This study employs a quantitative approach to investigate the momentum phenomenon in the commodity futures market. The study captures the phenomenon using two momentum indicators, namely, MACD and RSI, and extends the scope of indicator utilization to both joint and single usage. The research aims to explore whether portfolios consisting of these indicators can generate abnormal returns in the commodity futures market, in comparison to the S&P GSCI, which was used as the benchmark index. The study uses accumulated data from 2010 to 2019, with portfolios constructed on a quarterly basis. Statistical significance determination is executed by exporting the data to Stata, where the normality distribution is ascertained using the Shapiro-Wilk test. This was later followed by t-tests in order to dictate statistical significance on each portfolio compared to the S&P GSCI. The study reveals empirical evidence to support two of the three strategies, namely, the joint use of the aforementioned momentum indicators and single use of the RSI momentum indicator. However, the accumulated yield of the portfolio provided insufficient results to conclude the statistical significance of the single use of the MACD momentum indicator. The authors derive these results and observed phenomena from several financial theories, which are divided into three main sections in the theoretical framework, including information-based, risk-based, and behavior-based explanations. Relevant theories are included to support the research at hand. Furthermore, the authors incorporate the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) under the pretense of challenging its view on efficient markets. They do so by constructing portfolios which yield abnormal returns and subsequently question the notion of efficient markets. The authors deduct that their findings produce some evidence to support the absence of strong form and semi-strong form of market efficiency in the commodity futures market. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the momentum phenomenon in the commodity futures market and different incorporating investment techniques in which they are utilized. The ways in which momentum strategies can be utilized and momentum indicators interpreted, as displayed in this thesis, presents practical implications for investors and financial professionals.

Bakgrund: I takt med den stigande börsen så har intresset för aktiehandel ökat. Det finns ett stort antal investeringsstrategier att använda i jakten på att generera maximal avkastning. Två sådana strategier är att investera i företag med låga respektive höga multiplar. Tidigare studier har primärt fokuserat på icke teoretiska (redovisade) multiplar för stora bolag, varför det kan vara relevant att undersöka hur väl investeringsstrategier baserade på teoretiska multiplar för små och medelstora bolag presterar. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att med hjälp av teoretiska multiplar identifiera undervärderade bolag listade på Stockholmsbörsen Large, Mid samt Small Cap, för att sedan studera om en sådan strategi kan användas för att överavkasta över tid. Investeringarnas optimala tidshorisont undersöks också. Metod: Studien använder en kvantitativ forskningsstrategi med en deduktiv ansats. Bolagen som undersöks är listade på OMXSPI under perioden 2016–2022 med 3, 6, 9 och 12 månaders portföljer. De redovisade och teoretiska multiplarna P/E, EV/EBITDA och EV/Sales jämförs och totalt har nio portföljer skapats. Dessa portföljer utvärderas med avseende på årlig avkastning och ackumulerad avkastning samt med olika utvärderingsmått såsom Sharpekvot, Treynorkvot, Modigliani-Modigliani och Jensens alfa. Resultat: Resultatet visar att det inte är möjligt att överavkasta genom att investera i teoretiskt undervärderade bolag. Ingen av årsportföljerna hade en riskjusterad avkastning som översteg index. Den multipel som lyckades bäst i denna studie var EV/EBITDA, och den marknadslista som presterade bäst var Mid Cap, dock utan signifikans i resultaten vilket innebär att det kan ha varit slumpmässigt. Vad gäller portföljerna med kortare tidshorisont presterade de klart bättre än årsportföljerna, men även här är det svårt att dra några slutsatser eftersom signifikansen överlag var låg. / Background: With a stock market rising for a long time, interest in the share trading has increased. There is a great number of investment strategies to use in the pursuit of generating maximum returns. Two of these are to invest in companies with low and high multiples, respectively. Previous studies have primarily focused on non-theoretical (reported) multiples for large companies. Thus, it is relevant to examine how well investment strategies based on theoretical multiples will perform for small and medium companies. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify undervalued companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange Large, Mid and Small Cap by means of theoretical multiples, and then study whether such a strategy can be used to over-return over time. The optimal time horizon for the investments is also examined. Method: In this study, we have used a quantitative research strategy with a deductive approach. The companies under investigation are listed on OMXSPI during the period 2016–2022 with 3, 6, 9 and 12- month portfolios. The reported and theoretical multiples P/E, EV/EBITDA, and EV/Sales are compared and a total of nine portfolios were created. These portfolios are evaluated with respect to annual returns and accumulated returns and with various evaluation measures such as Sharpe ratio, Treyone ratio, Modigliani-Modigliani, and Jensen's alpha. Result: The results of the study show that it is not possible to over-return by investing in theoretically undervalued companies. None of the annual portfolios managed, risk-adjusted, to outperform the market. The multiple that succeeded best in this study was EV/EBITDA, and the market list that performed best was Mid Cap, although without significance in the results, which means that it may have been random. As for the portfolios with a shorter time horizon, they performed clearly better than the 12-month portfolios, but even here it is difficult to draw any conclusions as the significance was generally low

共同基金在國內已經發展三十餘年，已成為國人一項重要的投資理財工具。唯傳統的基金設計係以「定期定額」的方式來操作，而本研究目的在於設計一套「不定期定額逢低投資」的操作方式，並證實該方式的投資績效係顯著優於傳統的基金操作。具體而言，本研究以2011年1月至2015年12月合計五年之基金每日淨值歷史資料，藉以比較定期定額與不定期定額(實際策略為當台股加權指數跌幅大於前一日1.25%即自動進行定額投資)分別在一年期、三年前、五年期以及金融海嘯期間(2008年)的績效表現。調查結果證實，不定期定額的績效均顯著優於定期定額的表現。本研究的結論可以提供投信產業設計新穎的共同基金，以提供投資人差異化的理財策略選擇。本研究相信，「不定期定額逢低投資組合」相當適合資金較充裕的積極型投資者。 / Mutual funds have been developed in Taiwan for more than 30 years and are now an important investment and financial tools for the people. Nonetheless the practice of traditional funds was designed through “dollar-cost averaging” and the study intends to design a practice of “value averaging bargain investment” to prove that the investment performance of the practice is significantly better than the traditional funds practice. Specifically, this study selected five years of NAV information from January 2011 to December 2015 to compare the performance of dollar cost averaging and value averaging (actual strategy was automatic fixed-amount investment when Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index dropped 1.25% lower than previous day) based on strategic investment holding periods of one year, three years, five years and during the financial crisis (2008). The result proved that the performance of value averaging was significantly better than dollar cost averaging. The conclusion of this study could provide differentiated fiscal strategy for investment trust industry to design new mutual funds for investors. The study states that “the combination of value averaging and bargain investment” is more suitable for active investors with sufficient funds.

臺閔地區65歲以上的老年人口於民國82年底占總人口之7.1%，達到聯合國所界定之「高齡化」水準，至民國94年底老年人口大幅增加為占總人口之9.74%，人口老化的趨勢使得退休後的生活保障更顯重要;年長者生活保障的主要來源是退休金，而我國已於民國94年7月1日由確定給付制轉變為確定提撥制(DC制)。基於醫學的快速成長，以及生活環境水準亦顯著提昇，採用現有的生命表預測未來死亡率可能會有極大的誤差，故本文參考許鳴遠(2006)的Reduction Factor模型，預測台灣未來的高齡人口死亡率，進而推計未來的各年齡人口數，再將改善的死亡率應用在確定提撥制的退休基金，並參考MacDonald and Cairns (2007)，假設退休基金投資在五種不同的投資標的，分別考慮20歲的個人與不同時間點20~55歲的各年齡人口，在不同限制函數下找尋確定提撥制退休基金的最適投資策略，並比較不同限制函數對依賴比造成的影響。

Die fondsgebundene Umsetzung einer Long/Short-Strategie stößt schnell an ihre Grenzen, wenn die Regulierungserfordernisse der UCITS IV-Richtlinie 2009/65/EG als rechtlicher Rahmen für den Investmentfonds maßgeblich sind. Die betreffenden Regelungen verlangen einerseits eine diversifizierte Ausrichtung des Portfolios und beschränken das Universum an investierbaren Vermögenswerten auf finanzielle und liquide Produkte. Andererseits führen sie zu einer wesentlichen Begrenzung der zulässigen Anlagetechniken. Die Möglichkeiten zur Hebelinvestition sind streng limitiert und das Durchführen von Leerverkäufen wird vollständig ausgeschlossen. Der Anknüpfungspunkt, die Performance einer Short-Position dennoch in den Fonds zu integrieren, ist die Abkehr von der direkten und physischen Umsetzung hin zu einer indirekten und synthetischen Einbindung, wie sie durch den Einsatz von Derivaten möglich ist. Um die Auswirkungen der Derivate auf das Risiko- und Renditeprofil der Investmentfonds überschaubar und kontrollierbar zu halten, wird die Intensität des Derivatehandels durch das Festsetzen von Risikolimits auf ein vertretbares Maß beschränkt. Die Wahl eines konkreten Derivats beeinflusst die technische Umsetzung der synthetischen Positionsbildung und bestimmt deren assoziierte Vorgaben im Kontext des Risikomanagements. Insofern Derivate bei der Strategieausrichtung des UCITS-Fonds ausgeschlossen werden, lassen sich Short-Positionen lediglich gegenüber aggregierten Exposures in Form einer Dachfondskonstruktion berücksichtigen. Das Ausarbeiten kapitalrechtlicher Vorgaben und das darauf basierende Ableiten von praxisrelevanten Investitionsansätzen, zur Abbildung der Short-Positionen innerhalb einer fondsgebundenen Long/Short-Strategie, stehen im Fokus.

The thesis deals with the growing importance of sovereign wealth funds in the international investment activities. It includes the definition of a sovereign fund, the history of the creation, the largest funds as well as the origin of their capital. While sovereign wealth funds have existed for decades, their profile has risen considerably since the credit crisis. Analyzing the potential benefits and risks related with their investments, the thesis further discusses the changing profile of sovereign wealth funds in the world economy. Despite the significant benefits to global capital markets, some governments expressed concerns regarding the political motivation of their investment activity in strategic sectors of other countries. It is obvious that the measures concerning limited transparency of sovereign wealth funds should be adopted at the multilateral level to avoid protectionism.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Pensions are essentially the only source of income for many retired workers. It is thus critical that the pension fund manager chooses the right type of plan for his/her workers.Every pension scheme follows its own set of rules when calculating the benefits of the fund’s members at retirement. Whichever plan the manager chooses for the members,he/she will have to invest their contributions in the financial market. The manager is therefore faced with the daunting task of selecting the most appropriate investment strat-egy as to maximize the returns from the financial assets. Due to the volatile nature of stock markets, some pension companies have attached minimum guarantees to pension contracts. These guarantees come at a price, but ensure that the member does not suffer a loss due to poorly performing equities.In this thesis we study four types of mathematical problems in pension fund management,of which three are essentially optimization problems. Firstly, following Blake [5], we show in a discrete time setting how to decompose a pension benefit into a combination of Euro-pean options. We also model the pension plan preferences of workers, sponsors and fund managers. We make a number of contributions additional to the paper by Blake [5]. In particular, we contribute graphic illustrations of the expected values of the pension fund assets, liabilities and the actuarial surplus processes. In more detail than in the original source, we derive the variance of the assets of a defined benefit pension plan. Secondly,we dedicate Chapter 6 to the problem of minimizing the cost of a minimum guarantee included in defined contribution (DC) pension contracts. Here we work in discrete time and consider multi-period guarantees similar to those in Hipp [25]. This entire chapter is original work. Using a standard optimization method, we propose a strategy that cal- culates an optimal sequence of guarantees that minimizes the sum of the squares of the present value of the total price of the guarantee. Graphic illustrations are included to in-dicate the minimum value and corresponding optimal sequence of guarantees. Thirdly, we derive an optimal investment strategy for a defined contribution fund with three financial assets in the presence of a minimum guarantee. We work in a continuous time setting and in particular contribute simulations of the dynamics of the short interest rate process and the assets in the financial market of Deelstra et al. [19]. We also derive an optimal investment strategy of the surplus process introduced in Deelstra et al. [19]. The results regarding the surplus are then converted to consider the actual investment portfolio per- taining to the wealth of the fund. We note that the aforementioned paper does not use optimal control theory. In order to illustrate the method of stochastic optimal control, we study a fourth problem by including a discussion of the paper by Devolder et al. [21] in Chapter 3. We enhance the work in the latter paper by including some simulations. The specific portfolio management strategies are applicable to banking as well (and is being pursued independently).

O presente trabalho busca identificar bull e bear markets para o mercado financeiro brasileiro, especificamente para o índice Ibovespa, através das principais metodologias existentes na literatura: regras não paramétricas e modelos de mudança de regime markoviano. A primeira abordagem foi utilizada como benchmark para comparação com melhor modelo econométrico estimado pela segunda abordagem, visto que trata-se de um método ex-post de identificação. No tange aos modelos de mudança de regime markoviano, constatou-se que permitir regimes distintos também para a variância da série contribui para a identificação dos mesmos. Desta forma, o melhor modelo obtido fora o MSARMA(2,1)-2 para a série de retornos semanais do índice Ibovespa. O modelo foi capaz de identificar os principais eventos que impactaram a economia e o mercado financeiro brasileiro no período. Além disto, o modelo se mostrou útil para a tomada de decisão, visto que a estratégia de investimento, baseada na previsão um passo à frente do estado do mercado, foi capaz de preservar o capital do investidor, gerando um melhor desempenho do que na estratégia buy-and-hold de longo prazo. / This paper seeks to identify bull and bear markets in the brazilian stock market, specifically to the time series of the Ibovespa index, through the main methodologies present in literature: identification based on rules and Markov switching models. The first method was used as a benchmark to compare with the best regime switching model, since it is an ex-post method of identification. Modelling a Markov switching model with two regimes also for the variance of the process resulted in a better identification of the markets. Thus, the best Markov switching model estimated was theMSARMA(2,1)-2 to the time series of the Ibovespa weekly returns. The model was able to identify the main events that have impacted the brazilian economy and also the stock market in the period. Furthermore, the model proved its value in decision making, since in a investment strategy, based on the models one step ahead forecast about the regime of the market, it was able to preserve investor capital, generating a better performance than the buy-and-hold strategy.

The aim of this thesis is to compare the stock markets in the USA and in South East Asia (Singapore) used the analysis of the rate of return on investments and the risk in chosen sectors of both countries. The next aim is testing the efficiency of these stock markets and determining the degree of this effectiveness and then finding out the optimal strategy to evaluate the invested money.

This thesis is dedicated to the stock markets issue. Its main aim was to assess the effectiveness of the stock market and choose an appropriate investment strategy. To this purpose, the 5 industries of U.S. stock market were chosen, which served as a data base for all applied methods. The thesis presents the results of correlation and runs tests verifying the weak form of market efficiency, the results of fundamental analysis and of active strategies simulation as well. The final part is focused on creating of investment portfolio, which was chosen as the most appropriate investment strategy of the refenrence data set.