Yes / This paper investigates the impact of investor sentiment on the mean-variance relationship in 14 European stock markets. Applying three approaches to define investors’ neutrality and determine high and low sentiment periods, we find that individual investors’ increased presence and trading over high-sentiment periods would undermine the risk-return tradeoff. More importantly, we report that investors’ optimism (pessimism) is more determined by their normal sentiment state, represented by the all-period average sentiment level, rather than the neutrality value set in sentiment surveys.

Yes / This paper investigates the role of institutional investor sentiment in the mean–variance relation. We find market returns are negatively (positively) related to market’s conditional volatility over bullish (bearish) periods. The evidence indicates institutional investors to be sentiment traders as well.

Yes / This paper investigates the mean-variance relation during different time periods within trading days. We reveal that there is a positive mean-variance relation when the stock market is closed (i.e., overnight), but the positive relation is distorted when the market is open (i.e., intraday). The evidence offers a new explanation for the weak risk-return tradeoff in stock markets.

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My thesis will focus on optimal investment decisions, especially those that are planned for longer investment horizon. I will review the literature, showing that changes in investment opportunities can alter the risk-return tradeoff over time and that asset return predictability has an important effect on the variance and correlation structure of returns on bonds, stocks and T bills across investment horizons. The main attention will be given to pension funds, which are institutional investors with relatively long investment horizon. I will find the term structure of risk-return tradeoff in the empirical part of this paper. Later on I will add some variables into the model and investigate whether it can improve the results. Finally the optimal investment strategies will be constructed for various levels of risk tolerance and the results will be compared with strategies of Czech pension funds. I am going to use data from Thomson Reuters Datastream, Wharton Research Data Services and additionally from some other sources.

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O objetivo principal do trabalho é analisar a resposta da estrutura de capital agregada das firmas brasileiras às oscilações de variáveis macroeconômicas. A partir da teoria do “Tradeoff”, o escudo de tributos provenientes da despesa financeira e os custos de falência surgiram como fatores importantes para a determinação da estrutura de capital, que busca maximizar o valor da firma, a partir da incorporação do benefício líquido entre esses fatores ao seu valor. Baseado nesse entendimento e aliado a conclusões de trabalhos recentes sobre a influência de fatores macroeconômicos nessa decisão de estrutura ótima, o trabalho busca entender os efeitos, de oscilações na taxa real de juros, no crescimento do PIB, na taxa real de inflação, na taxa de câmbio, no volume de recursos de bancos de fomento e no mercado de ações, nas decisões sobre financiamento das atividades de empresas no Brasil. Foram encontrados resultados significativos para as todas as variáveis macroeconômicas e, para esses resultados, foram apresentadas interpretações a luz das teorias de estrutura de capital existentes na literatura contemporânea em finanças. / This paper intent to analyze the response of firm’s capital structure to fluctuations at macroeconomic variables, in the Brazilian market. The Tradeoff theory introduced the concept that the balance between the tax shield from financial expenses and bankruptcy costs are relevant factors in the determination of Firm’s capital structure. This theory predicts that firms to maximize its value should incorporate the net benefit between these factors to their value. The paper seeks to understand and measure the impacts of oscillations in interest rate, GDP growth, inflation rate, exchange rate, participation of development banks and stock market fluctuations in the decisions about capital structure. The paper presents significant results for all macroeconomic variables and provide interpretations for these findings, based on the current development of capital structure theories.

<p>In this paper we study the pecking order and tradeoff theories of capital structure on a sample of 121 Swedish, non-financial, listed firms over the period between 2000 - 2009. We find that the Swedish firms’ financing behavior appears to have features consistent with the predictions of both theories. The evidence shows a preference for a financing behavior consistent with the tradeoff theory for the whole sample and for a sample of small firms, whereas large firms appear to follow a pecking order on their financing decisions. We show that under sufficient conditions both theories might be seen as “reconciled” and not mutually exclusive, and we find evidence for the large firms of our sample consistent with this notion.</p>

In this paper we study the pecking order and tradeoff theories of capital structure on a sample of 121 Swedish, non-financial, listed firms over the period between 2000 - 2009. We find that the Swedish firms’ financing behavior appears to have features consistent with the predictions of both theories. The evidence shows a preference for a financing behavior consistent with the tradeoff theory for the whole sample and for a sample of small firms, whereas large firms appear to follow a pecking order on their financing decisions. We show that under sufficient conditions both theories might be seen as “reconciled” and not mutually exclusive, and we find evidence for the large firms of our sample consistent with this notion.