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The thesis examines the effects of geopolitical events on global crude oil, wheat and aluminum prices. Geopolitical events have the potential to disrupt the production and supply of commodities to markets, affecting prices. Path analysis models that mirror crude oil, wheat and aluminum markets are constructed using theories specific to each commodity to measure how substantial the impacts of different variables are upon prices. Vector error correction models are then employed to test if individual geopolitical events have long-term effects on prices. An analysis of production and exports of commodities in regions and countries affected by geopolitical events is conducted to determine how severely production is disrupted. A basic examination of prices before, during and after geopolitical events is conducted to understand how quickly drivers of commodity prices can shift between geopolitical events and supply and demand fundamentals. It also serves to show how quickly prices revert to pre-event levels following a geopolitical event.

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Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2015. / Dividend policy establishes the distribution of a company’s profit whether they could pay out to the stockholders as dividends or retain the profit for re-investments in the company. There are several theories which explain the dividend behaviour, and the empirical studies suggest evidence for one over the other, however the belief concerning corporate dividend theories are different. There are two conflicting theories; those who believe in dividend relevance theory (Lintner & Gordon) and those who believe in dividend irrelevance theory (Miller & Modigliani). The key part of the study is related to the evaluation of which theory is suited for dividend policy of companies in Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE). So far numerous researchers have make an effort to solve the dividend puzzle. The main aim of this study was to establish whether there is a relationship between dividend policy and stock return of companies listed in Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. In particular, the study focuses on three main aspects, namely; investigating the association between stock returns and dividend yield, stock price reaction to dividend announcements and identifying the factors influencing dividend policy decisions. The empirical findings confirmed that dividend yield has a strong impact on stock returns and it is statistically significant. The finding of this study supported the dividend relevance theory. The event study found that dividend announcements have an impact on share prices and the significance of the abnormal around event date confirms that the DSE market supports dividend relevance and signaling theory. Finally, the study concluded that debt ratio and age of the firms have a strong influence on the dividend policy on firms on the DSE.

This research report examines the effect of the announcement of corporate unbundling by South African corporations listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This research was carried out in order to update the literature and to analyse whether results confirm the previous research performed by Blount and Davidson (1996) or coincides with international trends, which displayed positive responses to unbundling announcements. The event study methodology was used for analysing the market’s reactions to corporate unbundling announcements. Abnormal returns were calculated using the market model approach with an event window of ten days and an estimation window of 120 days. A sample of 27 corporations were analysed in this research report during the period January 2002 to June 2011. The results indicated strong negative abnormal returns as a result of the corporate unbundling announcements. This finding confirms Blount and Davidson’s (1996) earlier research.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science. January 2015. / Stylized facts play a significant role in the testing whether models agree with known statistical anomalies and phenomena that occur in financial markets or not. Thus, we can use these stylized facts as a modelling tool or just to understand the general behavior of financial markets better. In the paper by Bouchaud et al in 2004 [1] we see the promotion of a new stylized fact that correlations in trade signs fail to die out, even after large lags. In fact, Bouchaud et al expressed the correlations as a slow power-law decay over trade ticks. In the results of our empirical study of JSE and BM&FBOVESP we find that the selected stocks show the this same power-law decay of correlations of trade signs. We also find that the stocks behave in a way which may allow for price manipulation at high enough trading rates as discussed by Gatheral [2].

Abstract The resilience of trade balances of the major industrialised economies such as the US and Japan to changes in their exchange rates following the switch from fixed to floating exchange rate regimes, triggered interest in the exchange rate pass-through relationship. Because of the importance of the pass-through issue particularly in economic policy formulation, a sizeable literature has developed over recent years. Comprehensive surveys of this literature include Menon (1995), Goldberg and Knetter (1997) and McCarthy (2002). However, not much attention has been paid to the comparison of the methodologies for estimating exchange rate pass-through. This research report aims to address this imbalance by comparing some of the exchange rate pass-through estimation methodologies via a Monte Carlo simulation study, based on the South African data set. The econometric results reported in this research report suggest that the Johansen type VECMs are superior to polynomial distributed lag models, exchange rate pass-through to South Africa’s import prices is incomplete (around 78%) and that the speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium is low, about 7 per cent of disequilibrium in the previous month is corrected in the current month. We conclude that if we are not sure about the unit root properties of the data (as is normally the case), then the ARDL precedure is the appropriate model for empirical work.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / This paper builds upon Blanchard's (1981) model of asset prices, and provides an empirical evidence for good news cases (GNC) and/or bad news cases (BNC) as de ned in Blanchard's paper. We update Blanchard's model by introducing Taylor's rule of monetary policy and explicitly incorporate income distribution in a small, open economy. The ndings indicate that, the labour share is a strong and signi cant variable that should be considered in asset pricing models. The real exchange rate plays a signi cant role in the determination of asset prices in most of the selected countries, but the signi cance is stronger in the emerging markets economies. As the main objective of the paper, the study has found four of the selected countries to be bad news cases and eight of them are good news cases. / MT2016

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Finance and investment. Johannesburg, 2015 / A pairs trading strategy is a market neutral trading strategy that tries to make a profit by making use of inefficiencies in financial markets. In the equity pairs trading context, a market neutral strategy, is a strategy that hedges against both market and sector risk. According to the efficient market theory in its weak form, a pairs trading strategy should not produce positive returns since the actual stock price is reflected in its past trading data. The main objective of this paper is to examine the performance and risk of an equity pairs trading strategy in an emerging market context using daily, weekly and monthly prices on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange over the period 1994 to 2014. A bootstrap method is used determine whether returns from the strategy can be attributed to skill rather than luck. / MT2016

A 50% dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce at the University of Witwatersrand. / Information asymmetry creates a gap between management’s perception of the firm’s value and the market value of the firm. It is thought that management engage in information signalling activities in order to close the gap created by information asymmetry. There is a need to understand why management engage in their chosen transactions as this will provide investors with insight into market activities, as well as allow for more accurate investment strategies. While research is available on the market’s reactions to signalling events, the problem is whether management’s intentions have been correctly interpreted by the market. The starting point to gaining this understanding is to ask the question: What signals do management send when they issue and repurchase shares? This study attempts to answer this question by investigating whether companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) issue shares because management perceive their market values to be overvalued and repurchase shares because their market values are undervalued. For the period 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2012, a total of 295 share issue announcements are considered for 102 companies; and a total of 183 share repurchase announcements are considered for 83 companies. The results of this study reveal that managerial equity market timing may exist in the presence of excess returns, where management are better able to predict returns in advance than the market. However, there is also evidence suggesting share repurchases are made to return excess cash to shareholders and issues and repurchases decisions are linked to capital structure planning. The fact that there are other potential reasons for share issues and repurchases, means that the market must be able to determine what the real intentions of management are when shares are issued and repurchased; and hence determine whether their intentions suggest equity market mispricing.