The object in writing this thesis is to present, in compact form, a wholesome discussion of the legislation, affecting the securities business, passed by Congress since March 4, 1933, and presenting this information in a manner that may be easily understood by a student of finance. The two Acts which changed completely the complexion of the securities business were: The Securities Act of 1933 as Amended in 1934 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The scope of the work is divided into three chapters: Chapter One, gives a brief resume of the decade prior to the enactment of the two Acts discussed; Chapter Two, discusses The Securities Exchange Act of 1934; Chapter Three is a review of The Securities Act of 1933 as Amended in 1934. The procedure used in the discussion of these Acts is in the form of a historical sketch of conditions and events leading up to their enactment, a brief summary of each Act, favorable and unfavorable discussions of the Acts, and conclusions. / M.S.

Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are similar to traditional fixed-income securities in that they are exposed to interest rate risk. Interest rate risk involves potential losses in value stemming from unfavorable movements of interest rates. There are standard practices that allow investors to measure interest rate exposure and manage this risk by hedging, or reducing the risk, with positions in financial derivative securities. Interest rate hedges do not always work perfectly because of basis risk. Basis risk arises because the movement in an asset's price (MBS) is not perfectly correlated with the movement of the price of the derivatives (Treasury futures) used to hedge interest rate risk. The paper hypothesizes that despite the presence of basis risk, a dynamic hedging strategy using US Treasury futures makes a good hedge for MBS price fluctuations caused by interest rates. Empirical tests reject this hypothesis.

The research employs descriptive research methods to investigate the supply and demand dynamics of structured settlement markets, wherein individuals enter into contractual agreements to settle a personal injury case through the delivery of an annuity issued by a highly rated insurance carrier. This dissertation examines the characteristics of structured settlement markets, their similarities to other markets, and investor behavior under different macroeconomic conditions. The dissertation draws on data from public sources, market indexes, and existing literature on similar topics from other asset classes (Commercial Mortgage-backed Securities (CMBS) & High Yield Bonds). The data analysis will take a top-down approach using quantitative research methods. The motivation for this research study is to enhance visibility into the structured settlement market relevant to practitioners and influence future research on structured settlements and similar investments. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Tax policy makers in South Africa have to a large extent neglected the tax treatment of derivative instruments. The Income Tax Act, No. 58 of 1962, currently only takes into account three types of financial arrangements that can be classified as being derivative in nature: forward exchange and option contracts relating to foreign exchange, interest rate swaps based on notional capital amounts and option contracts. Although the Commissioner for Inland Revenue has appointed a number of internal working committees to research this area of the law, the legislation resulting from these efforts has been piecemeal in nature, dealing only with limited aspects of the taxation of a few specific transactions. Due to the lack of specific legislative provisions regulating the tax aspects of derivatives, the general principles of South African income tax law have to be applied to these instruments. This leads to imprecise and inconsistent results, primarily due to the development of these principles long before the widespread use of derivatives in sophisticated and complex transactions. The taxation of transactions involving derivative instruments is becoming a subject of increasing practical importance in South Africa due to the number of derivative transactions escalating in quantity. The introduction of capital gains tax in South Africa has added yet a further dimension to the taxation of derivatives. In light of the increasing volume and value of derivative transactions entered into by South African taxpayers, it is imperative that clarity regarding the taxation of these transactions be reached as soon as possible. Any reform and revised tax rules which is made applicable to these instruments, need to be very flexible, as further developments in the financial instrument environment are extremely dynamic and almost changing by day. It is furthermore important that the South African tax system keeps track with international developments to enhance the countl-y's trading status and to ensure that cross border transactions do not have anomalous conseq Llences, especially for foreign counter-parties. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Belastingbeleidmakers in Suid-Afrika het tot 'n groot mate die belastinghantering van afgeleide instrumente verwaarloos. Die Inkomstebelasingwet, No. 58 van 1962, neem tans slegs drie soorte finansiele ooreenkomste wat as afgeleide instrumente geklassifiseer kan word, in aanmerking: termynwissel- en opsiekontrakte met betrekking tot buitelandse valuta, rentekoers ruilkontrakte gebaseer op denkbeeldige kapitaalbedrae en opsiekontrakte. Alhoewel die Kommissaris van Binnelandse Inkomste 'n aantal interne werkskomitees aangestel het om ondersoek in te stel na hierdie afdeling van die reg, is die wetgewing wat voortgespruit het as uitvloeisel van hierdie pogings broksgewys van aard deurdat dit slegs met beperkte aspekte van die belasbaarheid van 'n aantal spesifieke transaksies gehandel het. Vanwee die gebrek aan spesifieke wetgewende bepalings wat die belastingaspekte van afgeleides reguleer, moet die algemene beginsels van die Suid-Afrikaanse inkol11stebelastingreg toegepas word op hierdie instrumente. Dit gee aanleiding tot onnollkeurige en teenstrydige resllltate, hoofsaaklik omdat hierdie beginsels reeds lank voor die wydverspreide gebruik van afgeleides in gesofistikeerde en ingewikkelde transaksies ontwikkel het.- Die belasbaarheid van transaksies waarby afgeleide instrumente betrokke is, is 'n onderwerp van loenemende praktiese belang in Suid-Afrika vanwee die styging in die aantal transaksies in afgeleides. Die inwerkingstelling van kapitaalwinsbelasting in Suid-Afrika het nog 'n verdere dimensie aan die belasbaarheid van afgeleide instmmente toegevoeg. lndien aggeslaan word op die toename in die aantal en waarele van transaksies in afgeleiele instrllmente wat deur Suid-Afrikaanse belastingbetalers aangegaan word, is elit noodsaaklik clat ciuidelikheid rakencle ciie belasbaarheid van hierdie transaksies so spoedig doenlik verkry word. Enige hervOiming en hersiende belastingreels wat van toepassing gemaak word op hierdie instrllmente, moet baie buigsaam wees aangesien verdere ontwikkelings in die finansieie instrumente-omgewing uiters dinamies is en bykans daagliks verander. Dit is vnorts belangrik dat die Suid-Afrikaanse belastingstelsel tred hou met intemasionale ontwikkelinge ten eincle ciie lanci se handelstatus te versterk en te verseker ciat tral1saksies oor grense heen nie onreeimatige gevolge inhou, veral vir buitelandse teenpartye nie.

Theoreticians and practitioners consider regulation of the capital marketplace to be an important area of concern due to the potential effects of such regulation on capital resource allocation, investment decision-making, and market efficiency. It is hypothesized that if the level of issue quality required by a state prior to public sale supplies investor benefits, such benefits should take the form of excess returns and/or less variation in return in relation to issues complying with lower standards of quality. The study utilizes an Analysis of Variance and, an analysis of average and cumulative average residuals. Both investigations provide findings that merit regulation is beneficial to new investors increased market efficiency.

Numerical methods form an important part of the pricing of financial derivatives and especially in cases where there is no closed form analytical formula. We begin our work with an introduction of the mathematical tools needed in the pricing of financial derivatives. Then, we discuss the assumption of the log-normal returns on stock prices and the stochastic differential equations. These lay the foundation for the derivation of the Black Scholes differential equation, and various Black Scholes formulas are thus obtained. Then, the model is modified to cater for dividend paying stock and for the pricing of options on futures. Multi-period binomial model is very flexible even for the valuation of options that do not have a closed form analytical formula. We consider the pricing of vanilla options both on non dividend and dividend paying stocks. Then show that the model converges to the Black-Scholes value as we increase the number of steps. We discuss the Finite difference methods quite extensively with a focus on the Implicit and Crank-Nicolson methods, and apply these numerical techniques to the pricing of vanilla options. Finally, we compare the convergence of the multi-period binomial model, the Implicit and Crank Nicolson methods to the analytical Black Scholes price of the option. We conclude with the pricing of exotic options with special emphasis on path dependent options. Monte Carlo simulation technique is applied as this method is very versatile in cases where there is no closed form analytical formula. The method is slow and time consuming but very flexible even for multi dimensional problems.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

61 Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to analyse new legislation on securities and book- entry securities enacted during the recodification of private law. The main legislation moved from the Act no. 591/1992 Coll., On Securities, into the Act no. 89/2012 Coll., The Civil Code. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals with the general definition of the concept of securities and booked-entry securities. It describes the definition of security that has been adopted from the Swiss Code of Obligations and describes the new concept of book-entry securities, which are now a substitute to securities and a separate legal institute. The second chapter briefly describes the functions of the securities. The third chapter describes forms of securities that are crucial for determination of methods of transfer of the securities. It also discusses enactment of legal presumptions of the form of the security that are used to determine form of securities in the case the form of the security is not entirely clear. Finally, this chapter deals with the question, whether the forms of book-entry securities are no longer distinguished. The fourth chapter analyses the transfer of ownership of the securities according to their various forms and discusses the conditions under which the securities in each...

M.Comm. / The study assessed the conformance of the companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange Social Responsibility Index to the best practices regarding the composition of the board and its committees. The board of directors is regarded as an effective mechanism in solving the agency problem that is caused by the separation of control and ownership. The composition of the board and its committees, particularly the strong presence of independent non-executive directors, enable the board to effectively monitor the actions of executive management which minimise the occurrence of fraud and corporate failures. Companies that subscribe to good corporate governance practices which includes the composition of the board and its committees are regarded highly by investors. The study assessed the extent to which the companies listed on the JSE SRI index conformed to the corporate governance best practices. The sample consists of the constituents of the JSE SRI Index. The study found that not all companies are conformed to the corporate governance best practices regarding the composition of the board and its committees.

By doing so, we contribute to the existing literature in at least the following aspects: / First, contrasted with Chakravarty (2001) which finds that cumulative price change is mainly caused by institutional investors, we document that, at least in the Chinese IPO market, it is the individual investors, rather than the institutions, that have the most dominant impact on the cumulative price change. This is consistent with the prediction of De Long et al. (1990a) and the fact that noise trader risks play an important role in Chinese stock market, which leaves the prices deviated from fundamental values and not arbitraged out. / Initial Public Offering (IPO) refers to the first sale of stocks by a company (called an issuer) to the public. Since the late 1960s high initial return, which is measured from the offer price to the first-day closing price, has become a hot topic. This phenomenon has been found in a range of countries, and in China the ratio is even much higher. / On top of that, we further investigate different types of individual investors by categorizing them according to their trading experiences. We find that those less experienced individuals tend to buy an IPO stock in a more impatient way, while investors who buy on the first non-hit day are more experienced. And waiting averagely 1.4 days can raise the return by more than 1.5% in 30 days. / Our research attempts to tackle the high initial return in China from the aspect of investor structure. First, we find empirical evidence that there are more sells than buys on the IPO day, and this demonstrates that flippers are responsible for the huge trading volume. Combining the identities of investors with the trading data, we also find that individual investors dominate the first day trading, in the sense that individuals, rather than institutions, contribute a larger part of the cumulative price change on the IPO day. / Our studies have many practical implications from several perspectives. First, analyzing the investor structure and their behavior during the IPO day can help us understand the characteristics of those investors who move the stock price. Second, our research can also help to know the different trading style of different kinds of investors. According to our research, investors maybe can design more favorable investment strategies. And for the regulators, our research can help them formulate more reasonable trading rules and regulations. / Second, existing literature show that more experienced investors tend to end up with better investment results, while our study builds a bridge between investor experiences and their decision making procedure. Our finding also contributes to the technical analysis literature, such as Lo, Mamaysky and Wang (2000), among others, in that we find experienced investors indeed tend to do more technical analysis and obtain better investment results. / Zhai, Weili. / Advisers: Jia He; Ying Foon Chow. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-08(E), Section: A. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-122). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.