This study analyzes 66 Swedish actively managed mutual funds investing in the Swedish stock market during the period 2005-2014. The purpose is through pooled data regressions analyze the relationship between both the mutual fund’s annual fee and risk-adjusted return to the fund’s characteristics. The characteristics of the study are the size of the fund's assets, age, if the fund is bank managed or not, Tracking Error, and standard deviation of return.By using the performance measures of CAPM, Fama and French 3-factor model, and Carhart’s 4-factor model monthly risk-adjusted returns are created for all funds over the period. Two pooled data regressions are performed with the Fixed Effect Model in which the annual fee and risk-adjusted return is set up as explanatory variables against the various characteristics.The results of the study show a clear correlation between annual fee and tracking error against the risk-adjusted return. A higher fee adds value to the investor through a higher risk-adjusted return, but will not fully compensate for the increased fee. The relationship between Tracking Error and risk-adjusted return is negative, which means that mutual funds that are distant from its benchmark perform worse than the mutual funds close to its benchmark. To explain annual fee this study finds low economic significance for the characteristics included. Although several variables show statistical significance, it is difficult to say anything about the characteristics that affect a mutual fund's annual fee due to the weak economic significance.

As a result of the change of financial environment, the competition of domestic banking industry has become more intense, and its management has also met the challenge. In order to grow the operating activities, the bank of Taiwan become less dependent on traditional deposit and loan activities and then turns to develop the non-traditional activities. Therefore the non-interest income increases year by year and the development of operating activities diversification has become the main business model to promote the profit. Based on the above reason, the study use the market and account data of listed banks from 1991 to 2009 to investigate the impact of operating activities diversification on the risk and performance of banks. The result of the empirical analysis by the accounting data shows that the higher degree of operating activities diversification can reduce the bank risk, but the performance is not actually good. When the bank develops the operating activities diversification by increasing the non-interest income, the risk will be getting higher but the performance will be getting better. Therefore, the banking industry can¡¦t put too much stress on the non-interest income. It should make the adequate decision between the risk and the performance. On the other hand, the result of the empirical analysis by the market data shows that the higher degree of operating activities diversification can increase the fluctuation of the stock price and when the non-interest income increases, Tobin's Q value gets higher. It demonstrated that the investors of the stock market anticipated the bank can improve the performance by increasing the non-interest income activities and gives recognition.

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Problem background and discussion: Emerging countries economies are growing substantially; one of these is India which stock market has been one of the best performing in the world in recent years. Analysts are forecasting further development and some claims that India has the most business- and investment-stimulating political leaders in the world. However, stock markets in emerging countries are highly volatile and normally more risky than in developed economies. One approach to emphasise the more common risks in emerging countries are by including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating into the fundamental investment model. However, there is a conflict of what previous studies suggest regarding ESG investments. Some argues there is a positive relation and others a negative relation between ESG factors and risk- adjusted return. Research question: “Is there a relation between risk-adjusted return and ESG performance at the Indian stock market?” Objective: The objective is to determine if there is a relationship between ESG performance and risk-adjusted return in India. Another objective is to determine if there is a relationship between ESG performance and risk-adjusted return among companies with high Total ESG rating as well as for companies with low Total ESG rating. Theoretical framework: ESG is an established approach to describe sustainability issues, where screening is a process designed to select those companies that meet ESG criteria. A basic description of Capital Asset Pricing Model CAPM, which calculates an asset's expected return, has been used to calculate risk-adjusted return. Efficient Market Hypothesis EMH is the basic theory of market efficiency and is used to explain any non-linear relationship between ESG factors and risk-adjusted returns. Adaptive Market Hypothesis AMH has been taken into account as it deals with financial behaviour. Method: A quantitative study using a deductive approach has been selected to perform this study. The practical approach is a cross sectional study where the relationship in the Indian market has been analysed and significance-tested during 2014. ESG information for 126 companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has been purchased from Sustainalytics, a global leader in research for responsible investment. Empirical findings and analysis: The results of the study demonstrate no significant relationship between Total ESG rating and risk-adjusted return during 2014. In the examination of individual categories, Environmental and Social rating does not have a significant association with the risk-adjusted Return. Though, the results display a negative relationship between Governance rating and risk-adjusted return. This relationship is also obtained among companies in with low Total ESG rating but not companies with high ESG rating. Conclusion: Results implies that investors have not been able to use the information of Total ESG performance to obtain a better risk-adjusted return on the Indian stock market in 2014. However, this can be achieved by using Governance rating.

Increasing sophistication of exchange traded fund (ETF) indexation methods required that a comparison be drawn between various methodologies. A performance and risk evaluation of four pre-selected ETF indexation categories were conducted to establish the diversification benefits that each contain. Fundamentally weighted, equally weighted and leveraged ETFs were compared to traditional market capitalisation weighted ETFs on the basis of risk and return. While a literature review presented the theory on ETFs and the various statistical measures used for this study, the main findings were obtained empirically from a sample of South African and American ETFs. Several risk-adjusted performance measures were employed to assess the risk and return of each indexation category. Special emphasis was placed on the Omega ratio due to the unique interpretation of the return series‟ distribution characteristics. The risk of each ETF category was evaluated using the exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA), while the diversification potential was determined by means of a regression analysis based on the single index model. According to the findings, fundamentally weighted ETFs perform the best during an upward moving market when compared by standard risk-adjusted performance measures. However, the Omega ratio analysis revealed the inherent unsystematic risk of alternatively indexed ETFs and ranked market capitalisation weighted ETFs as the best performing category. Equal weighted ETFs delivered consistently poor rankings, while leveraged ETFs exhibited a high level of risk associated with the amplified returns of this category. The diversification measurement concurred with the Omega ratio analysis and highlighted the market capitalisation weighted ETFs to be the most diversified ETFs in the selection. Alternatively indexed ETFs consequently deliver higher absolute returns by incurring greater unsystematic risk, while simultaneously reducing the level of diversification in the fund. / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Increasing sophistication of exchange traded fund (ETF) indexation methods required that a comparison be drawn between various methodologies. A performance and risk evaluation of four pre-selected ETF indexation categories were conducted to establish the diversification benefits that each contain. Fundamentally weighted, equally weighted and leveraged ETFs were compared to traditional market capitalisation weighted ETFs on the basis of risk and return. While a literature review presented the theory on ETFs and the various statistical measures used for this study, the main findings were obtained empirically from a sample of South African and American ETFs. Several risk-adjusted performance measures were employed to assess the risk and return of each indexation category. Special emphasis was placed on the Omega ratio due to the unique interpretation of the return series‟ distribution characteristics. The risk of each ETF category was evaluated using the exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA), while the diversification potential was determined by means of a regression analysis based on the single index model. According to the findings, fundamentally weighted ETFs perform the best during an upward moving market when compared by standard risk-adjusted performance measures. However, the Omega ratio analysis revealed the inherent unsystematic risk of alternatively indexed ETFs and ranked market capitalisation weighted ETFs as the best performing category. Equal weighted ETFs delivered consistently poor rankings, while leveraged ETFs exhibited a high level of risk associated with the amplified returns of this category. The diversification measurement concurred with the Omega ratio analysis and highlighted the market capitalisation weighted ETFs to be the most diversified ETFs in the selection. Alternatively indexed ETFs consequently deliver higher absolute returns by incurring greater unsystematic risk, while simultaneously reducing the level of diversification in the fund. / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

<p>The review of the ethical funds literature shows the significant growth of the Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) in the last few decades. The increase of the interest towards SRI indicates that ethical issues have become more essential for the investors. However the number of surveys reveals that financial performance remains of an important concern for the socially responsible investors. Therefore the benchmark analysis of the expected returns and management fees of the ethical mutual funds is chosen as a topic for this thesis research. The risk-adjusted measures are used to analyze and compare the performance of the ethical and non-ethical mutual funds in United Kingdom. The analysis does not indicate the significant difference in the expected returns between the two groups of funds. However this study concludes that on average ethical funds charge higher management fees. Thus investing in ethical funds is more costly but gives about the same returns as investing in conventional funds.</p>

The last decades have seen a rapid increase of sustainable investing, also known as ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing. There has also been an increasing body of academic literature devoted to whether investors can gain any financial benefits from taking ESG under consideration. Previous literature of portfolio performance in terms of risk-adjusted returns has given much of its attention to best-in-class approaches, which is a strategy that selects top performers in ESG within a sector or industry. The purpose of this study is foremost to investigate a best-effort approach to ESG investing, which is a strategy that focuses on the top improvers in ESG. The purpose is further to compare this with a best-in-class approach, since the findings from earlier studies of this strategy still are inconsistent. The region chosen to perform this study in is the Eurozone. Several theories that have implications for portfolio studies and abnormal returns are taken under consideration in relation to the study and its findings. This includes the efficient market hypothesis, the adaptive market hypothesis and modern portfolio theory. The theoretical framework also cover asset-pricing models and the notions of risk-adjusted returns. A quantitative study with a deductive approach are used to form portfolios, with a Eurozone index as the investable universe. Best-effort and best-in-class portfolios as well as difference portfolios of the two approaches are created, based on ESG data and different cut-off rates for portfolio inclusion. As for risk-adjusted performance measure, the Carhart four-factor model are used. The overall results are mostly insignificant findings in terms of abnormal returns. However, three best-effort portfolios based on the top ESG improvers show significant positive abnormal returns. These findings are strongest for the environmental and social factor. As for the best-in-class approach, only the governance portfolios provided weakly significant results in terms of abnormal returns. Further, the study is not able to significantly distinguish between a best-effort and a best-in-class approach when it comes to risk-adjusted performance. The exception is the environmental factor based on the top performers in each approach, where the best-effort portfolio outperforms the best-in-class portfolio. Finally, none of the portfolios provided significant negative risk-adjusted returns. This can at least be considered as good news for ESG investing, since it indicates that investors do not have to sacrifice risk-adjusted returns in order to invest in a more sustainable way.

This paper aims to examine if firms listed on Nasdaq Stockholm with dividend exposure yield higher risk-adjusted returns than firms without dividend exposure. Using a data set consisting of observations between 2000-2017 we test the difference in mean risk-adjusted return, measured by the Sharpe ratio, between securities with different levels of dividend exposure. We divide our sample into portfolios, categorized in the first stage independently of investment style, size and book-to-market ratio, and in the second stage on dividend exposure, that are regrouped annually. We measure the performance in terms of the geometric mean monthly returns, the risk as standard deviation of returns and the risk-adjusted performance measured with the Sharpe ratio. Following our empirical study, we find indications of a value effect in the Swedish capital market and draw upon three main conclusions. First, for all but one portfolio, the risk decreases with an increased degree of dividend exposure. Second, securities with high-dividend exposure tend to yield higher risk-adjusted returns relative to securities with no-dividend exposure. Third, the effect of dividend exposure on risk-adjusted performance appears to be most significant on mid firms and growth firms