Stock market plays an important role in the modern capital market. As a result, the prediction of financial assets attracts people in different areas. Moreover, it is commonly accepted that stock price movement generally follows a major trend. As a result, forecasting the market trend becomes an important mission for a prediction method. Accordingly, we will predict the long term trend rather than the movement of near future or change in a trading day as the target of our predicting approach. Although there are various kinds of analyses for trend prediction, most of them use clear cuts or certain thresholds to classify the trends. Users (or investors) are not informed with the degrees of confidence associated with the recommendation or the trading signal. Therefore, in this research, we would like to study an approach that could offer the confidence of the trend analysis by providing the probabilities of each possible state given its historical data through Dynamic Bayesian Network. We will incorporate the well-known principles of Dow¡¦s Theory to better model the trend of stock movements. Through the results of our experiment, we may say that the financial performance of the proposed model is able to defeat the buy and hold trading strategy when the time scope covers the entire cycle of a trend. It also means that for the long term investors, our approach has high potential to win the excess return. At the same time, the trading frequency and correspondently trading costs can be reduced significantly.

In this study, both uni-regime GARCH and Markov Regime Switching GARCH (SW-GARCH) models are examined to analyze Turkish Stock Market volatility. We investigate various models to find out whether SW-GARCH models are an improvement on the uni-regime GARCH models in terms of modelling and forecasting Turkish Stock Market volatility. As well as using seven statistical loss functions, we apply Superior Predictive Ability (SPA) test of Hansen (2005) and Reality Check test (RC) of White (2000) to compare forecast performance of various models.

The rapid growth of the Internet has shaped up the global economy. The stock market information is thus more and more transparent. Although the investors can get more helpful information to judge future trend of the stock market, they may get wrong judgments because the stock market data are too huge to be completely analyzed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an artificial stock market analyst by employing the information technology with high speed and performance, as well as integrating the artificial intelligence techniques. We exploit case-based reasoning to simulate the analysts in using history stock market data, employ the artificial neural network to imitate the analysts in analyzing the macrofactors of stock market, and apply the fuzzy logic to humanize the artificial stock market analyst in making judgments close to the real stock market analysts. The artificial stock market analyst would use the modified case-based reasoning system combined with the artificial neural network, and incorporate the designed membership functions for macrofactors of stock market. We expect the system to improve the accuracy of Taiwan electric stock price prediction by applying macrofactors from the technical analysis indicators and financial crisis factors, and make better stock trading strategies.

2008 is a special year for the global financial market. The global financial tsunami ignited from the U.S sub-prime mortgage crisis has caused Wall Street financial giants to collapse. The credit crunch in turn caused a contraction in the real economy and the world paid a heavy price for this financial tsunami. Charles Dickens quote¡G "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ". Compared to European and the United States large-scale banks, China's banks are less opened and have relatively small exposure to derivative financial products. Consequently, these barriers have led them to limit their losses and write-downs from the sub-prime mortgage crisis. This thesis studies the major China-based banks¡¦ profitability by comparing these banks¡¦ financial and operational structures, and correlations to several economic factors. At the same time, Fama-French three-factor model was used to verify the efficiency of the China¡¦s stock market. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows¡G(a) Although these Chinese banks do have economies of scale, but the relationship between scale and profitability is not proportional. (b) Chinese banks are less affected by the financial crisis as a result of the high level of protection and control of the Chinese government, coupled with the fact that most of the Chinese banks¡¦ core operations are net interest income (c) lending activity¡B net interest margin¡B and asset quality are the key drivers for Chinese banks, and these three factors are mostly negatively correlated to the economic condition. (d) Based on the regression result of the Fama-French three factors model and the result of the T test, the relation of the excess return of the Chinese banks¡¦ Shanghai-listed A-shares to both the market value and the ratio of book to market value is significant while that of the Chinese banks¡¦ Hong Kong-listed H-shares is insignificant.

Syfte: Uppsatsen syfte är att klargöra och analysera reporäntans ränteförändringars påverkan på aktiekurserna för samtliga svenska banker i large cap på Stockholmsbörsen. Metod: Kvantitativa händelsestudier har gjorts med deduktiv forskningsansats på fyra företag, samtliga noterade på Stockholmsbörsen. Den onormala avkastningen för de undersökta aktiekurserna har beräknats en dag före till en dag efter samtliga realiseringar av reporänteförändringar som skett mellan åren 2004 till 2015.  Teori: Den teoretiska referensramen för studien består av den effektiva marknadshypotesen och överreaktionshypotesen. Slutsatser: Studien har påvisat att det råder signifikant samband mellan ränteförändringar och de studerade aktiernas avkastning vid realisering av ränteförändringarna. / Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to clarify and analyze the changes in the discount rate and its impact on stock prices of all Swedish listed banks in large cap on the Stockholm stock exchange. Methodology: Quantitative event studies has been done with deductive research approach on four companies, all listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The abnormal returns for the examined stock prices have been calculated one day before to one day after all the realizations of the changes in the discount rate that occurred between year 2004 to 2015. Theory: The theoretical framework in this study consists of The Effective Market Hypothesis and The Overreaction Hypothesis. Conclusions: The study has shown that there is a significant correlation between the changes in the discount rate and the equity returns of the studied stocks.

Resulting from the deregulation and prosperity of the economic and financial sectors in Asia during 1980s, a significant increase in cross-bordered financial transactions ultimately accelerated the region of Southeast Asia to be on a process of financial integration and consequently diminished opportunities for portfolio diversification. Financial Integration is a multidimensional process through which allocation of financial assets becomes lastly borderless. This purpose of this paper is to examine a progress thus far in capital market integration or preferentially, the co-movement of the equity markets between the U.S. and the Southeast Asian nations: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines by employing the methodology of Gregory and Hansen Cointegration and Error Correction Analysis (ECM). The consequence of the U.S. market performance on each Southeast Asian national markets are extensively analyzed by decomposing monthly price-index time series into three distinct sub-periods based on an occurrence of the Subprime Mortgage Financial Crisis in 2007. The results indicate that these four emerging markets had been considerable influenced by the U.S. market performance, regardless of crisis or non-crisis periods. Nevertheless, some countries like Indonesia and the Philippines acted differently during the pre-crisis and crisis sub-periods respectively due to their domestic market infrastructure and regulation adjustment. However, these two markets had eventually turned to share an interdependent long-run relationship with the U.S. equity market since the ending of the Subprime financial downturn. Moreover, this finding suggests that ongoing capital market integration in the Southeast Asian region would mitigate portfolio diversification benefits for investors by virtue of increasing in correlation among securities and assets. Therefore, more exhaustive investigation about equity market integration is significantly beneficial in macroeconomic and financial perspective.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuotos vertybinių popierių rinkos plėtros tendencijos Lietuvoje. Pirmoje darbo dalyje teoriniu aspektu analizuojamos teorinės vertybinių popierių rinkos plėtros prielaidos – atskleidžiama vertybinių popierių rinkos koncepcija, šios rinkos plėtros poreikis, priemonės, veiksniai bei vertinimo indikatoriai. Antroje dalyje formuojama ir pagrindžiama vertybinių popierių rinkos plėtros tyrimo metodika. Trečioji darbo dalis skirta Lietuvos vertybinių popierių rinkos plėtros įvertinimui bei perspektyvų numatymui. / Trends of stock market development are analysed in this master paper. In the first part theoretical assumptions of stock market development are analysed: the concept of stock market, its development demand, measures, factors and evaluation indicators are revealed. Methodology for the survey of stock market development is formed and grounded in the second part. The third part is up for evaluating development of Lithuanian stock market and its forecasting.

Syfte: Huvudsyftet med studien är att undersöka om avkastningen på den svenska aktiemarknaden påverkas av terroristattacker. Delsyftet är att vid en eventuell påverkan undersöka om reaktionen skiljer sig mot landet där attacken skett samt hur lång tid det tar för de olika aktiemarknaderna att återhämta sig. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Den teoretiska referensramen utgörs av teorin om den effektiva marknadshypotesen samt behavioral finance med fokus på flockbeteende. Avgränsningar: I studien undersöks åtta olika terroristattacker och dess påverkan på aktiemarknaden i Sverige och landet där attacken skett. Metod: Studien är kvantitativ och använder ett deduktivt angreppssätt. För att besvara frågeställningarna tillämpas en eventstudie där två eventfönster används. Ett eventfönster på en dag och ett längre på elva dagar samt en estimeringsperiod som omfattar 30 dagar. Insamlad data används för att mäta den avvikande avkastningen som eventuellt uppstår efter att en terroristattack ägt rum vilket säger om attacken haft någon påverkan. Slutsatser: Terroristattacker har en påverkan på den svenska aktiemarknaden och i de flesta fall är påverkan negativ. En slutsats som kan dras är att påverkan skiljer sig mellan Sverige och landet där attacken ägt rum men att det inte finns något tydligt mönster huruvida den svenska aktiemarknaden påverkas mer eller mindre. Slutligen kan det konstateras att påverkan av en terroristattack på aktiemarknaden är kortvarig och återhämtningen sker snabbt med undantag för attacken den 11 september 2001 i USA som hade en mer långvarig effekt.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation into the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT). At the onset of the thesis it is recognised that tests of the APT are conditional on a number of preconditions and assumptions. The first line of investigation examines the effect of the assumed nature of the form of the return generating process of stocks. It is found that stocks follow an approximate factor structure and tests of the APT are sensitive to the specified form of the return generating process. We provide an efficient estimation methodology for the case when stocks follow an approximate factor structure. The second issue we raise is that of the appropriate factors, the role of the market portfolio and the performance of the APT against the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The conclusions that we draw are that the APT is robust to a number of specified alternatives and furthermore, the APT outperforms the CAPM in comparative tests. In addition, within the APT specification there is a role for the market portfolio. Through a comparison of the results in chapters 2 and 3 it is evident that the APT is not robust to the specification of unexpected components. We evaluate the validity of extant techniques in this respect and find that they are unlikely to be representative of agents actual unexpected components. Consequently we put forth an alternative methodology based upon estimating expectations from a learning scheme. This technique is valid in respect to our prior assumptions. Having addressed these preconditions and assumptions that arise in tests of the APT a thorough investigation into the empirical content of the APT is then undertaken. Concentrating on the issues that the return generating process must be unique and that the estimated risk premia should be stable overtime the results indicate that the APT does have empirical content. Finally, armed with the empirically valid APT we proceed to analyse the issue of seasonalities in stock returns. The results confirm previous findings that there are seasonal patterns in the UK stock market, however, unlike previous findings we show that these seasonal patterns are part of the risk return structure and can be explained by the yearly business cycle. Furthermore, the APT retains empirical content when these seasonal patterns are removed from the data. The overall finding of this thesis is that the APT does have empirical content and provides a good description of the return generating process of UK stocks.

This thesis adopts an empirical approach to examine various market microstructure issues, using data from the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). Whilst the respective empirical analyses may be considered as self-contained investigations, they are primarily linked through the common objective of understanding the mechanics of the pricing process as it occurs on actual markets, using the NSE as exemplar. The first major focus of the dissertation is non-synchronous trading: empirical evidence of nonsynchronicity is obtained by testing for predictability as between indices of different levels of liquidity. A simple test of the analysis of trading-break returns is proposed to infer whether predictability may be mainly attributable to non-synchronous trading or whether it constitutes a delayed adjustment of traders' expectations. The second question tackled in the thesis is whether volatility on the NSE may be considered as justified or excessive. Rathert han adopting the established methodology of comparing stock price changes to information about expected dividends, the research question is split up into two subsidiary ones. The first question is whether volatility is related to information flows, whilst the second related questionc oncernst he relationship betweenv olatility and returns. Three sources of excessive volatility are pin-pointed. Monday effects are found in index data but not in the underlying stocks-indicating index fluctuations which are not information-related. A second indicator of excessive price movements is the pronounced volatility which coincides with the fiscal year end of quoted companies but which is not accompanied by a similar increase in long-term returns. A third indication of unjustified price fluctuations is that volatility seems unrelated to returns when considering a long-term time series. The third topic of the thesis relates to the efficacy of opening and closing call auctions. This issue may be considered as the crux of the dissertation and it is tackled by analysing the effects of the suspension of a call auction system on NSE. Changes in volatility, efficiency and liquidity following the suspension are analysed, and an event study is presented. The relationship between call auctions and long-term volatility is also investigated. The findings suggest that the expected benefits of call auctions may not always materialise, possibly due to an inappropriately structured auction, or because a liquidity threshold for stocks must be surpassed for the expected benefits to accrue.