Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Facilities are available to individual investors to enable them to invest directly in a multitude of investments without making use of investment brokers or financial advisors. Although this facility offers the benefit of reduced administration and management fees, it also puts the investor in a position where he is responsible for making his own investment decisions. Since Markowitz’s publication fifty years ago, it has been known that diversification is necessary in order to reduce the investor’s exposure to any unsystematic investment risk while still obtaining an acceptable return. Studies have shown that human behaviour has an impact on investment decisions and that human nature skews the individual’s perception of diversification and risk and the reality thereof. For this reason, the individual investor is better off making use of quantitative methods in order to ensure a properly diversified portfolio. Exchange traded products are passive, index tracking investments that trade on stock exchanges and pose benefits to individual investors owing to their low administrative costs and inherent levels of diversification. Individual investors are able to purchase exchange traded products such as exchange traded funds (ETFs), exchange traded notes (ETNs) and index tracking unit trusts through various means, including brokerage firms and online trading platforms. These platforms offer little advice to the individual investor on how to select the most suitable investment products and how each product will affect the risk profile of an investor’s portfolio. The purpose of this research assignment was to develop a portfolio optimisation tool that would help the investor obtain the optimal return for his desired level of risk, thereby ensuring efficient diversification. An optimisation model was developed by using performance data from 2009 to 2013 and the resultant optimised portfolio’s performance was evaluated for 2014. It was found that optimisation rendered acceptable results, provided that the covariances between the various ETFs showed equivalence year on year. This requirement limited the number of ETFs that could be included in the model. Improvements to the model were recommended, based on the results of similar research in the field of portfolio optimisation. Further research is proposed that would utilise other optimisation methods, other sources of data and comparisons that are more detailed.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2007. / Adviser: S. Ghon Rhee. Includes bibliographical references.

Includes bibliographical references / Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) have become important members of the investment universe. They are praised by institutional and retail investors alike for their low cost, transparency and efficient pricing mechanisms. ETPs trade much like equity securities but with a unique creation and redemption mechanism which typically aligns quoted prices with the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the underlying securities. This dissertation examines a class of ETPs whose underlying reference basket consists of securities listed on stock exchanges operating in a time zone different to the time zone of the ETP instrument itself, and whose currencies of the underlying securities are different to the currency of the ETP instrument. The ETP instruments reviewed comprise of the iShares MSCI Country Series and are all listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The ETPs are classified into three groups depending on the degree of overlap between the exchange operating times on which their underlying securities are traded and the exchange operating times of the NYSE. These groups are non-synchronous for no overlapping hours, partially synchronous for some overlapping hours and synchronous for overlapping hours. By assessing a measure of range-based volatility during 15-minute intra-day intervals throughout the NYSE trading day, an understanding of the volatility profile of these ETPs is determined and analysed. It is found that non-synchronous ETPs do exhibit a higher relative level of volatility when compared to the partially synchronous group. Within the partially synchronous group, evidence of a regime-shift is observed during the period when the market of the underlying securities transitions from open to closed during the NYSE trading session. Another factor observed in the relative volatility profile is the impact of foreign exchange translation. ETPs with underlying securities priced in an emerging market currency show higher relative levels of range-based volatility. However, both emerging market and developed market denominated securities baskets exhibit relatively higher levels of volatility during the opening and closing periods of the US trading day. The results point to the need for caution and understanding of the underlying reference basket when transacting in these ETPs as investors may inadvertently transact at a price which does not reflect the fair-market value of the underlying securities basket due to price distortions as a result of volatility.

Thesis (M.S.F.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2007. / "December, 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-60). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

In this thesis, I study the local employment multiplier effect; the effect of employment in the tradable sector on employment in the non-tradable sector of the same region. Using a reduced form regression with a shift-share instrument I find a significant local multiplier effect in Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the USA. I show that this result is robust to many different regional definitions, controls and ways of classifying tradable industries. I find larger multipliers for high-wage or high-skilled workers in the tradable sector and I find that most of the jobs created in the non-tradable sector are fulfilled by high-skilled workers who already reside in the region. A replication of the most influential paper in this literature, by Moretti (AER; 2010), demonstrates the sensitivity of his results to six idiosyncrasies of his analysis. To better understand how these local multipliers work, I develop an efficiency wage model with rural-urban migration for the non-tradable sector. In this model, I consider the impact of a shock to employment in the tradable sector in the city and find a positive local employment multiplier effect. The model predicts that attracting tradable jobs to a city has a bigger positive impact on employment in the non-tradable sector in the same city when the unemployment rate is higher. The model also predicts that this increase is driven by a larger multiplier for current inhabitants and that there is no, or even a negative, effect of the unemployment rate on the multiplier for movers. Both these predictions are reflected in the results of my non-parametric analysis of the data. I find similar results for European TL3 regions. Policies that try to increase growth in less favoured regions by stimulating tradable firms to locate in areas with high unemployment, will both reduce disparities between regions and efficiently reduce unemployment across the board.

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Pontiff / My thesis contains four essays on the pricing of financial assets and the role of non-professional investors. The first two essays describe the legal framework governing Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and the liquidity transformation functions of ETFs. The third essay examines how trading by nine different types of market participants are related to characteristics that have previously documented to predict the cross-section of equity returns. The fourth and final essay examines whether and how orders originating from retail brokerages respond to analyst recommendations. In my first essay, I describe the legal framework that governs ETFs and theoretical benefits of the ETF security design relative to two other popular investment management security structures: open-end and close-end mutual funds. To do so, I briefly describe the history of the modern investment management industry. I describe the role of Authorized Participants (APs), the main security design innovation of ETFs, and highlight the key theoretical differences between the three classes of funds. Lastly, I describe SEC rulemaking that governs the behavior of ETF Managers and their APs. In the second essay, I document a hidden but substantial cost associated with the liquidity transformation that corporate bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide. When creating new shares, authorized participants (APs) deliver a subset of the portfolio of bonds that underlie a corporate bond ETF. This subset contains bonds that realize low future returns, reducing ETF performance by 48 basis points per annum. This loss in performance cannot be attributed to forgone compensation for risk or illiquidity, but instead results from APs utilizing information regarding future changes in net asset values to strategically deliver bonds when those bonds are expected to realize poor performance in the near future. My third essay is joint work with Jeff Pontiff and David McLean. We provide the most comprehensive study of market participation to date. We assess the informativeness of 9 different participants’ trades, and how each participant’s trades relate to 130 different variables that together reflect the cross-section of expected stock returns. Firms and short sellers tend to be the smart money—both sell stocks with low expected returns, and their trades predict returns in the intended direction. Firms, however, also seem to possess private information, while short sellers do not. Retail investors buy (sell) stocks with low (high) expected returns and their trades predict returns opposite to the intended direction. All 6 types of institutional investors are weighted towards stocks with low expected returns, but none of their trades robustly predict returns. My fourth essay is joint work with Jeff Pontiff and David McLean. We ask whether retail investors are responsive to analysts’ revisions. We consider revisions in recommendations, price targets, and EPS forecasts, all of which predict returns. Revisions in recommendations and price targets portend greater retail trading in the direction of the revision. The effects are stronger for All-Star Analysts’ revisions, and retail investors also respond to All-Star’s revisions in EPS forecasts. Retail investors trade in anticipation of revisions in price targets and recommendations, consistent with analysts or brokers “tipping” some retail investors. Retail trades earn higher returns when aligned with analysts’ revision. The results show that retail investors are one channel through which analysts’ information gets into prices. Our findings also support the idea that spikes in retail trading reflect informed trading, some of which is informed by analysts. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

La hausse des prix des matières premières observée pendant les années 2000 étant concomitante avec une présence plus accrue des agents financiers sur ces marchés a suscité entre l'intérêt des chercheurs. Cette hausse des prix a eu lieu avec une transformation des marchés de matières premières que cela soit dû à la présence de nouveaux instruments financiers ou à des investissements plus importants dans ces marchés. Les deux premiers chapitres de cette thèse étudient l'impact sur les matières premières de la présence d'Exchange-Traded Products dont le but est d'offrir aux investisseurs financiers une exposition passive aux matières premières. Au cours de ces études, il est démontré que le mécanisme (dit de création/rédemption) utilisé pour délivrer la performance de la matière première sous-jacente aux investisseurs a un impact sur le prix du sous-jacent, sur sa volatilité et sa corrélation au marché des actions. Enfin, ces mêmes instruments sont devenus les principaux contributeurs à la fonction de découverte des prix alors que traditionnellement cette fonction était assurée par les marchés à terme. Le dernier chapitre de ce manuscrit de thèse étudie la saisonnalité à la fois des prix et des positions des différents types d'agents présents sur le marché à terme des matières premières agricoles. Les résultats montrent que la saisonnalité des positions sur le marché à terme a été modifiée par la présence accrue des agents financiers. Cette thèse quantifie et démontre que les nouveaux supports d'investissement et les positions plus nombreuses de ces mêmes investisseurs sur le marché à terme ont modifié les caractéristiques financières et fondamentales des matières premières. / Commodity prices rise observed during the 2000s being concomitant with the increasing presence of financial agents has sparked the researchers’ interest. This price increase occurred while commodity markets have been transformed by new financial instruments or larger investments in these markets. The first chapter of this thesis are studying the impact on commodities of Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs) whose purpose is to provide investors a passive exposure to commodities. During this study, it is shown that the mechanism (called creation / redemption) used to deliver the performance of the underlying commodity to the investors has an impact on the price of the underlying asset, its volatility and its correlation with the stock market. The second chapter demonstrates that ETPs have become major contributors to the price discovery process whereas traditionally this function was performed by the futures market. The final chapter of this PhD thesis is studying seasonality in both the prices and positions of different types of agents on the futures market for agricultural commodities. The results show that seasonal positions in the futures market have been changed by the increased presence of financial agents. This thesis quantifies and demonstrates that new investment vehicles and an increasing number of positions of financial investors in the futures market have changed the financial and fundamental characteristics of commodity markets.

This paper examines the effect capital flows from the introduction of exchange traded funds (ETFs) have on emerging markets. Recent years have seen more capital transfer into emerging markets, and the advantages ETFs offer have helped expedite the process. Increased liquidity and a large diverse collection of holdings help manage the high degree of volatility inherent to these markets. The holdings of the ETFs are tested for returns above their market average for the period surrounding the initial trading date of the fund. Positive effects were seen on individual stocks, but overall the findings suggest no significant mean excess return exists for the period related to the creation of an ETF.

This dissertation investigates two fundamental questions related to how well exchange-traded funds that hold portfolios of fixed-income assets (bond ETFs) proxy for their underlying portfolios. The first question involves price/net-asset-value (NAV) mean-reversion asymmetries and the effectiveness of the arbitrage mechanism of bond ETFs. Methodologically, to answer the first question I focus on a time-series analysis. The second question involves the degree to which average returns of bond ETF shares respond to changes in factors that have been found to drive average returns of bond portfolios. To answer this question I shift the focus of the analysis to a cross-section asset pricing test. In other words, do bond ETF share prices track the value of their underlying assets, and are they priced by investors like bonds in the cross-section? The first essay concludes that bond ETF shares exhibit mean-reversion asymmetries when price and NAV diverge, along persistent small premiums. These premiums appear to reflect the added value that bond ETFs bring to the fixed-income asset market through smaller trading increments, greater liquidity, and the ability to buy on margin and sell short. The second essay concludes that market, bond-specific, and firm-specific risk factors can help to explain the variation in U.S. bond ETF average returns, but only size seems to be priced in the cross-section of expected returns. This is not surprising as the sample used in the asset pricing tests is limited to the period 2007-2010, which corresponds to the "great recession", and size has been interpreted in the asset pricing literature as a state variable that proxies for financial distress and is highly dependent on the phase of the real business cycle. / The two essays together suggest that bond ETFs can be used in trading strategies based on taking long and short positions in fixed-income assets, especially when trading in portfolios of fixed-income assets directly is not feasible. / by Charles W. Evans. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

"This paper describes our work in exploring trading strategies for the leveraged exchange-traded funds, Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X (FAS) and Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X (FAZ) over the first three quarters of 2009. Using minute-by-minute stock data we are able to verify the accuracy of these ETFs in regards to their target of the Russell 1000 Financial Index (RIFIN). We are then able to quantify the returns and risks involved with trading strategies that seek to exploit the ETFs objectives, specifically momentum trades, tracking-error discrepancy trades, and a combination of the two strategies we term “discount-and-up.” Bootstrap simulation techniques are employed to measure values at risk and conditional tail expectations over 30 day time horizons for each strategy. Lastly, we demonstrate the dangers of traditional buy-and-hold investing with regards to leveraged ETFs."