Este trabalho tem como objetivo testar quais são as características dos Conselhos de Administração de 20 bancos, com capital aberto, no Brasil, no período compreendido entre os anos de 2007 a 2013, bem como detectar a influência das mesmas sobre a Rentabilidade do Ativo (ROA), Rentabilidade do Patrimônio Líquido (ROE) e a Razão Valor de Mercado (RVM). Para alcançar esses objetivos foram levantadas características relevantes que envolvem os Conselhos de Administração (CA) dos bancos, apoiando-se nas recomendações do Comitê de Basileia sobre o que se exige da estrutura desses Conselhos como instrumento de governança. Além das instruções do Comitê, outros artigos científicos, envolvendo dados dos CA e sua provável influência sobre a rentabilidade, foram referenciados. Após o levantamento das variáveis do CA utilizou-se uma análise de regressão múltipla para avaliar se as mesmas influenciam ou não e, em que dimensão elas interferem na rentabilidade dos bancos. Os resultados foram divididos em duas partes: a primeira levou em conta a alavancagem de controle do maior acionista de cada banco no período estudado e, a segunda considerou como uma das variáveis independentes a alavancagem de controle dos três maiores acionistas, entre os anos de 2007 a 2013. Através do resultado estatístico de uma análise quantitativa constatou-se que as características do CA influenciam, em intensidades diferentes, o ROA, ROE e o RVM. Quanto ao ROE e ao ROA, os menores níveis de Governança Corporativa (GC) demonstraram influências negativas para os dois tipos de controle, enquanto que o maior nível, o 3, mostrou influenciar positivamente o resultado. O número de componentes do CA refletiu, positivamente, sobre a rentabilidade. Porém, um aumento ocasionaria um decréscimo na mesma. As variáveis de controle influenciaram em pelo menos uma das variáveis dependentes. O estudo estatístico apresentou um importante resultado sobre a GC em bancos brasileiros. Esse aspecto pode servir de suporte ao investidor em sua tomada de decisão, pois evidencia que as variáveis abordadas devem ser consideradas quando forem verificados os retornos. / This study aims to test some characteristics of the Board of Directors of 20 publicly traded banks in Brazil in the period of 2007 to 2013, to determine whether these influence the Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and market value ratio (MVR).To achieve these goals, some relevant features that involve the Board of Directors (BoD) of banks were prospected, based on recommendations of the Basel Committee about the demands on the structure of these councils as instruments of governance. Scientific articles involving characteristics of the BoD and the possible influence on profitability were also considered. Once the BoD variables are set up, a multiple regression analysis was applied to assess whether, and how, the characteristics of the BoD influence the profitability of banks. The tests were divided into two parts: the first considering the leverage control of the largest shareholder of each bank, in every year; and the second had as one of the independent variables to leverage control of the three largest shareholders in the same period. Through the statistical results of a quantitative analysis, it was observed that the characteristics of the BoD influence, at different intensities, ROA, ROE and MV. In consideration of ROE and ROA, lower levels of Corporate Governance (CG) showed negative influences for both types of control, while the higher level, 3, resulted positive influence in the result. The number of members of the CA correlated positively with profitability. The control variables influenced on at least one of the dependent variables. Through this study, a significant statistical result is presented about GC in Brazilian banks. This may support the investor in his decision-making, highlighting that these variables must be considered when returns are checked.

This diploma thesis focuses on the design of three portfolio variants for a fund of qualified investors operating in the Czech Republic, which focuses on investing in shares of Exchange Traded Funds investing in precious metals.

Purpose – Leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs) have become increasingly popular since their introduction in 2006. In recent years, options on leveraged ETFs have been promoted as a means of enhancing returns and reducing risk. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interchangeability of S&P 500 ETF options with leveraged S&P 500 ETF options and to what extent these options allow investors to manage their risk exposure. Design/methodology/approach – With increasing liquidity for these fund’s options, simple option strategies such as covered calls and protective puts can be implemented. This study derives call-call and put-put parity between options on the underlying index and the associated leveraged ETFs. The paper examines comparative measures of return and risk on the underlying indices, along with covered call and protective put positions. Findings – Using the formulations derived, this study shows options on non-leveraged ETFs or on the underlying index can be substituted for leveraged ETF options. Empirical results suggest substituting options on leveraged ETFs with options on the underlying index or index ETF give comparable results, but can differ as the realized leverage ratio over time differs from projected values. Originality/value – This study is the first to the authors’ knowledge that investigates option strategies on leveraged and inverse ETFs of equity indices. It is also the first to derive call-call and put-put parity relations between options on ETFs and related leveraged and inverse ETFs. The results contribute to securities issuance, investment strategies, and option parity relations.

We estimate the proportions of skilled, unskilled, and zero-alpha funds preva- lent in the mutual Funds population easily accessible by Czech Investors. We estimate alphas from a regression against a concise set of Exchange Traded Funds and control for luck using False Discovery rate. We design a straight- forward ETF selection algorithm and find that if investors adhere to simple diversification rules, they can outperform a large proportion of mutual funds. We further document a negative relationship between the performance of mu- tual funds and its Total Expense ratio, suggesting that portfolio managers are on average unable to compensate their costs with better performance. JEL Classification C12, C20, G12, G23 Keywords Mutual Funds, Exchange Traded Funds, Perfor- mance evaluation Title Do mutual funds offered in Czech Republic add value to investors?

As the global markets are becoming increasingly competitive, companies need to find a way to maintain their relevance and competitiveness. Studies have found that companies engaging in Mergers and Acquisitions are more likely to remain competitive. (Choi & Chang, 2020) However, current literature focuses a lot more on other factors that motivate companies to engage in Mergers and Acquisitions, such as Synergy benefits, Increasing market shares, and expansions. Studies have found that there have been several historic waves of M&A activity. This thesis aims to expand further the understanding of how big European companies invest in new companies. What are the longitudinal patterns amongst the different acquisitions? What kinds of companies do they acquire and where the target companies are located? With the help of publications and annual reports provided by the five analyzed companies, the study found that there are some clear trends of what kinds of companies the acquiring firms are investing in. The regions are mostly the bigger markets and not the markets with the highest growth potential.(Radulescu et al., 2014)With this information, I conclude that the bigger companies are buying target companies in markets that they know and are familiar with. Companies are investing in companies that have a leading position in a desired market and invests into market shares and increasing their own product offering.

<p>This dissertation comprises two essays on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, covering both the primary and secondary markets for municipal bonds.</p> <p>In the first chapter, I explore a novel channel through which exchange-traded funds (ETFs) improve pre-trade price transparency and thereby retail investors' bargaining power in OTC markets. ETFs are required to daily disclose their full holdings, often along with their constituents’ end-of-day prices, which are good timely references for investors to negotiate with broker-dealers, particularly when the securities have not traded recently. I find that ETF-held bonds have significantly lower retail markups than those of bonds not held by ETFs. This effect cannot be explained by selection or ETFs' own trading activity but is driven by the daily disclosures by ETFs holding the bonds. During 2010--2021, retail investors saved over $200 million when trading ETF-held bonds. There is also a spillover effect to the primary market---when municipalities have outstanding ETF-held bonds, their new issues have lower yields and smaller price dispersion.</p> <p>In the second chapter, I both theoretically and empirically document a non-monotonic relation between local municipal bond mutual funds, or informed investors, and underpricing in the municipal bond market. Empirically speaking, offering yields are higher in states that have open-end municipal bond funds, and with larger aggregate fund size. However, holding local fund size constant, yields decrease in the number of funds. Such relations hold when local funds' primary market participation is instrumented with the similarities in characteristics of new issues and existing bonds in their portfolios. I further confirm my empirical findings with a security underpricing model that incorporates the imperfect signals available to informed investors. Despite facing higher borrowing costs, issuers benefit from local funds' certification resulting in both institutional and retail investors' higher demand in the primary market.</p>

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.

Exchange Traded Funds are growing in popularity and volume, however academic literature related to their performance is limited. This study analyzes how well the CORN, WEAT, SOYB, USO, and UGA commodity ETFs track their respective futures assets during the period of January 2012 to October 2017. Tracking error in this study is evaluated through 4 approaches to measure error, bias, systematic risk, and error magnitude. Additionally, a mispricing analysis is conducted as an alternative form of error measurement Results indicate that tracking error is small on average, however CORN shows average excess returns significantly smaller than zero. The CORN ETF is returning a smaller positive value compared to the asset basket when asset basket returns are greater than zero and a larger negative value compared to the asset basket when asset basket returns are less than zero. The CORN, WEAT, USO, and UGA ETFs are found to move less aggressively than the respective asset baskets they track. While errors were small on average, large tracking errors were present across ETFs. The size of errors were found to be impacted by large price moves, as well as seasonality on a monthly and yearly level. USDA reports impacted the size of errors for CORN, WEAT and SOYB while EIA reports had no impact on error size. The mispricing analysis concluded that CORN and SOYB trade at a discount to Net Asset Value on average while WEAT trades at a premium. / Master of Science

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-03T18:33:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose_Raymundo_de_Faria_Junior.pdf: 1267452 bytes, checksum: 6a478b16fd990211249d441f2100f6b4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-18 / The objective of this research is to propose for high income Brazilian investors a model of dynamic allocation with international diversification that uses ETFs and the PMI manufacturing index. ETFs were selected from twelve countries, including the ETF equities in Brazil, EWZ. The portfolios were created with and without the EWZ and two procedures were adopted to weight the assets: (1) maximization of the Sharpe ratio and (2) allocation based on the proportion of GDP. An alternative method of selection of assets was presented, using the PMI manufacturing index as a decision filter for the allocation of the resources. The PMI is usually published on the first business day of each month, is researched in the major countries and is one of the first, if not the first, leading indicator of the economic cycle. When the PMI signaled economic growth, the portfolio consisted of a higher proportion of equities. To evaluate the performance of the proposed portfolio, it was compared to other three global portfolios that followed classical allocation strategies, and one of these was considered a benchmark. The proposed portfolio was also compared to a benchmark created exclusively with brazilian assets. The result suggests that the use of PMI as a decision filter in an active and internationally diversified portfolio using only foreign ETFs and weighted according to the techniques of Modern Portfolio Theory presented higher total return and Generalized Sharpe Ratio than the international and brazilian benchmarks. This result suggests that Brazilian and foreign investors and managers who adopt active management of their portfolios should include PMI as one of the indicators to be observed in the allocation strategy / O objetivo desta pesquisa ?? propor para os investidores brasileiros de alta renda um modelo de aloca????o din??mica com diversifica????o internacional que utiliza ETFs e o ??ndice PMI da manufatura. Foram selecionados ETFs de doze pa??ses, incluindo o ETF de renda vari??vel do Brasil, o EWZ. Foram criadas carteiras com e sem o EWZ e adotados dois procedimentos para ponderar os ativos: (1) maximiza????o do ??ndice de Sharpe e (2) aloca????o com base na propor????o do PIB. Foi apresentado um m??todo alternativo de sele????o de ativos, utilizando o ??ndice PMI da manufatura como filtro de decis??o para a aloca????o dos recursos. O PMI ?? divulgado, em geral, no primeiro dia ??til de cada m??s, ?? pesquisado nos principais pa??ses e ?? um dos primeiros, se n??o o primeiro, indicador antecedente do ciclo econ??mico. Quando o PMI sinalizou crescimento econ??mico, a carteira foi composta por maior propor????o de ativos de renda vari??vel. Para avalia????o da performance da carteira proposta, a mesma foi comparada a outras tr??s carteiras globais que seguiram estrat??gias cl??ssicas de aloca????o, sendo que uma destas foi considerada benchmark. A carteira proposta tamb??m foi comparada a um benchmark criado com ativos exclusivamente brasileiros. O resultado obtido sugere que o uso do PMI como filtro de decis??o em uma carteira ativa e diversificada internacionalmente usando somente ETFs estrangeiros e ponderados de acordo com as t??cnicas da Moderna Teoria de Portf??lio apresentou retorno total e ??ndice de Sharpe generalizado superiores ao benchmark internacional e ao benchmark brasileiro. Este resultado sugere que os investidores e os gestores brasileiros e estrangeiros que adotam a gest??o ativa de seus portf??lios poderiam incluir o PMI como um dos indicadores a serem observados na estrat??gia de aloca????o

本文旨在探討台灣發行交易所交易債券之可行性。台灣近年交易所交易基金發展蓬勃，無論掛牌檔數、資產規模、交易金額皆向上成長，惟根據中華民國證券商業同業公會的統計，台灣證券商受託買賣外國集中市場有價證券之規模亦逐年增加，顯示目前台灣金融交易市場所提供之金融商品並不足以滿足市場需求，仍有發展空間。2016年1月，台灣金融監督管理委員會開放國內證券商接受投資人委託買賣外國交易所交易債券，本文透過闡述交易所交易債券之產品特性及分析各國交易所交易債券之發行及上市規範和稅制，進一步為台灣發行交易所交易債券之相關政策給出具體建議。 / This study aims to make practical suggestions on exchange-traded note issuance in Taiwan. Data from Taiwan Securities Association shows that the trading value of securities firms accepting orders to trade foreign securities keeps growing these years, suggesting that the financial product line in Taiwan is not diversified enough to satisfy the market needs. Taiwan Financial Supervisory Commission has announced that securities firms are opened to accept orders to trade foreign exchange-traded notes since January 2016. Before opening domestic exchange-traded note market, related regulations have to be built. Exchange-traded note, the product itself, as well as the issuance and listing rules and taxation in different countries are therefore analyzed in this paper to make further suggestions on exchange-traded note issuance in Taiwan.