Esta dissertação analisa a ocorrência do prêmio de valor, ou value premium para ações brasileiras no período de 2000 a 2009. Utilizando a metodologia de Fama e French (1992, 2007), foram coletados dados do múltiplo P/VPA (Preço / Valor Patrimonial da Ação) trimestrais de empresas que compõem os índices Ibovespa e IBrX, e a partir de testes entre decis e quartis desses valores, foram identificadas as relações entre risco e retorno, e elaboradas 20 carteiras com o uso de 22 ações. Foi utilizada a técnica de bootstrapping para testar a hipótese de existência de value premium nas carteiras. Os resultados obtidos corroboram as evidências de estudos recentes que apontam as carteiras formadas por ações de baixo índice P/VPA como as de melhor desempenho. As principais contribuições deste estudo são a identificação do value premium no período recente no mercado de capitais brasileiro e a adoção de testes mais robustos para evidenciar este resultado. / This dissertation analyses the value premium for Brazilian stocks from 2000 through 2009. adopting the Fama and French (1992, 2007) methodology and data from Bloomberg. We constructed 20 portfolios, composed of 22 shares based on the calculated P/B (Price/Book) indexes. For every portfolio we calculated risk and return, both in U.S. Dollars and Brazilian Reais. The adopted methodology includes Bootstrapping technique to test the value premium hypothesis. The results support evidence from previous studies which show the strategy of building stock portfolios with low P/B index as the best approach to increase performance. The main contributions of this paper are statistically relevant findings about value premium in the Brazilian stocks market and adoption of robust tests to support the evidences.

This diploma thesis is focused on the financial market supervision, especially on terms and conditions of entry into the financial market and the role of the Czech National Bank in this area. The thesis mentions some arguments for the need of financial market regulation and supervision and explains the importance of the quality licence system. There is also an analysis on institutional organization of financial market regulation and supervision and contemporary trends. The thesis compares and contrasts legislation on licences for different types of the financial institutions. Together with development of the financial market and the economic situation in the Czech Republic during the past 20 years (1989 -- 2009) the thesis also points out substantial changes and improvements in primary and secondary legislation in the area of licensing.

My thesis is directed to the definition, description and comparison of models of the financial market's regulation and supervision. The attention is addressed in particular to institutional aspects of individual systems, advantages and risks which are connected with them, and also to reasons which trigger changes in single countries. The internacional standards are basis for their legal anchorage in which parameters of the independence and accountibility play an immense role. The quality setting of the institutional structure is one, however not sufficient, presumption for the effective supervision's performance. It should not be an objective but only a stepping stone to achieve a better effeciency. The decision which model will be applied for the regulation and supervision is left upon national jurisdictions as it is actually them to take into account all the benefits and expenses including the economic size, structure and level of the market development, legal environment and the central bank's role. Within the last 20 years a fully integrated supervision was generally accepted in the frame of single institution for all financial market's sectors, mostly outside the central bank. Nevertheless, the contemporary regulation is scrutinized in the light of global financial crisis originated in the year 2008. On the base of actual findings it can be expressed that the current mechanism of regulation is not efficient and does not correspond with the degree of global interconnection among financial markets and the offer of inovative financial products. Although the European Union prepared amendments which came into effect from January 1st 2011, by which new bodies were established, the time for a detailed analysis of the potentional contributions has not come yet. However, I suppose the framework for regulation will again be reevaluated in the future. In my opinion no solution brings a complete eliminaton of risks concerning vulnerabilities and systematic shocks on the financial markets. The main analytic part of my thesis is focused on the current supervisory system in the Czech republic and Slovakia, which is based on fully integrated architecture within the central bank. Having used the methods of enquiry and intentional selection I verified the validity of two hypotheses: 1. National supervisory institutions grow in favour of market participants unlike the new set european bodies. 2. The current institutional form of the financial market supervision has a support of market participants in the Czech republic and Slovakia. The results imply that the first hypothesis is valid for the Czech republic only where generally exists a bigger discretion in relation to the new european regulation and supervision bodies. In the case of the second hypothesis it can be said that it was confirmed in terms of the institutional form of the financial market supervision has a major support of financial institutions and experts in both the Czech republic and Slovakia.

The following master´s thesis analyzes the process of searching investment opportunity in the international investment background. The first part describes investment environment including various types of financial assets, investment process and structure of financial markets. The second practical part analyzes a particular investment opportunity in form of a selected company stocks.

A major financial sector reform program has been implemented in Ghana since the early 1980s, involving financial liberalization and institutional reforms. Financial reforms became necessary, because the pre-reform policies together with acute and prolonged economic crisis had severely damaged the financial system. In the early 1990s, the government launched financial market liberalization policies under the financial sector adjustment program to restructure the distressed banks and clean up nonperforming assets in order to restore banks to profitability and viability. The study investigated the market structure of Ghana's banking industry and determined whether the market structure has been changed after the financial restructuring. This study specifically measures the degree of competition of the banking system in Ghana by using the H-statistic. Various studies on the degree of competition were reviewed. This study employs a widely used nonstructural methodology put forward by Panzar and Rosse (1987)--the H-statistic-- and draws upon comprehensive average annual data from the various issues of the Bank of Ghana annual reports from 1988 to 2008. Maximum likelihood techniques were used to estimate the model. Based on the reported H-statistic for pre and postliberalization (2.35657 and 3.27530 respectively), it can be concluded that Ghana's banks are operating under perfect competition. However, the test for a change in competition status at the time of liberalization was not significant, indicating no evidence of a change in competition as a result of liberalization. The result of the market equilibrium reveals that the market equilibrium equals zero, revealing the existence of long-run equilibrium making the Panzar and Rosse model meaningful to interpret. The findings are consistent with the results obtained by Yuan (2006) who found Chinese banking market to be near perfect competition. This study has extended and strengthened some earlier results on bank competition in Ghana. However, the results of this study are different from the study undertaken by Buchs and Mathisen (2005), who found Ghanaian banking markets to operate under monopolistic conditions without considering the effect of liberalization. Three innovations of the current study are the use of comprehensive data source, the consideration of longer period of time covering two decades (1988-2008) and the incorporation of liberalization factors. Overall, the Panzar and Rosse model is regarded as a valuable tool for assessing the banking market conditions in Ghana. Since a bank's revenue is more likely to be observable than output prices and quantities or actual costs.

The master's thesis deals with the design of the proposed automatic trading system especially for daily trading on the currency markets. The aim of the thesis is to create a complex theoretical basis, in the practical part of the work to use the knowledge to create a suitable automatic trading system. The thesis focuses on the technical analysis of the currency markets. The proposed system will be optimally optimized to maximize profitability and stability with application to the most liquid currency pairs.

Financial market anomalies are constant subjects of debate because of their devotion form the foundational financial theories. Fama and French (2008) referred to the momentum effect as the premier anomaly. Thus, this study sought to apply the concept of momentum to examine three investment strategies. The first strategy was price momentum, an existing investment strategy but which was used as a comparison to the returns of the second and third strategies. The second strategy applied momentum to return on equity, operating cash flow and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, whilst the third strategy combined stocks with momentum in both stock price and respective fundamental variable.Using a non-probability sampling method, a total of 109 stock listed on the JSE over the period 1999-2010 were tested. Momentum in stock price and respective fundamentals was used to rank stocks into quintiles. The viability of each investment strategy was measured by comparing its average and risk adjusted returns to the market.The results revealed that fundamental momentum can beat market returns, with the highest amount of significant differences found using momentum in return on equity. The combination strategy also reported results of beating the market, with the higest amount of significant differences found using the 12 month fundamental momentum combined with 6 month price momentum. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Several truncated models for market weights are discussed. To summarize, the new truncated ordered stick breaking model introduced give restrictions on the ranks of the markets weights and show better fitting results for real data sets. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The correct model of a liquid financial market is one of the most important matter for a management of all financial market activities including for example a stock or bond porfolio management or an asset pricing. Clear random walk models, which consider a market price/yield development on liquid financial markets to be a random walk within the meaning of a symmetric normal (gaussian) distribution, is very useful to explain quite accurately many financial market effects. If we study financial markets more closely, we recognize that such development can be partly causal and a clear random walk is only a special case of it. Dynamic Financial Market Model considers feedback processes on financial markets which cause an dependence in a probability of next price/yield step direction and also expects mix of random processes as a final result. Both effects cause not gaussian (normal) observations in probability distributions of finacial instruments and this is why the model is also able to explain for example effects like thin or fat tails and other deformations in the probability distribution. S&P500 index or Euro Bund futures probability distribution on daily basis are good examples of the diversion from normality.

En France, la régulation des marchés financiers est assurée par l'Autorité des marchés financiers (désignée ci-après l'AMF). Autorité publique indépendante dotée de la personnalité morale, l'AMF se compose d'un Collège et d'une Commission des sanctions et dispose d'un pouvoir de sanction à l'encontre d'auteurs de manquements boursiers. Ce pouvoir de sanction est exercé par la Commission des sanctions. Le laconisme des textes et la nécessité de doter les acteurs des marchés financiers d'un code de conduite en matière répressive ont conduit la Commission des sanctions, sous le contrôle des juges, à faire œuvre créatrice au fil de sa jurisprudence. Des principes directeurs ont ainsi émergé relativement à la définition des grands principes du droit financier. Ce droit financier prétorien repose sur une politique jurisprudentielle clairement définie et vise à assurer l'intégrité du marché financier et la protection des investisseurs. La Commission des sanctions est ainsi devenue un acteur incontournable du système de régulation financière et une source du droit financier. La présente thèse vise à décrire ce nouveau droit prétorien dans sa double dimension pénale et économique. / In France, the financial market regulation is ensured by the Financial Market Authority (Autorité des marchés financiers) (hereinafter the AMF). Independent public authority with legal personality, the AMF is composed of a College and a Sanctions Committee (Commission des sanctions) and has a power of sanction against stock market offenders. This power of sanction is exercised by the Sanctions Committee (Commission des sanctions). The brevity of the texts and the need to provide financial market participants with a code of conduct on law enforcement, has led the Sanctions Committee (Commission des sanctions), under the control of judges, to a creative work through its jurisprudence. Guidelines have thus emerged on the definition of the main principles of financial law. This judge-made­financial law is based on clearly defined judicial policy and is designed to ensure the integrity of the financial markets and investor protection. The Sanctions Committee (Commission des sanctions) has become a key player in the financial regulatory system and a source of financial law. This thesis aims at describing this new judge-made-law in its criminal and economic dimension.