Several researchers and practitioners have claimed that economic value added is superior to traditional accounting measures in driving shareholder value. Other researchers have refuted these claims by supplying data in support of traditional accounting indicators such as EPS and ROE. In light of these contradicting findings, the paper endeavoured to analyse the results of JSE-listed gold mining companies. The share price was correlated to EVA, ROE, EPS, CFG and gold price. Using simple and multiple regression analyses, the paper established the strength of correlation between these different performance drivers with the share price. It also established the impact of gold price on the correlation to share price. The results suggested that EVA had the strongest correlation with the share price, with a coefficient of determination r2 = 45%. It was followed by EPS which had a positive correlation, CFG and ROE. Results also revealed that the gold price had a positive and moderate influence on the share price. Not only that the gold price affected the share price moderately, the study found that it also affected the correlation between EVA, ROE, EPS, and CFG with the share price. The impact increased in magnitude from CFG, EVA, and ROE to EPS. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

There is broad agreement in the literature that in general, mergers and acquisitions in both the short and long run are largely zero or negative, net present value exercises for the shareholders of the acquiring company. At the same time it is believed that significant returns are realised by the shareholders of the target companies. Despite this broad agreement and due to the complexity of the open market, there are still a large number of variables which can and could possibly account for many of the exceptions which have been highlighted in a range of studies. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is any evidence to suggest that merger and acquisition activity in the different market sectors of the JSE are either, more or less successful than the average. A total of 82 transactions were identified as meeting the strict requirements of the methodology. These included representatives from five sectors Basic Industries, Consumer Goods&Services, Financials, Information Technology and Resources. Event study methodology was used to investigate the abnormal returns of acquiring companies before and after the announcement of the event. It was established that in all but one of the market sectors there was statistically significant evidence that merger and acquisition transactions in different market sectors are either better or worse than the average at creating value for the acquiring company shareholders. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Recent economic crises coupled with corporate scandals have plunged the world into the greatest financial predicament it has faced in almost a century. Deregulation has empowered business leaders and their subsequent unethical behaviour has undermined the very foundations of the world’s financial and business infrastructure. It is perplexing that corporate social responsibility (CSR) spend is the first area of business to suffer cutbacks during challenging times – especially since it is often the lack of ethic that has led to such crises in the first place. The cosmic exploration of CSR over the past 50 years has left academics and business leaders with a lack of causal evidence as to the value of behaving in a socially responsible manner. This research tests the theory that CSR can have strategic implications and is pivotal for organisational sustainability. The research uses four constructs of corporate strategy that could be related to CSR, namely: centrality, specificity, proactivity and voluntarism. The research has found that CSR can in be aligned with corporate strategy and assist firms in reaching their long-term goals. It has also found the term “strategic CSR” to be relevant in organisations. The paper proposes a framework that organisations can use to approach CSR in a strategic manner and to create value from CSR. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Extensive empirical evidence shows that passively managed index-tracking mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) outperform actively managed portfolios. On the other hand, there are abundant findings that stocks admitted to an index outperform those deleted from the index. This study tests an issue that has been largely ignored in academic studies but is highly related to the above two seemingly disparate areas of researches. The paper examines the long-term performance of non-index individual stocks and stock portfolios relative to the index. The study proposes that the inclusion and maintenance criteria for index component stocks are long-term performance indicators. Therefore, an index can be regarded as a passively managed and highly diversified portfolio of expected outperformers. Using a complete set of H-shares listed on HKEx for the period 2001 to 2017, the study finds that 44.25% (55.75%) of individual stocks have positive alphas (negative alphas) relative to the index. The average alpha for the family of all non-index stock is negative but statistically insignificant, i.e., 77 positive alphas and 97 negative alphas. Most alphas are statistically insignificant, but only 5 are positive, and 2 are negative at 5% significance level. From the risk and return perspective, the index dominates two-third of the non-index H-shares. Regression analyses show that H-index outperforms non-index H-shares in general and the market capitalization and turnover ratio play an important role in determining the long-term performance of H-shares, which are the major factors for the admission and maintenance criteria of H-index. The findings strongly support our conjecture that the index admission and maintenance criteria are the quality assurance of individual constituent stocks of an index. The paper provides incremental evidence on the widely documented result that index trackers outperform actively managed portfolios. Nevertheless, the study extends the recent literature on the long-term performance of stocks that are admitted to (or excluded from) an index. The findings of the study have significant implications for securities markets participants, including index providers and ETF issuers

Cheung Hiu-Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ACKNOWLEGMENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vi / CHAPTER / Chapter ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter TWO --- THE LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.6 / The Family of the ARFIMA Process / Parameter Estimation of the ARFIMA Process / Applications in Economic and Financial Time Series / Chapter THREE --- THEORETICAL MODELS AND METHODOLOGY --- p.16 / Theoretical Models of Long-memory Process / Parameter Estimation / Model Selection Criteria / Hypothesis Testing / Diagnostic Checking / Evaluating the Forecasting Performance / Chapter FOUR --- EMPIRICAL RESULTS OF SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS --- p.37 / Monte Carlo Simulation / Parameter Estimation / Results of Simulation Experiments / Chapter FIVE --- DATA AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS --- p.46 / Data Description / A Long-memory Model for the Return Series / Model Evaluation / Chapter SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.55 / TABLES --- p.58 / ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.67 / APPENDICES --- p.79 / BIBLOGRAPHY --- p.83

Over the last few years there has been a surge of activity within the physics community in the emerging field of Econophysics—the study of economic systems from a physicist's perspective. Physicists tend to take a different view than economists and other social scientists, being interested in such topics as phase transitions and fluctuations. In this dissertation two simple models of stock exchange are developed and simulated numerically. The first is characterized by centralized trading with a market maker. Fluctuations are driven by a stochastic component in the agents' forecasts. As the scale of the fluctuations is varied a critical phase transition is discovered. Unfortunately, this model is unable to generate realistic market dynamics. The second model discards the requirement of centralized trading. In this case the stochastic driving force is Gaussian-distributed "news events" which are public knowledge. Under variation of the control parameter the model exhibits two phase transitions: both a first- and a second-order (critical). The decentralized model is able to capture many of the interesting properties observed in empirical markets such as fat tails in the distribution of returns, a brief memory in the return series, and long-range correlations in volatility. Significantly, these properties only emerge when the parameters are tuned such that the model spans the critical point. This suggests that real markets may operate at or near a critical point, but is unable to explain why this should be. This remains an interesting open question worth further investigation. One of the main points of the thesis is that these empirical phenomena are not present in the stochastic driving force, but emerge endogenously from interactions between agents. Further, they emerge despite the simplicity of the modeled agents; suggesting complex market dynamics do not arise from the complexity of individual investors but simply from interactions between (even simple) investors. Although the emphasis of this thesis is on the extent to which multi-agent models can produce complex dynamics, some attempt is also made to relate this work with empirical data. Firstly, the trading strategy applied by the agents in the second model is demonstrated to be adequate, if not optimal, and to have some surprising consequences. Secondly, the claim put forth by Sornette et al. that large financial crashes may be heralded by accelerating precursory oscillations is also tested. It is shown that there is weak evidence for the existence of log-periodic precursors but the signal is probably too indistinct to allow for reliable predictions.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1991.

Over the last few years there has been a surge of activity within the physics community in the emerging field of Econophysics—the study of economic systems from a physicist's perspective. Physicists tend to take a different view than economists and other social scientists, being interested in such topics as phase transitions and fluctuations. In this dissertation two simple models of stock exchange are developed and simulated numerically. The first is characterized by centralized trading with a market maker. Fluctuations are driven by a stochastic component in the agents' forecasts. As the scale of the fluctuations is varied a critical phase transition is discovered. Unfortunately, this model is unable to generate realistic market dynamics. The second model discards the requirement of centralized trading. In this case the stochastic driving force is Gaussian-distributed "news events" which are public knowledge. Under variation of the control parameter the model exhibits two phase transitions: both a first- and a second-order (critical). The decentralized model is able to capture many of the interesting properties observed in empirical markets such as fat tails in the distribution of returns, a brief memory in the return series, and long-range correlations in volatility. Significantly, these properties only emerge when the parameters are tuned such that the model spans the critical point. This suggests that real markets may operate at or near a critical point, but is unable to explain why this should be. This remains an interesting open question worth further investigation. One of the main points of the thesis is that these empirical phenomena are not present in the stochastic driving force, but emerge endogenously from interactions between agents. Further, they emerge despite the simplicity of the modeled agents; suggesting complex market dynamics do not arise from the complexity of individual investors but simply from interactions between (even simple) investors. Although the emphasis of this thesis is on the extent to which multi-agent models can produce complex dynamics, some attempt is also made to relate this work with empirical data. Firstly, the trading strategy applied by the agents in the second model is demonstrated to be adequate, if not optimal, and to have some surprising consequences. Secondly, the claim put forth by Sornette et al. that large financial crashes may be heralded by accelerating precursory oscillations is also tested. It is shown that there is weak evidence for the existence of log-periodic precursors but the signal is probably too indistinct to allow for reliable predictions. / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

by Lee Hing Wah. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-247). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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