Practitioners and academics in emerging markets are yet to agree on how best they can value companies in emerging markets. In contrast, academics and practitioners in developed markets seem to agree on mainstream valuation practices (Bruner, Eades, Harris and Haggins, 1998; Graham and Harvey, 2001). This study was therefore aimed at achieving such consensus with particular attention being paid to the emerging market banks. Emerging market banks are by no means small and are growing fast. Furthermore, these banks are currently involved in lots of cutting age economic activities such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A), joint ventures and strategic alliances which require sound valuation practices that are based on empirical evidence. The primary purpose of this research was to establish consensus of opinion among experts with regard to the valuation of banks in emerging markets. To achieve the purpose of this study the Delphi technique, which is a structured survey method that relies on a panel of experts to answer questionnaires in two or more Delphi rounds, was used to gather data and develop consensus among experts (Kalaian and Kasim, 2012). The main findings in this study pertain to aspects concerning the type of analysis considered by experts when analysing the performance of banks, how experts compare the discounted cash flow (DCF) approach to multiples valuation approach, the challenges encountered by experts when valuing banks in emerging markets, and how experts compute the cost of capital for banks in emerging markets. The main findings of this study can be summarised as follows: ∙ When analyzing the performance of banks, it is essential to conduct a bank-specific, industry and macroeconomic analysis; ∙ When estimating the future performance of banks, the time series analysis and an explicit forecast period of between 4-10 years may be used; ∙ When estimating the terminal value for banks in emerging markets, the perpetuity with growth is used; ∙ When computing the value for banks, the DCF valuation approach (equity DCF and DDM valuation models) are used as primary valuation methods and the relative valuation approach (P/E and P/BV ratio) are used as secondary valuation methods; ∙ The DCF valuation approach is considered as more accurate and popular when valuing banks in emerging markets; and ∙ When estimating the cost of equity, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is used.

Liquidity is a measure of the ease with which an asset can be converted into cash. In a perfectly liquid market, conversion is instantaneous and does not incur costs. Amihud and Mendelson (1986:224) proposed that illiquidity increases the expected return on an investment (liquidity premium) and simultaneously lengthens the holding period. These two effects are known respectively as the “spread-return relationship” and the “clientele effect” and have theoretical as well as practical implications. From a theoretical perspective it may help to explain the gap between the capital asset pricing model (which assumes that markets are perfectly liquid) and the associated empirical evidence; which thus far has been rather poor. From a practical perspective, liquidity will influence stakeholders’ decisions and market competitiveness (Amihud&Mendelson, 1991:61-64). The relevant stakeholders are governments, stock exchange regulators, corporations, investors and financial intermediaries. Emerging economies such as the South African economy typically have less liquid markets than the developed world. While this may be attractive for investors looking for higher returns, Amihud and Mendelson (1991:61) are of the opinion that liquid markets are more generally favoured by investors. Constantinides (1986:842-858), also proposes a model for liquidity, but found the liquidity premium to be of lesser importance than that proposed by Amihud and Mendelson (1986:223-231) but also supports the suggestion that investors will favour liquid markets. Although it is by no means a perfect proxy, a security’s bid-ask spread has been found to be an attractive and effective measure of liquidity. It has been found to correlate with beta as well as market capitalisation and several other variables commonly used in capital markets research. Because of this correlation the effect of the bid-ask spread cannot be studied in isolation when regression techniques are employed (Ramanathan, 1998:166). This is particularly problematic because empirical evidence for beta, which is arguably the most important independent variable in financial cross sectional relationships, is weak. Beta has to be estimated and so it is not clear if real markets do not support CAPM theory or if beta cannot be estimated with the required accuracy. All of the common independent variables used in empirical capital markets research are correlated to beta, and for this reason it cannot be established if these variables have a real effect or if they are simply serving as a proxy for the difference between the real and the estimated beta. Various strategies have been proposed to increase the accuracy of beta estimation and these are discussed in detail in this research. Successes with these strategies have been mixed. A second problem encountered in the empirical research base relating to the CAPM is that in the theory the cross-sectional relationship is between expected market return (which cannot be observed due to the vast number of real investments beyond those listed on exchanges) and beta, whereas empirical research makes use of actual return on a market proxy and beta. In order for the actual return to approach the expected return, empirical studies have to be conducted over extended periods. Accurate data for such periods are generally lacking and severe macro-economic changes such as wars, may also affect rational economic behaviour. It has to be kept in mind that the entire CAPM theory flows from the simple assumption that investors aim to achieve the highest return per unit of risk, and so a rejection of beta is a rejection of rational investor behaviour. Liquidity however, addresses one of the assumptions of CAPM, namely that markets are perfectly liquid; which obviously is not met in real markets and so CAPM models expanded for liquidity should be a reasonably fundamental starting point for all empirical capital markets research. The current empirical evidence for the spread-return relationship is inconclusive. While some researchers have found a significant relationship, others have questioned the ability of the methodology to differentiate a true relationship from the ‘proxy for errors in the estimated beta’ problem. Deductions (as explained in section 4.3) that have been made from the research of Marshall and Young (2003:176-186) in particular, provide strong evidence that at least some of the relationship is due to the ‘errors in estimated beta’ problem. Little empirical work has been done on the clientele effect. Atkins and Dyl (1997:318-321) found a significant relationship between holding period and bid-ask spread, although their approach was somewhat unorthodox in the sense that portfolio formation was not done and the effect of beta was not tested. This study tests empirically both the spread-return relationship and the clientele effect on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period stretching from January 2002 to June 2007. The methodology of Fama and Macbeth (1973:614-617) as well as the aggregated beta of Dimson (1979:203-204) were mainly used, with some modifications as suggested by other researchers. With regard to the spread-return relationship, the findings of this study do not support theoretical expectations. This may be due to the short time period that was used as well as the difficulty in estimating beta. To the contrary, very significant evidence for the clientele effect was found, with little to no influence from market capitalisation and beta, which is as expected. Further investigation into the spread-return relationship is required. If a liquidity premium is not present, foreign investors will favour liquid developed markets above the JSE. This implies that efforts of exchange regulators and the government to decrease illiquidity will lead to foreign portfolio investment inflow into the South African economy. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Graduate School of Management / unrestricted

Monthly returns on twenty-seven Eurobonds from July 1982 to June 1986 were examined. There were no consistent differences in returns based on the country in which a firm is located. There were consistent differences due to industry classification, with energy-related firms exhibiting higher average returns and variances. Excess returns were calculated using the capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory. The results from calculation of mean average deviation, root mean square, and R2 all indicate that the arbitrage pricing theory was a better descriptor of the Eurobond market. The excess returns were also examined using stochastic dominance. Arbitrage pricing theory never dominated the capital asset pricing model using first-order criteria, but consistently dominated using second-order criteria. The results were discussed in terms of the implications for investors and portfolio managers.

No description available.

El presente trabajo de investigación analiza el estado del arte de los ajustes y adaptaciones que se han impuesto al modelo Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) para habilitar su aplicabilidad en mercados emergentes, con el fin de valorar correctamente los activos financieros y estimar la rentabilidad esperada en función del riesgo, es justo mencionar que, desde la publicación del modelo han surgido constantes críticas que lo califican de ineficaz en mercados emergentes, basándose particularmente en que, el modelo representa el riesgo a través de una sola variable que es medida por el riesgo sistemático y que fue originalmente diseñada para mercados desarrollados; en tal sentido, se han presentado propuestas de diversos especialistas que con sus teorías recomiendan ajustar el beta o ponderarlo, otras propuestas sugieren incluir variables como el diferencial de crédito, riesgo país y lambda, con lo que sostienen que es significativamente importante la necesidad de tener que adecuar el modelo a mercados emergentes caracterizados particularmente por ser riesgosos y tener alta volatilidad debido a los constantes cambios en sus variables económicos y financieros. / The following research analyzes the state of the art of the adjustments and adaptations imposed on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in order to enable its applicability on emerging markets, with the aim to value properly financial assets as well as estimate the expected profitability depending on the risk, It is fair to mention that, since the publication of the model, there has been severe criticism on its effectiveness for emerging markets, based on the fact that, the model displays the risk through a single variable that is measured by the systematic risk and that was originally designed for developed markets; in this sense, several proposals have been introduced by specialists suggesting wiht his theories to either adjust the Beta or weighted it, and other proposals suggest including variables such as credit spread, country risk and lambda, with which they maintain that it would be of the utmost importance to adapt the model to emerging markets, particularly characterized for being risky and have feature high volatility due to the constant fluctuations both in their economic and financial variables. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

Artificial intelligence, AI, has received increasing attention from the finance industry over recent years. There have been many successful applications of AI in finance, including but not limited to derivative pricing, asset management, credit risk, algorithmic trading, and simulation of time series with stylized facts. This thesis introduces various applications of AI in two major fields, namely (a) quantitative/computational finance and (b) asset management. In each chapter, we address non-stationarity of markets under consideration and focus on building methodologies that would work under the non-stationary behavior of those market. In computational finance, fast and accurate algorithms are of great importance, especially when analytical solutions are unavailable. Although traditional methods are reliable and easily explainable, they are computationally expensive. Transform methods like Fast-Fourier transform provide faster option pricing, yet they cannot be applied to path-dependent products. In Chapter 2, we build a pricing engine based on supervised deep neural networks. We show that neural networks can replicate major stochastic processes with or without stochastic volatility in both pure diffusion and pure jump frameworks. We validate our models across different ranges of model parameters. Supervised neural networks accelerate the derivative pricing significantly compared to traditional methods. Applications of AI in asset management are triggered by different dynamics, but they are fully data-driven and thus rely on the availability of data. Chapter 3 proposes a novel prediction framework for cash flow forecasting of illiquid products/assets. Our single-step neural network model provides the investors and managers of funds with a tool to manage the liquidity of their cash flows for financial planning. Our framework is also sensitive to adverse market conditions that could help prepare for upcoming crises such as Covid. In Chapter 4, we propose novel methodologies for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to predict the deal announcement based on rumors and takeover success. M&A data is highly imbalanced in nature, and the cost of misclassifying a cancelled rumor/cancelled deal as announced deal/takeover success is higher than the other. Hence, we utilize sequential model-based optimization with tree-parzen estimators to maximize the recall score by tuning hyperparameters of neural networks. We improve the recall by 10% without sacrificing accuracy, and our results show that the proposed methodology is robust against changing market environments. In the last chapter, we build a two-step neural network model for sector rotation strategies using macroeconomic variables. The portfolio built based on our proposed model not only beats the benchmark portfolio but can also predict longer horizons.

The study was conducted with the goal of designing a new pricing model for one of AGNA Logistik AB's customer projects through a detailed flow mapping and cost analysis. The existing pricing model that AGNA Logistik applies in the studied customer project is based on time and material billing, which entails significant risks in terms of unnoticed resource wastage and inefficiency in forecasting an estimated price effectively. To address these issues, a combination of literature reviews, field studies, and Activity Based Costing was used to identify and analyze the costs and time of activities in the logistics flow. This methodology has enabled a precise mapping of the actual costs for each individual activity, for all the studied products. The study resulted in a proposal for a new pricing model based on fixed prices per item. This model is expected to eliminate resource wastage and inefficiency, as well as contribute to more fair and predictable pricing. By introducing fixed prices per item, AGNA Logistik can not only increase efficiency in its internal processes but also improve financial predictability and customer satisfaction. The implementation of the new pricing model has the potential to reduce administrative inefficiency and ensure that pricing includes all costs of the logistics operations. In the long term, this is expected to lead to increased economic benefits for AGNA Logistik, both through improved margins and increased attractiveness of the company's services in the market. / Studien har genomförts med målet att utforma ett underlag för implementeringen av en ny fast prismodell för ett av kunduppdragen hos AGNA Logistik AB genom en detaljerad flödeskartläggning och kostnadsanalys. Den befintliga prismodellen som AGNA Logistik tillämpar i det studerade kunduppdraget bygger på löpande räkning, vilket medför betydande risker i form av resursslöserier som inte fångas upp och ineffektivitet med att prognostisera hanteringskostnader på ett effektivt sätt. För att åtgärda dessa problem har en kombination av litteraturstudier, fältstudier och ABC-kalkylering (Activity Based Costing) använts för att identifiera och analysera kostnader och tidsåtgången för aktiviteterna i logistikflödet. Denna metodik har möjliggjort en noggrann kartläggning av de faktiska kostnaderna för varje enskild aktivitet, för varje enskild studerad produkttyp från inleverans till utleverans. Studien har resulterat i ett förslag på en ny prismodell som baseras på fasta priser per plockad artikel. Denna modell förväntas eliminera identifierade resursslöserier och ineffektivitet, samt bidra till en mer rättvis och förutsägbar prissättning. Genom att införa fasta priser per artikel kan AGNA Logistik inte bara öka effektiviteten i sina interna processer utan också förbättra den ekonomiska förutsägbarheten och kundnöjdheten. Implementeringen av den fasta prismodellen har potential att minska den administrativa ineffektiviteten och säkerställa att prissättningen inkluderar samtliga kostnader för logistikverksamheten. På lång sikt förväntas detta leda till ökade ekonomiska fördelar för AGNA Logistik, både genom förbättrade marginaler och genom ökad attraktivitet för företagets tjänster på marknaden.

Yes / This paper examines the role of institutional investor sentiment in determination of the beta-return relation. Empirical evidence documents a positive (negative) beta-return relation over bearish (bullish) periods, implying that institutional investors can also be sentiment traders.

The impact of political and economic events on the asset pricing model described by the arbitrage pricing theory (APTM) was examined in order to establish if they had caused any changes in its specification. It was concluded that the APTM is not stationary and that it must be continuously tested before it can be used as political and economic events can change its specification. It was also found that political events had a more direct effect on the specification of the APTM, in that their effect is more immediate, than did economic events, which influenced the APTM by first influencing the economic environment in which it operated. The conventional approach that would have evaluated important political and economic events, case by case, to determine whether they affected the linear factor model (LFM), and subsequently the APTM, could not be used since no correlation was found between the pricing of a risk factor in the LFM and its subsequent pricing in the APTM. A new approach was then followed in which a correlation with a political or economic event was sought whenever a change was detected in the specification of the APTM. This was achieved by first finding the best subset LFM, chosen for producing the highest adjusted R2 , month by month, over 87 periods from 20 October1991 to 21 June 1998, using a combination of nine prespecified risk factors (five of which were proxies for economic events and one for political events). Multivariate analysis techniques were then used to establish which risk factors were priced most often during the three equal subperiods into which the 87 periods were broken up. Using the above methodology, the researcher was able to conclude that political events changed the specification of the APTM in late 1991. After the national elections in April 1994 it was found that the acceptance of South Africa into the world economic community had again changed the specification of the APTM and the two most important factors were proxies for economic events. / Business Leadership / DBL

The study investigates whether the main capital market theories and pricing models provide a reasonably accurate description of the working and efficiency of capital markets, of the pricing of shares and options and the effect the risk/return relationship has on investor behaviour. The capital market theories and pricing models included in the study are Portfolio Theory, the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), Options Theory and the BlackScholes (8-S) Option Pricing Model. The main conclusion of the study is that the main capital market theories and pricing models, as reviewed in the study, do provide a reasonably accurate description of reality, but a number of anomalies and controversial issues still need to be resolved. The main recommendation of the study is that research into these theories and models should continue unabated, while the specific recommendations in a South African context are the following: ( 1) the benefits of global diversification for South African investors should continue to be investigated; (2) the level and degree of efficiency of the JSE Securities Exchange SA (JSE) should continue to be monitored, and it should be established whether alternative theories to the EMH provide complementary or better descriptions of the efficiency of the South African market; (3) both the CAPM and the APT should continue to be tested, both individually and jointly, in order to better understand the pricing mechanism of, and risk/return relationship on the JSE; (4) much South African research still needs to be conducted on the efficiency of the relatively new options market and the application of the B-S Option Pricing Model under South African conditions. / Financial Accounting / M. Com. (Accounting)