ao desempenho de ETFs estrangeiros. Inicialmente verificou-se a estratégia de replicação adotada, bem como a qualidade dessa replicação a partir da avaliação do tracking error observado nesses fundos. Em seguida buscou-se avaliar se há algum desvio na precificação entre o preço de negociação e o valor patrimonial líquido (NAV) do respectivo ETF, ou seja, se o ativo está sendo negociado, na média, com prêmio ou desconto. Por fim, foi analisada a persistência dos prêmios ou descontos encontrados, isto é, quanto tempo leva até o preço de mercado e o NAV voltarem ao equilíbrio. Os resultados encontrados mostram que os fundos BOVA11 e PIBB11 adotam uma estratégia de full replication, enquanto o SMAL11 apresenta uma estratégia de otimização. O tracking error encontrado está em linha com aqueles observados em ETFs europeus e os três fundos estudados são negociados, na média, com desconto. Finalmente, tanto BOVA11 e PIBB11 levam sete dias para voltarem ao equilíbrio, bastante acima da média observada na literatura internacional, enquanto o SMAL11 leva apenas dois dias para isso, o que é inesperado já que é o fundo menos líquido dentre os analisados. Os resultados indicam que as ferramentas de arbitragem não estão sendo utilizadas de maneira eficiente. / [en] The objective of this study is to analyze the pricing efficiency of three of the most liquid brazilian Exchange-Traded Funds (BOVA11, SMAL11 and PIBB11) and determine if they follow closely the indexes they try to replicate, comparing with the international literature regarding the foreign ETFs performance. Firstly, this study verifies which strategy is adopted by each fund, as well as the quality of this replication by evaluating the tracking error observed in these funds. Then it is analyzed if there is any deviation between the trading price and the net asset value (NAV) of the respective ETF, that is, if the security is being traded, on average, with a premium or discount. Finally, it is evaluated the persistence of those premiums and discounts found, that is, how much time it takes until the trading price and the NAV go back to equilibrium. The results showed that both BOVA11 and PIBB11 adopt a full replication strategy, while SMAL11 presents an optimization strategy. The tracking error found is in line with those observed in European ETFs and the three funds are traded, on average, with a discount. Finally, both BOVA11 and PIBB11 take seven days to go back to equilibrium, while SMAL11 only takes two days, an unexpected result as this is the least liquid fund of the three that are part of this study. Therefore, the arbitrage tools are not being used efficiently.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The notion of market efficiency posits that stock prices fully reflect all available information in a timely manner. The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) proposed by Fama (1970) systematically rules out the profitability of information driven investing, and implicitly promulgates a passive market capitalisation weighted investment strategy such as indexing. The appeal of passive strategies has largely been driven by the growth of passive tracking instruments, which allow investors to earn underlying index performance by purchasing a single security such as an exchange traded fund (ETF). On the contrary, proponents of behavioural finance suggest that investors are irrational and subject to psychological biases. Furthermore, the noisy market hypothesis of Siegel (2006) asserts that the deviations from the economic ideal of rationality proposed by the EMH, introduces noise in the market which could lead prices to deviate from their intrinsic values. The resultant drag in performance of market capitalisation weighted indices suggests that the optimal cap-weighted market portfolio promulgated by the modern portfolio theory (MPT) of Markowitz (1952), ceases to be the most mean-variance approach to asset allocation. With the goal of testing the applications of ETF’s, this study first evaluates the performance of passive sector ETF’s in the global equity market. In addition, motivated by the potential inefficiencies of capweighted portfolios, the study tests optimisation based asset allocation techniques, and technical analysis based market timing strategies. The study employs the S&P Global 1200 sector indices and their respective sector ETF’s to test their performances and applications in passive and active investment strategies, over the period from July 5th, 2002 to February 6th, 2015. The ETF’s are evaluated based on their tracking ability and price efficiency. All 10 sector ETF’s possess insignificant tracking errors and successfully replicate the performance of their underlying indices. In addition, the globalsector ETF’s are not price efficient over the study period, as they possess persistent price deviations from their net asset values (NAV’s). Furthermore, the ETF trading strategy based on the relationship between ETF returns and price deviations, proves to be effective in outperforming the passive buy and hold strategy in the majority of the sectors. The sector decomposition of the cap-weighted S&P Global 1200 index which is employed as the market proxy, reveals that its sector allocation remains fairly stable throughout the study period. In contrast, the optimal historical sector composition incurs large changes in sector exposure from year to year and provides substantially superior performance relative to the cap-weighted market portfolio. The cap-weighted portfolio tends to overweight cyclical sectors and underweight resilient sectors during major economic downturns. The long-only, long-short and market neutral strategies developed from the S&P Global 1200 index and its constituent sector indices provide exceptional risk-adjusted performance, and more meanvariance efficient portfolios than the cap-weighted market proxy. The relaxation of the longonly constraint also improves the optimised portfolios risk-adjusted performance, mainly through risk reduction benefits. The performance of the optimised global sector based portfolios also resembles the performances of the global style based optimised portfolios developed by Hsieh (2010), thereby suggesting that the two approaches are analogous. The 3 technical market timing strategies tested in this research provide varying results. The sector momentum portfolios experience significant positive returns during bull markets, however the portfolios incur significant drawdowns during periods of economic turmoil such as the 2008 global financial crisis. As a result, all sector momentum portfolios provide inferior risk-adjusted returns relative to the passive cap-weighted buy and hold strategy. The exponential moving average (EMA) trend timing strategy promulgated by Hsieh (2010) provides impressive risk-management attributes and superior risk-adjusted performance relative to passive buy and hold benchmarks. Similarly, the alternative technical charting heuristics trend timing strategy helps reduce drawdowns during market crashes, however the charting strategy provides inferior cost and risk-adjusted performance relative to the capweighted buy and hold approach due to larger timing errors and longer hedging periods in comparison to the EMA strategy. In addition, the global tactical sector allocation (GTSA) model tests the EMA and technical charting trend timing tools in the context of a global sector portfolio, and the model provides outstanding cost and risk-adjusted performances relative to the passive investing alternatives. The portfolio based GTSA model highlights the benefits of portfolio diversification and successfully hedges market exposure during economic downturns.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Since the listing of the Satrix 40 in November 2000, Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs) have grown to become an investment vehicle of choice amongst retail and institutional investors of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE). Albeit gaining such an enormous traction, investors' remains curious about ETFs ability to successfully replicate the movements of their target benchmark indices and also their capability to yield arbitrage profit opportunity through mispricing. In addition to that, investors are also interested to know whether ETFs as an index tracking investment vehicle are resilient in variously cycles of the economy. Motivated by this gap in the body of knowledge, this research undertakes to evaluate the tracking ability and pricing efficiency of 19 ETFs listed on the JSE over various cycles of the economy. According to Faulkner, Loewald and Makrelov (2013) South African economy experienced the effect of the 2008 global financial crisis between 1 September 2008 and 30 June 2009. For that reason, the examination period of this research is segmented into four main categories namely: full examination period which spans from the launch date of each of the ETF under review until 30 September 2015, pre-crisis period that is between the launch date and 29August 2008, crisis-period dated 1 September 2008 and 30 June 2009 and the post-crisis or the recovery phase being 1 July 2009 through 30 September 2015. The tracking ability results across all the sub-periods suggested that, on average, ETFs yields daily returns which closely resemble that of their target benchmark indices but with relatively high level of volatility. With regard to the tracking error as another tracking ability measurement, it was discovered that the ETFs under review were inadequately replicating the movements of their target benchmark indices irrespective of the economic cycle. In tandem with the evidence documented by Mateus and Rahmani (2014) from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), tracking errors were substantially high during the 2008 global financial crisis as opposed to the prior and the post crisis period. Across all the examination periods, sizeable amount of tracking error was found to be associated to the ETFs which mimics the international broad-market access underlying indices. Amongst other things, the diversity of these indices as well as the trading hours overlap between the JSE and their host market were found to be the key attributing factors. On the contrary, ETFs which replicates most liquid target benchmark indices such as the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index appeared to have lower tracking error on relative basis. In this regard, the liquidity of the FTSE/JSE Top 40 index proved to be the main attribute. Apart from the diversity or the liquidity of indices, the length of the examination period also had a significant influence towards the magnitude of tracking errors. In this instance, shorter examination period were found to be characterised by noise or volatility in the market which makes it difficult for the ETFs providers to promptly rebalance their portfolios and align them to their target benchmark indices. Over and above these factors, this research discovered that tracking errors across all the sub-periods were largely driven by management fees and daily volatility of the ETFs market prices, more especially during the crisis period. On the one hand, trading volume and the effect of dividends distribution had a negative influence towards the magnitude of tracking errors. On the question of how efficient these 19 ETFs are, the empirical findings revealed that significant deviation between the ETFs closing price and the Net Asset Value (NAV) does exist either being a discount or premium. In line with the prior work on the JSE by Charteris (2013), ETFs which mimics local based indices were found to be trading mostly on a discount to the NAV whilst the opposite was true in the case of the international broad-market access ETFs. At the same token, international broad-market access ETFs portrayed sizeable amount of premiums across all the cycles of the economy. In line with the analysis of tracking errors, such enormous premiums were mainly driven by lack of synchronicity in the trading hours between the JSE and host market wherein these ETFs target benchmark indices are listed. Empirical literature suggests that ETFs that exhibit discount and premium which fails to persist for more than one trading day are deemed to be efficiently priced since there is limited opportunity to arbitrage. On that note, this research found that mispricing of ETFs which mimics most liquid indices such as the domestic broad-market access and sectorial indices disappears within a period of one trading day. For that reason, majority of these ETFs were considered to be efficiently priced against their NAV. Contrarily, discounts and premiums exhibited by ETFs which mostly replicate style based and the international broad-market access indices appeared to be persistent even to the fifth trading day. From the attribution point of view, the complexity of these ETFs underlying indices as well as the trading hours overlap between the JSE and the host market of these indices were found to be the main drivers of such level of mispricing. In addition to that, attribution analysis through linear regression proved that transaction cost (bid-ask spread), daily volatility of the ETFs market prices as well as the impact of trading volume had a positive influence towards the existence of discounts and premiums observed across all sub-periods.

Tracking ability of leveraged and inverse exchange traded funds can be very important to investors looking for a dependable return. If the investor wants to put their money on a certain index they feel strongly about, they expect their investment vehicle to track that return appropriately. Over the years, we have seen tremendous growth in the exchange traded fund industry. In 2006, leveraged and inverse funds were introduced to the market, allowing investors to take leveraged and directional trades on indices. These investment vehicles can be traded as easily as any stock, and therefore need some attention. Since any novice investor can access and trade these funds, they need to be aware of the risks they are taking. In this study, I test whether the ProShares S&P tracking leveraged and inverse exchange traded funds track their appropriate index multiple as promised. I did this by running regressions on each fund against the appropriate multiple of their underlying indices. I did this for funds of different market capitalization, for different holding periods, and with different amounts of leverage, to compare how these funds track in different conditions. I found that the large cap funds tend to track the best, with the small cap funds tracking the worst. I also find that tracking error tends to increase with longer holding periods. I find that the distribution of excess returns becomes less normal over longer holding periods, and begins to flatten out and widen. There does not seem to be a concrete conclusion as to whether or not the amount of leverage affects the tracking ability of the funds. I end up with mixed results when comparing amounts of leverage by model fit and by tracking error. Direction also does not seem to play any role in the tracking ability of these funds.

Between 1993 and 2016, the U.S. exchange traded fund (ETF) market has proliferated from one product worth $6.5 million USD to 1,455 products worth over $2 trillion USD. Despite its dramatic growth, the ETF market has yet to be the subject of sociological inquiry even though fields such as the social studies of finance have begun examining the origins of index derivatives (Millo 2007), options (MacKenzie 2006), hedge funds (Hardie and MacKenzie 2007), and foreign exchange markets (Knorr Cetina and Bruegger 2002). Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to provide the first historical sociology of ETF innovation in the United States, using an approach inspired by the social studies of finance. This project empirically traces the emergence of the ETF by compiling an account of precursory strategies, concept development, regulatory negotiations, and early product marketing. The concept of agencement is used to frame the historical narrative of the ETF as a product of two distinct assemblages that formed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000: first, the socio-technical integration between humans and their technologies that affected trading strategies, and second, the collaborative relationships that were formed between innovators and regulators. The mixed qualitative research consists of 36 interviews triangulated with archival records, documents sourced through Freedom of Information Act requests, private collections, and government files. Concluding analysis suggests that strategies foreshadowing the ETF began to emerge as early as the 1970s, and innovator-regulator collaborations were integral to early product qualification - a process not yet explored in literature on financial regulation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:40:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Franco Ribeiro.pdf: 581960 bytes, checksum: 0c20561d151693cda933516c6eb0c17b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-11-03 / The phenomenom wich narrows and puts closer international relations around the world known as globalization has reached the development of financial markets. The Exchange Traded Funds (ETF´s) have also been involved on this process. Globalization has brought a wide exposure to international markets creating opportunities in several asset classes with lower costs and minimal investments, thus making ETF´s an extremely attractive product. This paper intends to show how ETF´s works, its creation, redemption and dealing process since such investment funds are still unknow to Brazilian investors. In addition, international portfolios will be built with ETF´s indexed cross-country equity markets, the main objective is check if a Brazilian investor may optimize his portfolio comparing international portfolios built with the brazilian asset market given by the EWZ fund / O fenômeno que estreita e aproxima as relações internacionais nos mais diversos níveis e cuja expressão globalização foi cunhada para nomeá-lo, também alcança os mercados financeiros. Os fundos de índice negociados em bolsa de valores conhecidos como ETF´s (exchange traded funds) encontram-se dentro desse processo. A possibilidade de obter exposições em diversos mercados internacionais e nas mais diversas classes de ativos a custos relativamente baixos e valores mínimos para investimento seja talvez um dos principais atrativos desse novo produto financeiro. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho pretende mostrar a criação e o funcionamento desses fundos, que ainda são pouco conhecidos no Brasil. E, a partir daí, montar carteiras internacionais, com fundos ETF indexados ao mercado de ações de diversos países, compará-las com o ativo de mercado brasileiro em dólares americanos, tentando verificar se o investidor brasileiro conseguiria otimizar a relação risco x retorno de seu portfólio por meio da diversificação com ETF´s

In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, the European Union has devised a sustainable finance strategy that relies on the engagement of both institutional and private investors in responsible investing to deliver on those goals. Several studies have found high interest in responsible investing among retail investors, but a relatively low engagement therein. Research up to this point on the responsible investing experience of retails investors has not established a clear cause for the gap between interest and engagement and has particularly neglected the increasingly popular investment type of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This thesis therefore aims to shed light on the obstacles that prevent retail investors from investing in responsible ETFs. The research is organized by a five-stage framework for the responsible ETF investing process that identifies potential obstacles in the first three process stages problem recognition, information search, and evaluation of alternatives. An empirical analysis was performed by means of an online survey of European retail ETF investors and non-ETF investors (n = 101). The results indicate that the majority of retail investors experience a gap between their interest and engagement in responsible ETF investing. The most difficult stage of the responsible ETF investing process appears to be the evaluation of alternatives. Incomparability of information on responsible ETFs and a lack of labels and standardization present obstacles that impair investors’ ability to evaluate different options for responsible ETFs. The incomparability of information can be ascribed to the divergence of environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings. The survey further found a high support among ETF investors for the planned standardizations and regulations by the EU and increased willingness to invest in responsible ETFs if these measures are implemented. These findings emphasize the role of regulations in facilitating responsible investing and pave the way for more comprehensive studies on the information needs and obstacles of European retail ETF investors. / Inom ramen för målen för hållbar utveckling och Parisavtalet har Europeiska unionen utformat en hållbar finansstrategi som bygger på att både institutionella och privata investerare engagerar sig i ansvarsfulla investeringar för att uppnå dessa mål. Flera studier har visat stort intresse för att göra ansvarsfulla investeringar bland privatinvesterare, men ett relativt lågt engagemang däri. Forskning som är aktuell om privatinvesterare erfarenheter har inte visat någon tydlig orsak till klyftan mellan intresse och engagemang och har särskilt försummat den alltmer populära investeringstypen av börshandlade fonder (ETF). Avhandlingen syftar därför till att belysa de hinder som hindrar privatinvesterare från att investera i ansvarsfulla ETF:er. Forskningen är organiserad av ett femstegsramverk för den ansvarsfulla ETF-investeringsprocessen som identifierar potentiella hinder i de tre första processtegen för problemigenkänning, informationssökning och utvärdering av alternativ. En empirisk analys utfördes med hjälp av en online-undersökning av europeiska ETF-investerare och icke-ETFinvesterare (n = 101). Resultaten visar att majoriteten av privatinvesterare upplever ett gap mellan deras intresse och engagemang för ansvarsfull ETF-investering. Det svåraste steget i den ansvariga ETF-investeringsprocessen verkar vara utvärderingen av alternativ. Ojämförbarheten mellan information om ansvarsfulla ETF:er och brist på klassificering och standardisering utgör betydande hinder som försämrar investerarnas förmåga att utvärdera olika alternativ för ansvariga ETF:er. Informationens ojämförbarhet kan tillskrivas skillnaderna mellan miljömässiga, sociala och styresmässiga (ESG) betyg. Undersökningen fann vidare ett stort stöd bland ETF-investerare för EU:s planerade standardiseringar och regler och ökad vilja att investera i ansvarsfulla ETF om dessa åtgärder genomförs. Dessa resultat  betonar regelverkets roll för att underlätta ansvarsfulla investeringar och banar väg för mer omfattande studier om informationsbehov och hinder för europeiska ETF-privatinvesterare.

本文係針對臺灣50指數期貨與基金於2003年6月30日上市之後，臺灣期貨及現貨市場報酬率間領先落後關係與波動性的變化來進行探討。研究分為兩部份，第一部份是觀察臺灣50指數期貨與現貨之間的關聯性，並探討臺灣加權股價指數、金融保險類股股價指數及電子類股股價指數期貨與現貨市場間的變化；第二部份是採用可模擬現貨走勢的臺灣50指數基金、國泰金及臺積電的股價來做為現貨的替代變數，觀察其與期貨之間的關連性是否與第一部份的結果類似，若是實證結果極為相同，則相關機構與一般投資人將可運用各期貨與其標的指數中市值最大的股票來進行套利操作。此外，本文在進行模型估計時，首度採用一階段估計法，來聯合估計雙變量GARCH模型中的條件平均數方程式與條件變異數方程式，以避免過去相關文獻將兩條方程式個別估計時所造成的估計誤差。 實證結果所獲得的重要結論如下：首先，臺灣期貨市場的發展仍未趨成熟，並不具有價格發現的功能，在考慮風險溢酬方面，僅有臺灣50指數期貨與現貨的投資人會在報酬率之外，額外要求用以補償的風險溢酬，再者，臺灣50指數期貨與基金的上市，並沒有對臺灣現有的期貨與現貨市場造成顯著的影響，然而，替代變數並不能完全取代現貨指數，但相較之下，國泰金在臺灣50指數期貨與基金上市之後的那段期間模擬成效最好。 / This paper investigates the change of lead-lag relationship in returns and volatilities in Taiwan futures and spot markets after the introduction of Taiwan 50 Futures and Taiwan Top50 Tracker Fund (TTT) on June 30, 2003. The study divides into two parts. The first part examines the relationship between Taiwan 50 Futures and spot markets, and also discusses the change of Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index, Taiwan Stock Exchange Banking and Insurance Sector Index, and Taiwan Stock Exchange Electronic Sector Index in futures and spot markets. Another part uses the stock price of TTT, Cathay Financial Holding Company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company as the substitutive variables of spot index and goes a step further to examine the relationships between them and futures individually. Additionally, this research used One-Pass Method for first time to estimate jointly the conditional mean equation and conditional variance equation of Bivariate GARCH Model to avoid estimating error in previous relative studies with Two-Pass Method. The major empirical results are as follows: first, the development of Taiwan futures market is incomplete. The futures market does not play the price discovery role to the spot market. Second, under the consideration of risk premium, only investors in Taiwan 50 Futures and spot markets would ask for compensated risk premium excepting returns. Third, the opening of Taiwan 50 Futures and TTT does not influence significantly Taiwan futures and spot markets. Last but not least, these substitutive variables can not replace spot index perfectly. However, comparing with others, the stock price of Cathay Financial Holding Company is the very model of Taiwan Stock Exchange Banking and Insurance Sector Index after the introduction of Taiwan 50 Futures and TTT.