The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between the annualised volatility and correlation of G7 ten-year bond returns for the period July 1992 to June 1998 and the effects that such a relationship has on portfolio diversification. The stock market crash of 1987 and the growing importance of global equity markets has encouraged a plethora of research into the volatility and correlations between international equity markets. Despite this, very little attention has been paid to the transmission of currency-based bond returns across national boundaries. The findings in this thesis are important because evidence is provided that suggests the benefits of international bond diversification are limited. The evidence provided clearly indicates that because correlations amongst G7 currency-hedged bond returns are high, the relationship between bond volatility and correlation of returns has limited benefits for portfolio managers and traders. As a result, diversification may not significantly reduce portfolio risk. Even during periods of ongoing annualised volatility decreases, the correlation between most markets remains high. Unlike the volatility trends presented in this thesis, there appears to be no trend or consistency amongst the correlation of returns between G7 markets. / Master of Commerce (Hons)

In this study, I examine the transmissions of volatility spillovers during the subprime crisis in the U.S between Vietnam and other Asian financial markets (Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). I attempt to explore the level and magnitude of volatility spillover effects of other Asian markets on the Vietnam stock market by applying a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model. It is found that the level of the volatility effect of the selected financial markets on the Vietnamese stock market’s return from 2006 to August - 2009 increases over time. Particularly, the level of volatility transmissions and spillover effect of two developed markets, Hong Kong and Japan onto the Vietnamese market are relatively higher and more consistent than other markets during the 2006-2009 period. Also, the Vietnamese financial market seems to perform better than other markets during my 2006-2009 sample, including the financial crisis period in 2007.

<p>This Master’s Degree is a futurology that aims to analyse how the Chinese stock market might develop for a period of ten years, i.e. between the years 2005-2015. Since the future never with certainty can be predicted, scenarios will be presented displaying other possible outcomes. Naturally these scenarios are built upon given assumptions which otherwise could be as many as one’s imagination allows. The thought is to present the results as an index so the reader easily can see the possible development and scenarios.</p><p>The methodology used to collect necessary data is through the classical Delphi method, by which one interviews the selected “experts” that have the knowledge needed of the Chinese stock market. Moreover, the authors have collected further information through literature, the Internet, articles, reports and other written sources needed to continue further investigation. Further, the forecast was measured by two steps. The first step was to calculate the value at the start point. The second step was to create tow types of scenarios, added as a frame of the forecast outcomes. To transform the analysis and the scenarios in to a numerical index, a technical measurement of Quasi Monte Carlo Simulation was applied.</p><p>The theories applied when creating the index is foremost the Arbitrage Pricing Theory, which makes it possibly to measure several factors at the same time, including macro economical effects on the stock market.</p><p>According to the result, four factors were identified as the driving forces when finding a balanced economy, which affect the stock exchange: the investment structure; equal standard of living; the state of the financial sector and increased transparency. The result also indicates that the Chinese stock market will not stay in parity with the earlier development. A healthier and more efficient market will occur, due to structural reforms and the expected improvements within the financial sector including the stock exchange.</p><p>It is with great anticipation that the authors await a bright and successful future for the Chinese stock market. A new direction has been settled, although there are many difficult challenges.</p>

According to theory, trading volume decreases in information asymmetries, i.e. when there are differences in information. This is due to the fact that uninformed investors delay their trades when they are facing adverse selection. When the asymmetry is resolved there should be a corresponding increase in trading volume. Around earnings announcements (scheduled an-nouncements) this asymmetry is greater than normal, hence one can expect a decrease in trading volume. Around unexpected announcements such as acquisition announcement (unscheduled announcements) a total increase is instead expected because of an increase in trading by informed investors. All these effects are likely to be greater for smaller stocks. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the trading volume before- and after scheduled announcements and the trading volume before unscheduled announcements in order to investigate how informed- and uninformed investors behave in information asymmetries on Stockholmsbörsen. The method is quantitative with secondary data from the Stockholm Stock exchange from 1998-2004. The method is the same as Chae (2005) uses with paired-samples t-tests. It tests whether the change in trading volume is different from a benchmark consisting of an average of the trading volume 30 days before the announcement. We found a statistically significant decrease in trading volume in 6 of 10 days before a scheduled announcement and an increase also on 7 of 10 days after the announcement. For unscheduled announcements we found an increase before it was released but were not able to prove it statistically. We conclude that uninformed investors behave strategically before scheduled announcements in order to avoid adverse selection. We could not conclude that the effects are greater for smaller stocks.

In late summer 2006 we experienced historically high oil prices, and due to this event we found it appropriate to investigate what influence oil price changes has on the Swedish stock market. The purpose with our research was to see the affect that oil price changes has on the Swedish economy, and if the influence of the oil price is still as strong as it used to be. To help us draw conclusions we have applied the Arbitrage Pricing Theory. With use of statistical analysis we have been able to examine the relation between oil prices and other macroeconomic variables, and how these affect the Affärsvärlden Generalindex. Our results show that oil has a significant influence, our regression analysis show that a 1 unit increase in the oil price results in a 0.08 unit decrease in Affärsvärldens Generalindex. Our study has also given us indications that the oil price effect on the Swedish economy has decreased since the mid 1980´s. We can also draw conclusions that since the 1970´s, society has moved from heavy oil dependency towards a more diversified usage of energy sources. The results for Sweden are in line with the influence of oil has on other world economies. / Under sensommaren 2006 erfarde vi historiskt höga oljepriser. Med denna händelse som grund fann vi det relevant att undersöka oljans påverkan på den svenska ekonomin. Syftet med denna uppsats var att se hur skillnader i oljepriset påverkar Sveriges ekonomi och om oljan fortfarande har en lika stark påverkan som tidigare. Som verktyg för att påvisa detta har vi använt oss av ”Arbitrage Pricing Theory”. Med hjälp av statistisk analys har vi kunnat se påverkan av oljeprisfluktuationer och andra makroekonomiska variablers påverkan på ekonomin. Affärsvärldens Generalindex har använts som definition av ekonomin. Våra resultat visar att oljan har en signifikant påverkan på svensk ekonomi, en 1 enheters uppgång av oljepriset resulterar i en minskning med 0,08 enheter på Affärsvärldens Generalindex. Vår studie ger även indikationer att oljeprisets påverkan har minskat sedan mitten av 1980-talet. Vi kan också utläsa att samhället har skiftat från ett tungt oljeberoende i energiförbrukning mot mer diversifierade typer av energikällor, detta sedan 1970-talet. Resultaten visar även att Sveriges relation till olja är i linje med andra världsekonomier.

The real estate market has been of great interest since the rise in home foreclosures in US, which started in the late 2006. The purpose of this thesis is to examine a possible relationship between the factors presented in DiPasquale and Wheaton’s (1996) model which explains the market linkages between the property market and asset market, and the Swedish real estate companies listed on the Swedish stock market OMX. The real estate stock market is, divided in to groups of 3, which represented the dependent variable. The repo rate, CPI, expected inflation, macro index, disposable income, GDP and a real estate price index are the explanatory variables. Stockholm Stock Market All- Share Index (OMXSPI) is also included as a possible explanatory variable. The main findings in most of the estimations for the groups and years, is that the OMXSPI is of significance at the 10 percent level. The other variables did not show any significant result based on the 10 percent significance level, According to the results it seems like the volatility has increased over time in the real estate stock market with respect to the OMXSPI. That is; the risk has increased significantly from the period 1996-1999 to the later periods.

Background: According to theory, trading volume decreases in information asymmetries, i.e. when there are differences in information. This is due to the fact that uninformed investors delay their trades when they are facing adverse selec-tion. When the asymmetry is resolved there should be a corresponding in-crease in trading volume. Around earnings announcements (scheduled an-nouncements) this asymmetry is greater than normal, hence one can expect a decrease in trading volume. Around unexpected announcements such as acquisition announcement (unscheduled announcements) a total increase is instead expected because of an increase in trading by informed investors. All these effects are likely to be greater for smaller stocks. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the trading volume before- and after scheduled announcements and the trading volume before unscheduled announcements in order to investigate how informed- and uninformed in-vestors behave in information asymmetries on Stockholmsbörsen. Method: The method is quantitative with secondary data from the Stockholm Stock exchange from 1998-2004. The method is the same as Chae (2005) uses with paired-samples t-tests. It tests whether the change in trading volume is different from a benchmark consisting of an average of the trading volume 30 days before the announcement. Conclusion: We found a statistically significant decrease in trading volume in 6 of 10 days before a scheduled announcement and an increase also on 7 of 10 days after the announcement. For unscheduled announcements we found an in-crease before it was released but were not able to prove it statistically. We conclude that uninformed investors behave strategically before scheduled announcements in order to avoid adverse selection. We could not conclude that the effects are greater for smaller stocks.

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.

"It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket."                     - Don Quixote (Part I, Book III, Chapter 9) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra [1547-1616]     This research aimed to investigate whether it is possible for investors to diversify their investment and reduce the risk of investment by investing in the selected European countries.  Stock market cointegration and international diversification is a widely accepted topic among the scholars and academics in recent years.  This current study is motivated from the significant amount of interesting studies in this field. A combination of not perfectly positively correlated instruments gives the investor an opportunity to gain from portfolio diversification.  Similarly, Investors can attain diversification benefit if one country’s stock market is not cointegrated with other country’s stock market.  Six European countries and a time frame of ten years (January, 2001 to December, 2010) have been taken into consideration for the purpose of this research.  The countries are UK, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Czech Republic.  The time period of the study is divided into two sub period to observe the recent crisis effect on these selected countries. A quantitative approach is adopted in the research.  We used an econometric model for this research which is Johansen and Juselius multivariate cointegration approach.  The evidence from the study suggest that although cointegration exists among the selected countries in some extent, investors can still get some diversification opportunity by investing in the emerging countries (Czech Republic and Poland).  This study is unique in the sense that in our research, we wanted to fill the research gap by combining new and old EU member countries with the latest time period of study and also considered the recent crisis effect.   This study has a number of implications on portfolio managers, policy makers, and academic scholars.

An investor can generate higher returns on the German stock market if he is using an active portfolio management strategy rather than its passive counterpart. This is possible because the market is not efficient and the DAX, namely the market portfolio, can be outperformed in regard to the average annual return and its variance. Therefore, the CAPM does not hold for the German stock market. The investor has to use the 10 weeks old changes of the ifo business climate index to forecast the DAX movement in the upcoming month. Even though this forecasting method only gave the correct trading signal for 56% of the months between 1991 and 2011, it outperformed the Buy and Hold strategy by 324 basis points. The main reason for this is that the business index was able to warn the investor of months in which the DAX lost over 10% of its value. The superiority of the active strategy was still valid when transaction costs were taken into account and was even stronger when call money was the alternative investment to the DAX rather than cash.