There are a number of factors that contribute to the differences in college access rates of under-represented students compared with their white and Asian American counterparts. Families play a role in whether students experience a college-going culture. In an effort to challenge the dominant literature which focuses primarily on familial deficits, the intent of this research is to understand families from a different model, that of funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). Using a qualitative approach of embedded case studies and oral history interviews, this study explored the funds of knowledge present in six Mexican families in a university outreach program and sought to understand how those funds of knowledge contribute to the development of the college ideologies for their families. Participants are represented by the term household clusters, which includes extensions of families beyond the nuclear household (Vélez-Ibáñez & Greenberg, 2005). Three theoretical frameworks were used for this study. The primary framework utilized is funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005), with social capital (Bourdieu 1973, 1977) and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu & Passerson, 1977) serving as supplemental frameworks. Findings illustrate that funds of knowledge in the form of daily educational practices were present in household clusters and influenced children’s academic experiences and college knowledge. Educational ideologies highlighted the ways in which beliefs around the college-going process were formed and manifested as both helpful and limiting. Finally, it was evident that parental involvement was valued; this also included examples of non-traditional involvement, particularly when mothers worked at their children’s schools.

The fund industry has grown tremendously over the last decades and the function for mutual funds and their managers have gained importance. Sweden is today the greatest fund saving country in the world however the function of the mutual funds and their managers is still rather unexplored. Mutual fund managers were blamed for the recent financial crisis and their irrational behavior was highlighted. This indicated how weak the classic financial theories are when trying to explain the function of human behavior and the irrationality in the market.  Behavioral aspects for fund managers are greater than previously thought and there is a need to incorporate this better in the financial theories. The financial crisis together with the possibility of earning excess return over a long time period has indicated that the markets are not efficient. The confidence for mutual fund managers from the public is low because of the last financial crisis. There is a need for more regulation, better-suited payment schemes, greater transparency and products that everyone can understand in order to raise the confidence back to the previous level.

Utifrån en historisk jämförelse av de tre äldsta svenska ETFerna undersöker vi huruvida svensknoterade ETFer är en bättre placeringsstrategi än aktivt förvaltade Sverigefonder. Studien genomförs med de fyra utvärderingsmåtten Sharpe Ratio, Treynor Ratio, Jensen’s alfa samt Information Ratio för att se om ETFer ger högre riskjusterad avkastning än jämförbara aktivt förvaltade Sverigefonder. De tre ETFerna, XACT OMXS30, XACT OMXSB och XACT OMXSBULL jämförs mot samtliga aktivt förvaltade Sverigefonder som har som strategi att investera i stora bolag listade på Stockholmsbörsen. Samtliga utvärderingsmått ger tvetydiga resultat men två av de undersökta ETFerna visar sig ha genererat högre riskjusterad överavkastning än de jämförda fonderna. ETFernas överavkastning kan inte statistiskt säkerställas och bör därför tolkas med försiktighet. Vår undersökning indikerar dock att det kan vara mer fördelaktigt för privata investerare som värdesätter hög likviditet och aktierelaterade egenskaper att investera i ETFer framför aktivt förvaltade fonder.

Actively managed mutual funds underperform the index and investors are recommended to invest in index funds since they give higher returns (Dagens Industri Debatt, 2010). In this thesis it is investigated if partly indexated portfolios with randomly selected stocks beat the benchmark index and thus are a valid option of portfolio construction for the individual investor. For this purpose sixteen portfolios are constructed partly by an index and partly by randomly selected stocks from the Swedish stock market in the time period of 2007.01.01 to 2010.01.01. Risk and return measures are used in order to analyse if the portfolios beat the benchmark index. The results are also compared to an index mutual fund in order to validate the results further. The results suggest that partly indexated portfolios with randomly selected stocks are able to outperform both the benchmark index and the comparing index mutual fund. When dividends were included in the portfolios all of the sixteen portfolios had beaten the benchmark index. The two stock portfolio is a valid alternative when investing in mutual funds since it has superior returns with only marginally higher risk than the benchmark index.

Magistro darbe plačiai nagrinėjami H. Markowitz (1952), J. Tobin (1958), W. Sharpe (1964), S. Ross (1976), G. Fama ir K. French (1993) ir kitų autorių darbai, kuriuose akcentuojami portfelio formavimo kriterijai bei optimalaus portfelio sudarymo problemos. Darbas apima modernios portfelio teorijos praktinio pritaikymo aspektus, įvertinant vertybinių popierių atrankos į portfelį ir jų įkainojimo ypatumus bei portfelio vertę įtakojančius veiksnius, ieškant būdų jiems kiekybiškai išreikšti. Atlikta SEB VB Investicijų valdymas valdomų ir platinamų investicinių fondų pelningumo ir rizikos analizė 2005-2007m. bei atliktos analizės rezultatų pagrindu suformuoti investicinių fondų portfeliai skirti konservatyviam, racionaliam bei agresyviam investuotojui. Darbe parodyta, kaip ant kapitalo paskirstymo tiesės rasti optimalius liestinės su naudingumo abejingumo kreivėmis portfelius. Beto, magistro darbe buvo sprendžiami portfelių optimizavimo uždaviniai bei atliktas suformuotų portfelių maksimalių finansinių nuostolių įvertinimas, naudojant imitacinį rizikos vertės metodą. Gauti tyrimo rezultatai gali būti reikšmingi kiekvienam investuotojui, siekiant rasti sau priimtiną portfelį, esant optimaliam rizikos ir pelno santykiui. / This master’s final paper analyzes H. Markowitz (1952), J. Tobin (1958), W. Sharpe (1964), S. Ross (1976), G. Fama ir K. French (1993) theories, emphasizing the portfolio construction criteria and its optimization problems. The paper includes the practical aspects of the the modern portfolio theory application, estimating the portfolio selection and selected securities pricing points. It also analyzes the factors that influence the portfolio value, while searching for the ways to give them the quantitative repersenation.The paper estimates the risk and the return of the mutual funds managed and distributed by SEB VB Investment Management in 2005-2007m. and the fund portfolios are constructed for the conservative, rational and aggressive investors on the basis of the estimate results. The research enables to find the tangency portfolio on the capital allocation line, estimating the investors’ preferences. Furthermore, the paper solves the portfolio optimization task and it also gives the estimate of the maximum portfolio losses, using Monte Carlo simulation. The research results are important to every investor, contructing the portfolio with optimal risk/return trade-off.

The master‘s paper provides the analysis of Lithuanian and foreign scientific literature on the knowledge economics development opportunities in Lithuania while using EU structural funds. Here are analysed theoretical knowledge economics development trends, presumptions of creation, help of EU structural funds to develop Lithuanian knowledge economics. Taking into account Common Program Document of Lithuania and the structure of Lithuanian EU structural funds here was evaluated an opportunity to develop Lithuanian knowledge economics. On May 4th, 2006 the author took part in the 6th conference for Junior Researchers “Urgent Issues of Economics and Management” organized by Šiauliai University, Faculty of Social Sciences, and read the article: “The Possibility of Knowledge Economics in Lithuania by EU Structural Funds”.

The retirement fund industry has seen a number of scandals both locally and internationally recently. These have left the trustees, the custodians of the large sums of monies in retirement funds, exposed to lawsuits. This is so because the fund members and retirees blame these trustees for negligence and lack of foresight in putting in place prudential standards by which their monies should be managed. These prudential standards are encompassed in corporate governance, as we will appreciate. Retirement fund governance is a subset of corporate governance; it is the mirror image of the corporate governance of a company, which consists of a set of relationships between company's management, board, shareholders and other stakeholders. The same principles that apply to business assets in general also apply to the management of pension assets. This study set out to ascertain whether or not retirement funds in South Africa do comply with the governance guidelines as set by the Financial Services Board (FSB). I selected a sample of 300 fund trustees but excluded the principal officers and tried to select an equal number from employee elected and employer appointed, a balance that proved to be extremely difficult to strike. The sample was randomly drawn using my colleagues for referrals as well as just calling a company asking for a principal officer who would refer me to the trustees. (I received a great deal of cooperation from the principal officers to this end). The participants represent a wide spectrum of industry sectors. They represent manufacturing, auto and motor industry, local government and a few from the financial services industry. I used a 23-question questionnaire conducting interviews both telephonically and face-to-face interactions as well mail. I managed to receive 87 responses from face-to-face interactions locally (Port Elizabeth), 67 responses from the mail and 60 from telephone interviews. I used a software program called statistica 6.1 to analyze my data and produce the frequency tables and graphs. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2004.

The purpose of this report is to offer an independent evaluation of strategic investment vehicles that are used to hedge against inflation by asset management companies in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's inflation stood at an alarming 536% at the end of December 2003,which gives the research enough motivation to establish the best inflation hedging instruments ideal in such a highly volatile and unstable environment. Since 1999 to date many companies have shut down and or scaled down their operational activities due to the adverse inflationary trading environment. This paper therefore serves to find out whether AMC's have strategic products to save corporations. The investigation starts off by discussing the Zimbabwean inflationary situation and followed by the research's main goals, investigative questions and the reason and value for carrying out the study. The pertinent literature is then discussed and evaluated with particular emphasis on the role of asset portfolio management. The research analyses the traditional asset classes and compares their attributes to the alternative investment classes in particular with real estate investments. Previous research studies support the view that real estate retains value and that it is an instrument for the protection of asset erosion caused by the effects of inflation. The empirical findings from this study have established that real estate investments have higher returns than inflation cumulatively. As a result real estate investments offer diversification benefits within any investor's efficient portfolio. Upon reflection of this investigation's findings some recommendations are made. Firstly the study recommends that rational investors should include real estate on their diversified portfolios in order to maximize shareholder wealth. Secondly we recommend that asset managers should push for higher holding weights when making strategic decisions on asset allocation. There is a potential for more appetizing alternative investments for the Zimbabwean investor and asset managers need a paradigm shift to include more alternative forms of investments in their portfolios. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2004.

Kosowski, Timmermann, Wermers, and White (2006) find that certain growth-oriented fund managers have substantial skill but do not stipulate the particular skills that they possess. I use novel style timing models to examine in detail the timing skills of 3,181 US equity mutual funds classified as having a growth investment objective by Standard & Poor’s, over the period from 1993 to 2006. To control for idiosyncratic variation in mutual fund returns, the bootstrap method of Kosowski et al. is used to analyze the significance of alpha and timing coefficient estimates. To exclude the possibility that the observed timing ability is due to good luck, synthetic funds are examined as in Busse (1999). The results indicate that growth-oriented fund managers who earn abnormal returns demonstrate substantial growth timing skill, i.e. successful timing activity across the value/growth continuum. This observed growth timing ability accounts for at least 45% of abnormal returns and is persistent; the top 10% of funds which demonstrate growth timing ability in the past three years also demonstrate the best growth timing ability in the following year. Successful growth timing is confined to those managers who invest primarily in growth stocks. However, there is little evidence of successful market timing (i.e. forecasting future market states and weighting equity exposure accordingly), size timing (i.e. adjusting exposure between small and large capitalization stocks) or momentum timing (i.e. switching between momentum investing and contrarian investing strategies). The models employed clearly distinguish between growth timing and market timing skills, thereby avoiding a common misidentification problem.

I find the low volatility anomaly is present in all but the smallest of stocks. Portfolios can be formed on either total or idiosyncratic volatility to take advantage of this anomaly, but I show measures of idiosyncratic volatility are key. Standard risk-adjusted returns suggest that there is no low volatility anomaly from 1996 through 2011, but I find this result arises from model misspecification. Caution must be taken when analyzing high volatility stocks because their returns have a nonlinear relationship with momentum during market bubbles. I then find that mutual funds with low return volatility in the prior year outperform those with high return volatility by about 5.4% during the next year. After controlling for heterogeneity in fund characteristics, I show that a one standard deviation decrease in fund volatility in the prior year predicts an increase in alpha of about 2.5% in the following year. My evidence suggests that this difference in performance is not due to manager skill but is instead caused by the low volatility anomaly. I find no difference in performance or skill between low and high volatility mutual funds after accounting for the returns on low and high volatility stocks.