This paper argues in favour of principle-based securities regulation for Canada. The author examines the current state of Canadian securities regulation and why change is needed. The author then examines the characteristics of principle-based regulation and contrasts it against rule-based regulation while exposing the advantages and disadvantages of both regulatory models. In proposing a principle-based model for Canadian securities regulation, the author looks to the use of this type of regulation in the capital markets of certain Canadian provinces, the United States and the United Kingdom and then examines certain attributes of Canadian capital markets that have to be considered in the application of principle-based securities regulation to Canada. In supporting principle-based regulation as the modern form of securities regulation, the author discusses lessons learned from the global financial crisis and how those lessons can be applied in the promotion of principle-based securities regulation for Canada.

Even simple observation of stock price graphs can reveal dominant patterns. In our work, we will refer to such re-occurring, dominant patterns as “coherent structures”, a term borrowed from the theory of turbulence in fluid dynamics. Stock price performance exhibits coherent structures, which by definition make it non-random, although a price-versus-time graph might seem totally chaotic to the naked eye. A novel low-order modeling technique for systems that are seemingly random has been developed. Though stock market data is used for the formulation and verification of the technique, its application in diverse fields is verified. The dissertation discusses some of the salient features of the novel technique along with a dynamic system analogy. The technique reduces many of the significant limitations associated with traditional methods like Fourier analysis and digital filters. Application of the technique to a nonlinear dynamical system and meteorological data are presented as well as the primary application on stock market securities.

This study examines how the Securities and Exchange Commission balances competing regulatory objectives in its decisions to approve requests to withhold proprietary information from firms' financial reports. The confidential treatment process requires the SEC to balance the public interest in protecting proprietary information with the public interest in promoting disclosures to investors. I draw upon the economic and political science literatures on regulatory decision-making to test the strength of these interests on three aspects of the SEC's decisions to grant confidential treatment: the duration of time required to approve the request, the duration of time the SEC agrees to protect proprietary information from disclosure, and whether the firm is successful in securing confidential treatment for all redacted information. I find that the public interest in promoting disclosure and protecting proprietary information influence different aspects of the SEC's decisions to grant regulatory exemptions for confidential treatment. Firms requiring greater monitoring by the SEC receive greater scrutiny and have lower odds of successful redaction. High proprietary costs are associated with significantly longer protection periods but proprietary costs generally are not associated with duration to approval or the success of the application. Finally, I find that the SEC applies greater scrutiny to firms exhibiting objective and salient measures of low financial reporting quality although these firms have higher odds of success. These findings are consistent with the SEC reviewing CTRs to reduce the risk of legislative oversight. This study contributes to the literature on disclosure regulation by providing evidence as to how securities regulators balance competing interests when reviewing requests for disclosure exemptions. These findings also contribute to the role of political influence on disclosure policy, as the SEC's exemption decisions are consistent with avoiding the threat of legislative oversight. Second, these findings contribute to the literature on the SEC's regulatory decisions by demonstrating that the SEC staff appears to allocate resources and apply scrutiny to applications for disclosure exemptions using aspects of registered firms' financial reporting quality. Third, these findings contribute to the literature on redaction as a disclosure choice by providing evidence suggesting that firms with low financial reporting quality are more likely to redact, and I provide evidence on the success of this disclosure choice. Overall, these findings suggest that the public interest in promoting disclosure, as well as the threat of legislative oversight, influence the SECs decisions when granting regulatory exemptions to protect proprietary information.

This study examines the relationship between executives and their independent auditor to see if there is a conflict of interest in their interaction. This study was motivated by the meltdowns, partially caused by fraudulent accounting, of many public companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s and the consequent passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This study examines the variables of audit fees, fees for other services, and auditor tenure to see if they are connected with the occurrence of an SEC-prompted restatement. The results show no significant correlation between amount of fees and the likelihood of an SEC-prompted restatement but indicate a negative correlation between length of executive-auditor relationship and the occurrence of an SEC-prompted restatement.

Strategy Maps and Balance Scorecard are linear thinking which can not express what kind of the feedback strategy, it is difficult to analysis and answer the problems from the events delay too. Through the Balanced Scorecard¡¦s four dimensions, strategy maps make many of performance activities. The boss or manager can understand the enterprise strategy execution result simply. This study concentrate on a securities corporation, use Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard view the destinations of the business, give them into Key Performance Index as possible destinations. Then use System Dynamics to built the relationship between different element, use simulation to experiment the model, wish for find the decisive element which will be answer to the securities corporation.The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: System dynamics establish the model that will be able to find the relationship among the element. System dynamics model will aid enterprise to find their lead index in the enterprise, and will be able to find antintuition event. By planning, vision, Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map will aid enterprise create much workable goals.

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Seeing that domestic securities underwriters are not able to develop effectively sustainable competitive advantages, the research is aimed to combine the resource-based view (RBV) and the value chain concept. Questionnaires are released to carry out investigation mainly into the securities associates of local underwriters for the purpose of finding out the vital enterprise source and value activities that construct the high performances of underwriters. And it also discusses the relation between value chain activities and business models of domestic underwriters, and the relation between their business models and high performances. The research discusses the following subjects based on the above research motive: 1. What kinds of essential assets and skills should underwriters grasp to obtain higher performances than those of their competitors? 2. Discussion of the vital value activities that construct the high performances of underwriters, and attempts to build the complete value chain of local underwriters. 3. Discussion on whether local underwriters will develop different business models due to emphasis on different value activities from those of their competitors. 4. Reasoning about whether the high performances of local underwriters will vary significantly because of different business models. The result of the research¡¦s practical testimony shows: ¡§Underwriting performance¡¨, ¡§customer developing ability¡¨, ¡§support from financial holding companies¡¨, ¡§channel and distribution¡¨ and ¡§underwriting superiors¡¦ charm and leading abilities¡¨ are considered by local securities associates to be five of the most important enterprise resources that constitute the high performances of underwriters. Among them, resources such as ¡§underwriting performances¡¨ and ¡§support from financial holding companies¡¨ are of durability, immobility, high embededness and not able to be duplicated. Plus, ¡§customer developing ability¡¨ and ¡§channel and distribution¡¨ are of durability, and partial immobility as well as resource embededness. All of the above resource characteristics are deemed by resource-based view to be able to form the sustainable competitive advantages of enterprises. After the variables of each factor in the aspect of value activities are measured, 24 items¡¦ means of importance degree are more than 3.79 among them. Analyzing descriptive statistics data, we find out that more than 70% of securities associates consider the effect of these 24 value activities to be important or extremely important, which implies that local securities associates highly agree to the importance that the support activities and primary activities in the value chain comprise the high-performance base of domestic underwriters. Furthermore, a complete value chain of local securities underwriters will be set up based on the result. In the field of cluster analysis for the aspect of business models, the research adopts the minimum variance method (also called Ward¡¦s method) among hierarchical methods, and divides 20 securities underwriters into three groups based on one¡¦s strong or weak behaviors of each value activities compared with those of other rivals of the same business. After analyzing performance variables such as the number of underwriting cases (act as the lead underwriter), the total amount of underwriting, profit abilities, employees¡¦ productivity, and customer satisfaction, we find that their significance level are less than 0.05, which indicates that there are obvious differences among the performances of different groups of business models. And with Post Hoc multiple comparison, it is found that there are distinct variances among the performances of different groups of business models except for the three performances - profit abilities, employees¡¦ productivity and customer satisfaction - of group 1 and group 2.

In recent year, the securities firms had suffered form the turmoil of the financial crisis in Taiwan. Although the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation and the Securities and Futures Commission have their own early warning systems (EWS), the EWS based on financial statements and the "capital adequacy ratio", respectively for the risks that the brokers and dealers assume, still have some defects: (1) EWS based on financial statements are static and time-lagged in the rapid-moving market, and (2) the calculation rules in the capital adequacy ratio are inelastic and inefficient. This research emphasizes on the stock positions of the dealers, and calculate the "Value at Risk" (VaR) for these positions. In this way, we hope to know whether the EWS based on VaR can detect the risks of the dealers in time, and improve the drawbacks of the EWS based on financial statements and capital adequacy ratio. We found that: (1) the EWS based on VaR can effectively reflect the market risk of the dealers, and (2) the "historical simulation" method might distort the real portfolio risk, thus we suggest that "delta-normal" is a better method, and (3) the EWS based on VaR can discriminate the risk level of different securities dealers. In conclusion, we have the suggestion of the EWS for securities firms in the future. For firm-wide operation, the EWS based on financial statements is suitable; for the credit risks the securities firms may assume, the capital adequacy ratio is better; as for the market risk of the positions, VaR, undoubtedly, is a good alternative.

Abstract Mergers and Acquisitions often happen in America and Europe, but in Taiwan they are just on the start stage. In the end of 1999, two of top ten securities firms-- Yuanta Securities Firm and Core Pacific Securities Firm merged. This M&A case triggered a series of M&A actions in the securities industry, and the rank and ecology of the industry changed a lot. My thesis focuses on the effects of industry structure and key success factors due to the series of M&A actions in securities industry. My four research objectives are : 1. to find out the motives of securities firms¡¦ M&A 2. to find out what happened to industry structure after the several M&A actions 3. If the industry structure changed, to find out the influences of key success factors of industry 4. Facing the changed industry environment, to give securities firms some suggestions The analysis methods of my thesis are literature reviewing and interviewing the securities firms. Porter¡¦s ¡§Five Forces Model¡¨ is the main analyzing theory. The research results find that the main motive of the securities firms¡¦ M&A is to expand the scale, in order to globalize and develop to be an investment bank. After several M&A actions, the most obvious changes are the decrease of securities firm numbers and the change of rank. The intensity of industry competition alleviates and the threat of substitute and potential entrant diminishes. The bargaining power of customers doesn¡¦t change. As to key successful factors, the importance of securities firms¡¦ size increases. Globalization, training of professional employees, innovation of products and information technology are required resources and capacities of securities firms.

This paper discusses the necessity for consolidation and the related problems of the securities industry in Taiwan as it increases its economies of scale. The logistical planning for consolidations in the industry is profiled within the context of the theoretical motivations and legal issues underlying the changes to this industry. The necessity for consolidation and expansion in order to achieve economies of scale is illustrated by drawing upon the past history of the Taiwan securities industry in the last 40 years as well as the present circumstances as the industry is threatened by the multi-industry structure of foreign conglomerates and the internationalized competitive environment. The combination of industry characteristics and market trends is presented to provide some suggestions for further development. In the past ten years (from 1990 to 2000), the securities industry in Taiwan grew at a very fast pace, with the number of firms increasing from 199 to 531, 2.66 times. The market capitalization grew 6.86 times, increasing to NTD 3.7 trillion from NTD 533 billion. The amount of corporate bonds and savings trusts issued in the foreign market increased to USD 9.6 billion in 2000 from USD 74 million in 1990. At the same time, as the Taiwanese economy took off and grew at an amazing pace, the trade surplus and balance-of-payments surplus brought wealth and prosperity to the people of this country. The money supply grew from NTD 5.78 trillion to NTD 19.46 trillion, giving Taiwan new potential as a place to underwrite and issue new securities. The market in Taiwan has expanded tremendously in order to meet the spectacular growth in demand for these services. The market expansion took place at a time when mergers were the dominant trend around the world, and the securities industry increased not only its economies of scale but also its economies of scope in order to face the tougher world competition in the coming years. In November 1999, the securities industry witnessed a dramatic change in the market. Yuanta Securities and Core pacific Securities announced their merger plans and this lit a spark that led to the consolidation of large firms with sizes of a such magnitude that they have not been linked to firms active in the consolidation arena. In the future, Taiwan will ride the international merger wave that originates from the economies of scale and scope and many more mergers in the industry will take place to form companies that will combine the capital and foreign exchange markets in its operations. Through cross industry mergers and the establishment of holding companies, large scale securities and financial conglomerates will be formed. Securities and financial institutions in the domestic market and abroad will develop towards enlarging its size, increasing its lines of businesses, and expanding in the international market. This paper looks at the development trends in the securities industry and discusses the necessity for consolidation and its related problems. Having worked in the industry for over ten years, the author has a keen awareness of the market characteristics and its trends, as well as intuition about what motivates the market. Throughout this research, the author has found that the market forces on a theoretical level that drive the need for consolidation have originated from a need to increase the economies of scale to deal with the increased competition in the international marketplace and have made consolidation a necessity so that the industry can remain competitive as internationalization unfolds. As a whole, this research has found ten conclusions with regard to the consolidation of the securities industry and makes ten recommendations to guide future developments as the industry seeks to increase its economies of scale.