This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay studies the impact of indexing on stock price efficiency. Indexing has experienced substantial growth over the last two decades because it is an effective way of holding a diversified portfolio while minimizing trading costs and taxes. In this paper, we focus on one negative externality of indexing: the effect on efficiency of stock prices. Based on a sample of large and liquid U.S. stocks, we find that greater indexing leads to less efficient stock prices, as indicated by stronger post-earnings-announcement drift, greater deviations of stock prices from the random walk and greater return predictability from lagged order imbalances. We conjecture that reduced incentives for information acquisition and arbitrage induced by indexing are probably the main cause of the degradation in price efficiency, but we find no evidence supporting a direct impact from passive trading or any effect through liquidity. The second essay investigates the effect of price inefficiency on idiosyncratic risk and stock returns. I finds that price inefficiency in individual stocks contributes to expected idiosyncratic volatility. If idiosyncratic risk is priced, greater price inefficiency could be associated with higher expected returns. Consistent with this hypothesis, this paper then finds a positive relation between price inefficiency and future stock returns. This return premium of price inefficiency is not explained by traditional risk factors, illiquidity, or transactions costs. It is also evidently different from the return bias related to Jensen's inequality. This paper thus provides new insights about the determinants of expected stock returns, and new supporting evidence that idiosyncratic risk is priced. The third essay examines whether the upward return bias generated by Jensen's inequality could lead to better performance of equally-weighted (EW) indexes than value-weighted (VW) index when stock prices are not fully efficient. We find that, for a wide range of U.S. stock indexes, EW indexes deliver better four-factor adjusted returns than VW ones do even after deducting transaction costs. Consistent with our hypothesis that the outperformance of EW indexes comes from mispricing, we find that this outperformance concentrates in stocks with greater mispricing, as measured by deviation of stock prices from random walk. Findings in this essay not only imply a potentially winning investment strategy, but also provide new insight into a long-term debate on causes of the outperformance of the EW indexes. / Ph. D.

Modern society is faced with the complex and intractable challenge of global warming, along with other environmental issues that could potentially alter our way of life if not managed properly. Is it possible that financial markets and equity investors could have a huge part to play in the transformation towards a greener and more sustainable world? Previous studies about investment strategies regarding sustainability have for the most part been centered around possibly less objective ESG-scores or around carbon and GHG-emissions only, with little or no consideration for water usage and waste management. This thesis aims to amend to the previous work on carbon reducing strategies and ESG-investing with the addition of water usage and waste management, especically using raw data of these measures instead of ESG-ratings. Index replicating portfolios have become more and more popular as it proves harder and harder to beat the index, offering good returns along with cheap and uncomplicated portfolio construction and management. In a trending market, the fear of missing out and the demand for market return can make an index replicating strategy a way for investors to have market exposure but still remain diversied and without confusion about which horses to bet on. This thesis studies the relationship between tracking-error and the increase of sustainability in a portfolio through reduction of the intensity of carbon emissions, water usages and poor waste management. To be able to make a fair comparison, these measures are normalized by dividing each measure by the reported annual revenue. These three obtained intensities are then implemented individually, as well as all together into index replicating portfolios in order to study the effect from decreasing them. First and foremost we study the effect on the tracking-error, but also the effects on returns and volatility. We also study the effect on liquidity and turnover in the portfolios to show that it is possible to implement extensive sustainability increasing methods into an index replication equity portfolio. We follow the UCITS-directory to avoid overweightin specic companies and only allow the portfolios to overweight a sector with maximum 2%, in order to avoid an unwanted exposure to sectors with naturally lower intensities. The portfolios are obtained by using a multi-factor risk model to predict the expected statistical behaviour in relation to the chosen factors. Followed by applying Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory through a convex optimization problem with the objective function to minimize tracking-error. All displayed portfolios had stable and convex optimization and were compliant with the UCITS-directory. We limited our study to only North American stocks and chose the index "MCSI NA" to replicate. Only stocks that were a part of the index were allowed to invest in and we did not allow negative weights for any stocks. The portfolios were constructed and backtested for the period 2014-12-01 until 2019-03-01 with rebalancing quarterly at the same points in time that the index is rebalanced by MCSI. We found that it was possible to implement extensive sustainability considerations into the portfolios and still keep a high correlation with the index whilst keeping low tracking-errors. We believe that most index replicating investors should be able to implement reductions of above mentioned intensities of about 40-60% without compromising tracking-errors,returns and volatility too much. We found evidence that during this time and in this market our low-intensities portfolios would have overperformed the index. We also found that returns increased and volatility decreased as we increased the reduction of each individual measure and all three collectively. Reducing carbon intensity seemed to drive positive returns and lower volatility the most, but we also observed apositive effect from reduction of all intensities. Our belief before conducting this study was that sustainability should have a negative effect on returns due to the limitation of the feasible area of investing. This motivated us to build portfolios with intent to makeup for these lesser returns and hopefully "beat the index". This failed in almost all cases and the only way we were able to beat the index were through implementing sustainability in our portfolios.

Syfte: Undersökningens syftet är att mäta huruvida det går att få ut en överavkastning av aktier som väljs in i (respektive ut ur) OMX Stockholm Benchmark (OMXSB), som följd av att ett index ändrar sin komposition. Delsyftet är att undersöka om det går att se en signifikant ökning av handelsvolymen i anslutning till ändringsdagen. Metod: Studien tillämpar en eventstudie som undersökningsmetod av kvantitativ karaktär. Studien undersöker indexet OMXSB och innefattade totalt 111 stycken ingående och utgående aktier fördelat på 10 tillfällen. Två eventfönster har konstruerats; ett kring annonseringsdagen och ett kring ändringsdagen. Den procentuella handelsvolymen har mätts över eventfönstret kring ändringsdagen. Resultat: Den genomsnittliga kumulerade överavkastningen för eventfönstret vid annonseringsdagen uppgick till 1,02 % (-6 %) för de aktier som valdes in (ut). Det motsvarande resultatet 2,55 % (-0,41 %) framkom i eventfönstret för ändringsdagen. Handelsvolymen uppnådde i båda fallen en signifikant ökning dagen innan ändringen genomfördes. Slutsatser: Resultatet visade en signifikant överavkastning för aktier som valdes in (ut) i eventfönstret kring ändringsdagen (annonseringsdagen). Den signifikanta skillnaden av handelsvolymen tyder på att indexerarna handlar aktierna dagen innan ändringen genomförs. För aktier som väljs in gick det att se ett pristryck där priset höjdes fram till dagen innan ändringen genomfördes, som sedan återgick. Resultaten kan ha påverkats av externa faktorer vilket kan ha lett till en missvisande bild av den undersökta effekten. / Purpose: The study aims to investigate whether it is possible to get an abnormal return of stocks added to (or deleted from) the OMX Stockholm Benchmark index (OMXSB), as a result of a changes of the index composition. A subsidiary aim of the study is to investigate whether it is possible to see a significant increase in trading volume in close to the change day. Methodology: The study applies an event study as method of investigation of a quantitative character. The study examines the OMXSB and include a total of 111 added and deleted stocks distributed on 10 occasions. Two event windows have been designed: one around announcement day and one around change day. The percentage change of trading volume has been measured over the event window around the change day. Results: The average cumulative abnormal return for the event window around announcement day reached 1.02% (-6%) for the added (deleted) shares. Corresponding results of 2.55% (-0.41%) emerged in event window for change day. In both cases the trading volume reached a significant increase the day before the change was implemented. Conclusions: The results showed a significant abnormal return for stocks that were added (deleted) in the event window around the change day (announcement day). Trade volume suggests that index funds trade shares the day before the change day. For the added shares a price pressure could be identified up to the day before change day. The results may have been influenced by external factors which may have lead to a misleading picture of the investigated effect.

This article analyzes and compares an overview of the structure and evolution of the international and domestic mutual fund industry for the 2005–2014 period. The aim of this analysis is to identify opportunities for growth and development of the domestic mutual fund industry, in particular, passive management used by index equity funds. / Este artículo analiza y compara, de manera general, la estructura y evolución anual de la industria de fondos mutuos internacional y doméstica durante el período 2005-2014. El objetivo de este análisis es identificar las oportunidades de crecimiento y desarrollo del segmento de renta variable de la industria de fondos mutuos doméstica tomando como referencia el estilo de administración pasiva de las inversiones utilizado por los fondos mutuos indexados de renta variable. / Este artigo analisa e compara, em geral, a estrutura e a evolução da indústria internacional e nacional de fundos mútuos anuais ao longo do período 2005-2014. O objetivo desta análise é identificar oportunidades de crescimento e desenvolvimento dos fundos mútuos de ações na indústria nacional em função dos fundos de índice com gestão passiva de investimentos.