Spelbranschen har växt och fortsätter att växa i en extremt hög takt. Den höga tillväxteninom spelbranschen lockar allt fler investerare att investera inom området. Trots detökade intresset för spelbranschen och dess tillväxt saknas finansiell forskning inomområdet. Denna studie ämnar därför till att bidra till den finansiella forskningen genomatt undersöka huruvida mikrotransaktioner påverkar svenska spelföretagsaktievolatilitet. Studiens huvudsakliga syfte är att studera huruvida valet av affärsmodellkan påverka företagets aktievolatilitet. Datan som krävs för att utföra denna studie är publik data hämtad från Yahoo Financeoch urvalsgruppens egna kvartalsrapporter. Tidsperioden som studien undersöker är från2014-01-01 till 2021-12-31. För att kunna besvara forskningsfrågan har två olika testerutförts. För varje enskilt företag har ett GARCH-test utförts för att semikrotransaktioners påverkan på enskild nivå, det andra testet är en regressionsanalyssom testar mikrotransaktioners påverkan på aktievolatilitet på hela urvalsgruppen. Resultaten från GARCH-testerna gav endast relevanta resultat för två företag. Att resultaten anses icke relevanta för resterande urval beror på att det krävs variation inomvariabeln mikrotransaktioner för att kunna ge utslag vilket det inte finns i resterandeurval. Ett av de två relevanta företagen gav ett negativt statistiskt signifikant sambandoch ett gav ett icke signifikant samband. Resultatet av regressionsanalysen visar ettpositivt statistiskt signifikant samband för urvalsgruppen mellan mikrotransaktioner ochaktievolatilitet. Slutsatsen som gjordes baserat på dessa resultat var attmikrotransaktionsmodellen kan vara ett mer riskfyllt alternativ för investerare.

The demand for sustainable investments has seen an increase in recent years. There is considerable literature covering backtesting of the performance and risk of socially responsible investments (SRI) compared to conventional investments. However, literature that models and examines the risk characteristics of SRI compared to conventional investments is limited. This thesis seeks to model and compare the risk of mutual funds scoring in the top 10% in terms of sustainability, based on Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score, to those scoring in the bottom 10%. We create one portfolio consisting of the top 10% funds and one portfolio consisting of the bottom 10%, for European and global mutual funds separately, thus in total creating 4 portfolios. The analysis is based on data of the funds' returns and Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Scores during December 2015 to August 2019. Investigating several GARCH models, we find an ARMA-GARCH model with skewed Student's t-distribution as innovation distribution to give the best fit to the daily log-returns of each portfolio. Based on the fitted ARMA-GARCH models with skewed Student's t-distribution, we use a parametric bootstrap method to compute 95% confidence intervals for the difference in long-run volatility and value at risk (VaR) between the portfolios with high and low Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Scores. This is performed on the portfolios of European and global funds separately. We conclude that, for global and European funds respectively, no significant difference in terms of long-run volatility and VaR is found between the funds in each of the 10% ends of the Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score. / Efterfrågan av hållbara investeringar har ökat kraftigt de senaste åren. Det finns många studier som genomför backtesting av hållbara investeringars avkastning och risk jämfört med konventionella investeringar. Färre studier har däremot gjorts för att modellera och jämföra investeringarnas riskegenskaper. Denna uppsats syftar till att modellera risken av hållbara investeringar genom att jämföra de 10% fonder med högst Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score mot de 10% fonder med lägst score. Jämförelsen görs separat för globala fonder och europeiska fonder, vilket resulterar i totalt 4 portföljer. Analysen baseras på data på fondernas avkasting och Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score under tidsperioden december 2015 till augusti 2019. Genom att undersöka flera olika GARCH-modeller, kommer vi fram till att en ARMA-GARCH-modell med skev t-fördelning bäst beskriver den dagliga logaritmerade avkastningen för varje portfölj. Baserat på de anpassade ARMA-GARCH-modellerna, används en "parametric bootstrap"-metod för att beräkna 95%-iga konfidensintervall för skillnaden i långsiktig volatilitet och value at risk (VaR) mellan portföljerna med högt och lågt Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score. Detta görs separat för de europeiska och globala fonderna. Vår slutsats är att det, för globala och europeiska fonder, inte råder en signifikant skillnad i långsiktig volatilitet eller VaR mellan fonder med högt och lågt Morningstar Portfolio Sustainability Score.

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Rising levels of uncertainty and distrust of governments and mass printing of fiat currencies in conjunction with pandemic-related events have led to a rotation into different assets such as cryptos. Without solid fundamentals, cryptocurrencies have spiked in price levels in the last few years; while popularity rises it remains heavily misunderstood. This study looks into the factors that specifically influence the cryptocurrency Ethereum's price volatility. According to previous literature and existing theories, it gathers seven explanatory variables that should impact the volatility and applies a GARCH (1,1) model. The study finds that the variables Google trends, hash rate, S&P 500, address count, and trade volume impacted the volatility. With only the hash rate and S&P 500 lowering the volatility. Both the ARCH and GARCH terms were significant, with the latter having the bigger coefficient, implying that the past volatility should be accounted for when forecasting future volatility. The findings within this study align with previous literature and other studies on different cryptos. It concludes that while Ethereum is still volatile and is in its growing phase it is headed in a positive direction in terms of stabilization. Further research or a repeated identical/similar study should be conducted again once the market has matured further.

This dissertation examines several aspects of U.S. financial institutions’ real estate-related activity. The first two essays examine the impact of Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) membership and funding on bank and thrift holding company (BHC and THC) risk and returns. The first essay uses risk measures derived from BHC and THC stock prices, while the second essay uses risk measures based upon BHC and THC bond prices. The third essay studies the impact of BHC investment in real estate on risk and returns using measures based on stock prices. In the first essay, BHC and THC stock portfolios are formed along several dimensions. Bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models are estimated to produce measures of total risk, market risk, and interest rate risk for the time period from the beginning of 2001 through 2009. Two sets of results related to FHLB activity are obtained. First, FHLB membership is found to be associated with lower total risk and market risk while having no association with interest rate risk. Second, and similarly, greater reliance on FHLB advances is associated with lower total risk and market risk but is not associated with interest rate risk. These results are consistent with the view that the risks created by government backing of the FHLB system and some of the system’s policies are mitigated by FHLB policies and products that reduce risk. In addition, THC stocks are found to have lower total and market risk than the portfolio of BHC stocks. The second essay investigates the relationship of both FHLB membership and funding with BHC and THC risk by using the cost of uninsured debt as a measure of risk. These relationships are analyzed in a simultaneous equation regression framework using data from the start of the third quarter of 2002 through the end of the first quarter of 2009. The cost of uninsured debt is proxied by yield spreads calculated from trading data on holding company (HC) bonds. Several interesting results are obtained. Reliance on advances is found to have a negative effect on the cost of debt throughout the sample period (the third quarter of 2002 through the first quarter of 2009). Cost of debt has a significant effect on the level of advances only during the recent financial crisis (the third quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2009), when the effect is negative. The negative association between cost of debt and the level of advances suggests that BHCs and THCs, on the whole, do not use FHLB advances to make unusually risky loans and supports the argument that FHLB policies and services have some risk-reducing effects. FHLB membership, independent of advances, is found to have no influence on HC cost of debt. Additional analysis indicates that THC status is associated with higher cost of debt than BHC status. The third essay examines the influence of real estate investment by BHCs from the third quarter of 1990 through the fourth quarter of 2010 on their risks and returns. Portfolios are formed of BHC stocks according to BHCs’ ratio of real estate investment to total assets and according to the type of regulation - lenient or strict - under which they invest in real estate. Tests of differences in median portfolio returns between these portfolios are performed. In addition, the effects of real estate investment on risk and return are estimated using univariate GARCH models of portfolio returns. The main results are as follows: 1) BHCs that invest in real estate have greater total risk and lower risk-adjusted returns than those that do not; 2) greater real estate investment is associated with lower returns and greater market risk for some types of BHCs while it is not associated with significant differences in total risk or risk-adjusted returns; and 3) BHCs that invest in real estate under relatively lenient rules have lower returns, greater total risk, and lower risk-adjusted returns than those that invest in real estate under relatively strict rules. The results indicate that benefits from real estate investment by banks - such as diversification of cash flows, economies of scale and scope, and increased charter value - are outweighed by greater variability of returns and lower returns due to BHCs’ lack of expertise in the field. The findings also provide evidence that rules granting banks greater freedom to invest in real estate result in increased risk but not increased returns. / Economics

Over the last twenty years or so the Dynamic Volatility literature has produced a wealth of univariate and multivariate GARCH type models. While the univariate models have been relatively successful in empirical studies, they suffer from a number ofweaknesses, such as unverifiable parameter restrictions, existence of moment conditions and the retention of Normality. These problems are naturally more acute in the multivariate GARCH type models, which in addition have the problem of overparameterization. This dissertation uses the Student's t distribution and follows the Probabilistic Reduction (PR) methodology to modify and extend the univariate and multivariate volatility models viewed as alternative to the GARCH models. Its most important advantage is that it gives rise to internally consistent statistical models that do not require ad hoc parameter restrictions unlike the GARCH formulations. Chapters 1 and 2 provide an overview of my dissertation and recent developments in the volatility literature. In Chapter 3 we provide an empirical illustration of the PR approach for modeling univariate volatility. Estimation results suggest that the Student's t AR model is a parsimonious and statistically adequate representation of exchange rate returns and Dow Jones returns data. Econometric modeling based on the Student's t distribution introduces an additional variable - the degree of freedom parameter. In Chapter 4 we focus on two questions relating to the `degree of freedom' parameter. A simulation study is used to examine:(i) the ability of the kurtosis coefficient to accurately capture the implied degrees of freedom, and (ii) the ability of Student's t GARCH model to estimate the true degree of freedom parameter accurately. Simulation results reveal that the kurtosis coefficient and the Student's t GARCH model (Bollerslev, 1987) provide biased and inconsistent estimators of the degree of freedom parameter. Chapter 5 develops the Students' t Dynamic Linear Regression (DLR) }model which allows us to explain univariate volatility in terms of: (i) volatility in the past history of the series itself and (ii) volatility in other relevant exogenous variables. Empirical results of this chapter suggest that the Student's t DLR model provides a promising way to model volatility. The main advantage of this model is that it is defined in terms of observable random variables and their lags, and not the errors as is the case with the GARCH models. This makes the inclusion of relevant exogenous variables a natural part of the model set up. In Chapter 6 we propose the Student's t VAR model which deals effectively with several key issues raised in the multivariate volatility literature. In particular, it ensures positive definiteness of the variance-covariance matrix without requiring any unrealistic coefficient restrictions and provides a parsimonious description of the conditional variance-covariance matrix by jointly modeling the conditional mean and variance functions. / Ph. D.

No / This study investigates the impact of LIFFE's introduction of individual equity futures contracts on the risk characteristics of the underlying stocks trading on the LSE. We employ the Fama and French three-factor model (TFM) to measure the change in the systematic risk of the underlying stocks which arises subsequent to the introduction of futures contracts. A GJR-GARCH(1,1) specification is used to test whether the futures contract listing affects the permanent and/or the transitory component of the residual variance of returns, and a control sample methodology isolates changes in the risk components that may be caused by factors other than futures contract innovation. The observed increase (decrease) in the impact of current (old) news on the residual variance implies that futures contract listing enhances stock market efficiency. There is no evidence that futures innovation impacts on either the systematic risk or the permanent component of the residual variance of returns.

No / This study assesses whether the widely documented momentum profits can be ascribed to time-varying risk as described by a GJR-GARCH(1,1)-M model. Consistent with rational pricing in efficient markets, we reveal that momentum profits are a compensation for time-varying unsystematic risks, common to the winner and loser stocks. We also find that, because losers have a higher propensity than winners of disclose bad news, negative return shocks increase their volatility more than it increases that of the winners. The volatility of the losers is also found to respond to news more slowly, but eventually to a greater extent, than that of the winners. Following Hong et al. (2000), we interpret this as a sign that managers of loser firms are reluctant to disclosing bad news, while managers of winner firms are eager to releasing good news

No / We study the price and liquidity effects following the FTSE 100 index revisions. We employ the standard GARCH(1,1) model to allow the residual variance of the single index model (SIM) to vary systematically over time and use a Kalman filter approach to model SIM coefficients as a random walk process. We show that the observed price effect depends on the abnormal return estimation methods. Specifically, the OLS-based abnormal returns indicate that the price effect associated with the index revision is temporary, whereas both SIM with random coefficients and GARCH(1,1) model suggest that both additions and deletions experience permanent price change. Added (removed) stocks exhibit permanent (temporary) change in trading volume and bid-ask spread. The analysis of the spread components suggests that the permanent change associated with additions is a result of non-information-related liquidity. We interpret the permanent price effect of additions and deletions combined with the permanent (temporary) shift in liquidity of added (removed) stocks as evidence in favour of the imperfect substitution hypothesis with some non-information-related liquidity effects in the case of additions.

No / Employing a TVP-VAR dynamic connectedness analysis, we identify avenues through which the collapse of the FTX exchange manifested contagion effects throughout a number of financial markets. Results indicate that interaction effects become significantly pronounced, coinciding with key milestones during the collapse of FTX and related companies. Specifically, sources of contagion stem from two tokens created by the exchange and related companies, namely FTT Token and Serum. Such results further develop the expanding literature based on the inherent contagion effects of such unregulated products. / Conlon acknowledges the support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant Number 16/SPP/33 and 13/RC/2106 and 17/SP/5447.