Over the years, investors demand greater transparency on how their funds are being invested. Whilst in the past it would have been enough for investment firms to seek primarily financial returns against all else; it is now becoming more common for investors to demand some form of positive impact above and beyond financial returns. In response to this, many strategies that seek more than just financial returns have been developed and impact investing being one such strategy. This research explores how fund managers and, or investors operating in the impact investment space communicate their practices to stakeholders in order to obtain an understanding of what they understand impact investing to be, and for those who may be investing for impact, understand the type of impact they seek to attain and also to appreciate how impact is being measured. The research findings suggest that despite much effort being put into the development of impact investing as a distinctive field, there are still a number of issues to iron out particularly with how companies communicate impact. The confusion and use of related terminology interchangeably is also an issue that is found to be detracting instead of adding to the development of the field.

In search of a better investment metric, researchers began to study Economic Value Added, or EVA, which was introduced in 1991 by Stern Stewart & Co in their book, "The Quest for Value" (Turvey, 2000). Stern Stewart & Co devised EVA as a better alternative to evaluate investment projects within the corporate finance field, later to be considered for use as a performance metric for investor use. A wide array of multinational corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Briggs and Stratton, and AT&T adopted the EVA method, which led to EVA's worldwide acclaim. Several points in the study reveal that EVA does not offer less risk, higher returns, and more adaptability for an investor. In fact, EVA underperformed the traditional portfolio performance metrics in key measurements including mean returns, and confidence intervals. EVA is a difficult performance metric to calculate, with several complex components that can be calculated in several different ways such as NOPAT, cost of equity, and cost of debt. Any information that is inaccurate or lacking can significantly impact the outcomes. Traditional performance metrics, on the other hand, such as ROA, ROE, and E/P are simple to calculate with few components, and only one way to calculate them.

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Many portfolios diversify by including mutual funds and exchange traded funds counting equities linked to various world country market indices, e.g. the S&P 500 of the United States and the Nikkei 225 of Japan. However a necessary condition for an international portfolio to be beneficial is that the correlation of returns between markets be low or at least non unity. My thesis will explore through extensive correlation analyses how advanced and emerging country indices are interrelated. The inspiration for my thesis came from the dissertation of Yale Ph.D. Graduate Charles H. Yang's research published in 1999, Essays on International Market Correlations. Yang tested correlation market data from 1972-1997 and found in 16 advanced country indices that the markets were becoming steadily and increasingly correlated over the 26 years studied. My thesis will expand on Yang's research with 32 total indices from advanced and emerging markets such as the Jakarta index of Indonesia, the Merval index of Argentina, and All-Ordinaries of Australia to assess if the world's financial markets are continuing integration, with the strongest correlations increasing between advanced markets. One of the objectives of my correlation research is to equip novice investors in advanced markets such as the U.S. with up-to-date information to enable them to be cautious but more open to investing in emerging economies, which have typically been classified as too risky. My thesis will shed light on how correlation analysis can be used to improve investment strategies and thereby permit investors to exploit the current wave of globalization to earn superior returns.

This thesis examined the predictive power of different strategies for future stock returns. The analysis was conducted using a data sample of 3976 firms traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ during a 29 year time horizon, from July 1986 to June 2015. Predictive powers of different strategies were also tested during three sub-periods and during bull and bear markets using both long-only and long/short portfolios to check whether the predictive power is robust. It was found that the FCF yield is a better indicator of future stock returns than the gross profitability. The difference between average monthly returns was significant during all tested time periods and market situations using both long-only and long/short portfolios. The newly introduced FCF profitable value strategy proved to be a better predictor of future stock returns than the profitable value strategy. The FCF profitable value strategy presents also an improvement over the FCF yield strategy. It was found that the FCF profitable value has a better predictive power for future stock returns than the FCF yield at least during some time periods or market situations. JEL Classification G11, G14, G15, G17 Keywords value investing, quality investing, gross profitability, free cash flow yield Author's e-mail...

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. / The use of a Covered Call strategy has long been favoured by investors the world over for its potential to enhance yield in a long-only equity portfolio. There already exists a wealth of research examining the risk and return features and theories of this strategy. This paper aims to contribute to this debate by conducting research that is specific to the South African equity market and considered from the perspective of a retail investor, particularly by tracking the negative friction induced by transaction costs. It also seeks to answer the question of which Covered Call strategies provide the best risk-adjusted returns by pricing various expiry range and moneyness combinations over differing market trend phases during a 13-year period of trade on the JSE.

Background: As the goal of most investors is to generate excess returns as compared tothe broad market, different investment strategies to perform such a feat have been studied thoroughly for decades. One strategy which has performed particularly well is the value investment strategy, where securities that appear cheap relative to some of their fundamental values are invested in. More recently, the growth investment strategy, where securities are instead bought if some of their fundamental values are expected to rise rapidly in the future, has caught more attention from investors. As the efficient market hypothesis suggests that no investment strategy should be able to consistently generate excess returns without any luck involved, it is of interest to examine whether the aforementioned strategies act in congruence with the hypothesis. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze if the value and growth investment strategies generate superior returns as well as risk-adjusted excess returns when compared to the Swedish stock market. The study also aims to analyze how the performance of the strategies varies during periods of different market sentiments. Methodology: This study used a quantitative method in its data collection and was conducted using a deductive approach. Six synthetic portfolios were created to test the strategies’ performance. The stocks which constituted the synthetic portfolios were chosen based on their P/E and P/B values from the Refinitiv Eikon platform, and the portfolios were rebalanced annually over the entire analyzed time period. The Swedish All-Share index, OMXSGI, was used as a proxy for the market portfolio. Conclusion: Based on the results of the study, the growth portfolios, more so than the value portfolios, were found to generate greater statistically significant returns as compared to the broad market during the analyzed time period. Although not all portfolios generated excess returns, the study may still add to the evidence that disproves the efficient market hypothesis.

Achieving the SDGs by 2030 requires transformative change and significant financial investments. Impact investing (II) is a nascent investment practice with the intention of creating positive social and environmental impact alongside financial return. In 2022, the impact investing industry was valued at $1.164 trillion. The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) positions impact investing as a tool for addressing the world’s most pressing challenges and the field is generally touted as a means to direct much-needed financial resources towards the achievement of the SDGs. This study explores whether and how impact investing contributes to the needed transformations, using qualitative content analysis of the impact reports from a sample of 13 GIIN Investors’ Council members on a framework that combines key principles of social-ecological resilience and transformative investment for equity and justice. The findings from applying the framework suggest that some impact investors are contributing to resilience, particularly by approaching social and environmental issues as long-term and systemic challenges. II actors who primarily use equity-funding and focus their activities in the Minority World appear to be contributing less to resilience and none of the actors meet the principles for transformative investment. However, existing frameworks from SES resilience seem insufficient to fully investigate the complex dynamics of impact-focused financial interventions in social- ecological systems. Despite claiming to address systemic issues, findings also indicate that impact investing takes a superficial, reductionist and instrumentalist approach to what it considers impact and does not radically redirect resource flows to benefit groups identified as vulnerable and marginalized, which has been suggested as necessary to deliver on the SDGs. Furthermore, there is little indication that impact investment addresses and seeks to change the dominant power structures and belief systems that give rise to unsustainable practices, with concerning signs that they may actually be cementing these current systems.

This thesis focuses on indentification of financial analysis indicators of small firms. These indicators should help investors to use growth investing method within their first pick stocks. Discussed indicators are from capital market, rentability, indebtedness and liquidity areas. The resulting values of these indicators are interpreted accordingly to the strategy of the company. That helps to identify the company's strengths and weeknesses. This thesis contains of basic theoretical knowledge of growth investing and specifics of small companies. It also comprises of results of older empirical studies in which growth and value investing was compared. The growth investing methods by Jime Slater. There were used 14 historically significantly above average growing companies registred in NASDAQ for the purpose of analysis.