The Portuguese contemporary art as an investment

In this paper we investigate what drives the prices of Portuguese contemporary art at auction and explore the potential of art as an asset. Based on a hedonic prices model we construct an Art Price Index as a proxy for the Portuguese contemporary art market over the period of 1994 to 2014. A performance analysis suggests that art underperforms the S&P500 but overperforms the Portuguese stock market and American Government bonds. However, It does it at the cost of higher risk. Results also show that art as low correlation with financial markets, evidencing some potential in risk mitigation when added to traditional equity portfolios.

Almirante: Evaluating the board game: Board game, startup, discounted cash flow, venture capital method, real options

This thesis evaluates a start-up company (Jogos Almirante Lda) whose single asset is a board game named Almirante. It aims to conclude whether it makes sense to create a company or just earn copyrights. The thesis analyzes the board game’s market, as part of the general toy’s market, from which some data exists: European countries as well as the USA. In this work it is analyzed the several ways to finance a start-up company and then present an overview of the valuation of the Jogos Almirante based on three different methods: Discounted Cash Flow, Venture Capital Method and Real Options.

Value creation in the nursing home real estate investment market - A case study

The underlying thesis examines the value drivers of direct investments in nursing home real estate in Germany. A survey among investors and operators is conducted in order to identify significant value drivers. Moreover, based on survey results, a framework for assessing German nursing home real estate is developed. This is applied in a case-study about the set-up of a nursing home value-add fund which will demonstrate the value creation process of redeveloping an existing nursing home real estate portfolio. Through a concluding analysis the sources of value creation, sensitivities and future prospects of direct investing into German nursing home real estate are concluded.

Does direct cash flow presentation help in predicting future operating cash flow?

Research literature and regulators are unconditional in pointing the disclosure of operating cash flow through direct method a section of unique information. Besides the intuitive facet, it is also consistent in forecasting future operating cash flows and a cohesive piece to financial statement puzzle. Bearing this in mind, I produce an analysis on the usefulness and predictive ability on the disclosure of gross cash receipts and payments over the disclosure of reconciliation between net income and accruals for two markets with special features, Portugal and Spain. Results validate the usefulness of direct method format in predicting future operating cash flow. Key

Measuring impact with the social return on investment: the case of the social innovation hub

There is a growing interest in social impact assessment across the private, the public and the nonprofit sector. However, there is still limited academic research produced in this area, particularly in what concerns to the application of the Social Return of Investment (SROI) methodology. The goal of this Work Project is to give an overview of the social impact measurement literature and apply the Social Return on Investment, a flagship methodology to measure impact, to the specific case of the Social Innovation Hub (SIH). The findings suggest that each 1€ invested on the SIH generates 1,21€ in terms of social value. While this value seems very appealing to use, there are some risks in monetizing impact in such way, mainly due to the lack of reliable data available for benchmarking purposes.

The flow-performance relationship around the world

We use a new dataset to study how mutual fund flows depend on past performance across 28 countries. We show that there are marked differences in the flow-performance relationship across countries, suggesting that US findings concerning its shape do not apply universally. We find that mutual fund investors sell losers more and buy winners less in more developed countries. This is because investors in more developed countries are more sophisticated and face lower costs of participating in the mutual fund industry. Higher country-level convexity is positively associated with higher levels of risk taking by fund managers.

NSP work project investment styles

This paper analyzes the Nova Student Portfolio (NSP) with the objective to understand performances of the fund. Each investment style has been analyzed (growth, value and momentum) in order to highlight what style allocation contributed positively and which had a negative impact. The results show that the team mainly invested in value stocks, which contributed positively but that its growth investments had a negative impact on the stock picking performance. The stock selection shows a major influence of the value investment style. A statistical approach shows that the market factor was the one explaining the most the NSP returns.

Hybrid investment strategy active portfolio management – US stock market

This thesis aims to develop an alternative active managed portfolio strategy based on companies‟ Fundamental and Technical Analysis and analyze its finals results. There is a big distinction between the two approaches and the main objective is to understand if it is possible to take advantage of both. With this in mind a Hybrid investment strategy for the US stock market, due to its dimension and liquidity, which was able to outperform the S&P 500 index, the benchmark, during both Bear and Bull Markets between 2000 and 2015.

A type system for value-dependent information flow analysis

Information systems are widespread and used by anyone with computing devices as well as corporations and governments. It is often the case that security leaks are introduced during the development of an application. Reasons for these security bugs are multiple but among them one can easily identify that it is very hard to define and enforce relevant security policies in modern software. This is because modern applications often rely on container sharing and multi-tenancy where, for instance, data can be stored in the same physical space but is logically mapped into different security compartments or data structures. In turn, these security compartments, to which data is classified into in security policies, can also be dynamic and depend on runtime data. In this thesis we introduce and develop the novel notion of dependent information flow types, and focus on the problem of ensuring data confidentiality in data-centric software. Dependent information flow types fit within the standard framework of dependent type theory, but, unlike usual dependent types, crucially allow the security level of a type, rather than just the structural data type itself, to depend on runtime values. Our dependent function and dependent sum information flow types provide a direct, natural and elegant way to express and enforce fine grained security policies on programs. Namely programs that manipulate structured data types in which the security level of a structure field may depend on values dynamically stored in other fields The main contribution of this work is an efficient analysis that allows programmers to verify, during the development phase, whether programs have information leaks, that is, it verifies whether programs protect the confidentiality of the information they manipulate. As such, we also implemented a prototype typechecker that can be found at http://ctp.di.fct.unl.pt/DIFTprototype/.

Reporting cash flow evidence from campanies listed in the Euronext Lisbon

Based on the 2013 and 2014 consolidated statements of cash flows of companies listed in Euronext Lisbon, this Work Project analyses the cash flow disclosures, namely if they are in accordance with International Accounting Standards 7, specifically the format, the choice of classification interests, dividends paid and received and the composition of cash and cash equivalents. Additionally, quality of income ratio is analyzed due to its importance for users of financial statements. The results show evidence of uniformity and consistency in the use of the direct method for reporting operational activities in both years, but there are some differences regarding the disclosure of interests and dividends, paid and received, respectively.