Essays on pricing of risk and international linkage of Russian stock market

Last two decades have seen a rapid change in the global economic and financial situation; the economic conditions in many small and large underdeveloped countries started to improve and they became recognized as emerging markets. This led to growth in the amounts of global investments in these countries, partly spurred by expectations of higher returns, favorable risk-return opportunities, and better diversification alternatives to global investors. This process, however, has not been without problems and it has emphasized the need for more information on these markets. In particular, the liberalization of financial markets around the world, globalization of trade and companies, recent formation of economic and regional blocks, and the rapid development of underdeveloped countries during the last two decades have brought a major challenge to the financial world and researchers alike. This doctoral dissertation studies one of the largest emerging markets, namely Russia. The motivation why the Russian equity market is worth investigating includes, among other factors, its sheer size, rapid and robust economic growth since the turn of the millennium, future prospect for international investors, and a number of important major financial reforms implemented since the early 1990s. Another interesting feature of the Russian economy, which gives motivation to study Russian market, is Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, considered as one of the worst crisis in recent times, affecting both developed and developing economies. Therefore, special attention has been paid to Russia’s 1998 financial crisis throughout this dissertation. This thesis covers the period from the birth of the modern Russian financial markets to the present day, Special attention is given to the international linkage and the 1998 financial crisis. This study first identifies the risks associated with Russian market and then deals with their pricing issues. Finally some insights about portfolio construction within Russian market are presented. The first research paper of this dissertation considers the linkage of the Russian equity market to the world equity market by examining the international transmission of the Russia’s 1998 financial crisis utilizing the GARCH-BEKK model proposed by Engle and Kroner. Empirical results shows evidence of direct linkage between the Russian equity market and the world market both in regards of returns and volatility. However, the weakness of the linkage suggests that the Russian equity market was only partially integrated into the world market, even though the contagion can be clearly seen during the time of the crisis period. The second and the third paper, co-authored with Mika Vaihekoski, investigate whether global, local and currency risks are priced in the Russian stock market from a US investors’ point of view. Furthermore, the dynamics of these sources of risk are studied, i.e., whether the prices of the global and local risk factors are constant or time-varying over time. We utilize the multivariate GARCH-M framework of De Santis and Gérard (1998). Similar to them we find price of global market risk to be time-varying. Currency risk also found to be priced and highly time varying in the Russian market. Moreover, our results suggest that the Russian market is partially segmented and local risk is also priced in the market. The model also implies that the biggest impact on the US market risk premium is coming from the world risk component whereas the Russian risk premium is on average caused mostly by the local and currency components. The purpose of the fourth paper is to look at the relationship between the stock and the bond market of Russia. The objective is to examine whether the correlations between two classes of assets are time varying by using multivariate conditional volatility models. The Constant Conditional Correlation model by Bollerslev (1990), the Dynamic Conditional Correlation model by Engle (2002), and an asymmetric version of the Dynamic Conditional Correlation model by Cappiello et al. (2006) are used in the analysis. The empirical results do not support the assumption of constant conditional correlation and there was clear evidence of time varying correlations between the Russian stocks and bond market and both asset markets exhibit positive asymmetries. The implications of the results in this dissertation are useful for both companies and international investors who are interested in investing in Russia. Our results give useful insights to those involved in minimising or managing financial risk exposures, such as, portfolio managers, international investors, risk analysts and financial researchers. When portfolio managers aim to optimize the risk-return relationship, the results indicate that at least in the case of Russia, one should account for the local market as well as currency risk when calculating the key inputs for the optimization. In addition, the pricing of exchange rate risk implies that exchange rate exposure is partly non-diversifiable and investors are compensated for bearing the risk. Likewise, international transmission of stock market volatility can profoundly influence corporate capital budgeting decisions, investors’ investment decisions, and other business cycle variables. Finally, the weak integration of the Russian market and low correlations between Russian stock and bond market offers good opportunities to the international investors to diversify their portfolios.

Stability and predictive ability of beta

The purpose of this paper is to examine the stability and predictive abilities of the beta coefficients of individual equities in the Finnish stock market. As beta is widely used in several areas of finance, including risk management, asset pricing and performance evaluation among others, it is important to understand its characteristics and find out whether its estimates can be trusted and utilized.

Formation and differentiation of multiple mesenchymal lineages during lung development is regulated by {beta}-catenin signaling.

BACKGROUND: The role of ss-catenin signaling in mesodermal lineage formation and differentiation has been elusive. METHODOLOGY: To define the role of ss-catenin signaling in these processes, we used a Dermo1(Twist2)(Cre/+) line to target a floxed beta-catenin allele, throughout the embryonic mesenchyme. Strikingly, the Dermo1(Cre/+); beta-catenin(f/-) conditional Knock Out embryos largely phenocopy Pitx1(-/-)/Pitx2(-/-) double knockout embryos, suggesting that ss-catenin signaling in the mesenchyme depends mostly on the PITX family of transcription factors. We have dissected this relationship further in the developing lungs and find that mesenchymal deletion of beta-catenin differentially affects two major mesenchymal lineages. The amplification but not differentiation of Fgf10-expressing parabronchial smooth muscle progenitor cells is drastically reduced. In the angioblast-endothelial lineage, however, only differentiation into mature endothelial cells is impaired. CONCLUSION: Taken together these findings reveal a hierarchy of gene activity involving ss-catenin and PITX, as important regulators of mesenchymal cell proliferation and differentiation.

The conditional performance of UK property funds

The evaluation of investment fund performance has been one of the main developments of modern portfolio theory. Most studies employ the technique developed by Jensen (1968) that compares a particular fund's returns to a benchmark portfolio of equal risk. However, the standard measures of fund manager performance are known to suffer from a number of problems in practice. In particular previous studies implicitly assume that the risk level of the portfolio is stationary through the evaluation period. That is unconditional measures of performance do not account for the fact that risk and expected returns may vary with the state of the economy. Therefore many of the problems encountered in previous performance studies reflect the inability of traditional measures to handle the dynamic behaviour of returns. As a consequence Ferson and Schadt (1996) suggest an approach to performance evaluation called conditional performance evaluation which is designed to address this problem. This paper utilises such a conditional measure of performance on a sample of 27 UK property funds, over the period 1987-1998. The results of which suggest that once the time varying nature of the funds beta is corrected for, by the addition of the market indicators, the average fund performance show an improvement over that of the traditional methods of analysis.

Inflated beta distributions

This paper considers the issue of modeling fractional data observed on [0,1), (0,1] or [0,1]. Mixed continuous-discrete distributions are proposed. The beta distribution is used to describe the continuous component of the model since its density can have quite different shapes depending on the values of the two parameters that index the distribution. Properties of the proposed distributions are examined. Also, estimation based on maximum likelihood and conditional moments is discussed. Finally, practical applications that employ real data are presented.

Estimating the term structure of volatility and fixed income derivative pricing

Estimating the parameters of the instantaneous spot interest rate process is of crucial importance for pricing fixed income derivative securities. This paper presents an estimation for the parameters of the Gaussian interest rate model for pricing fixed income derivatives based on the term structure of volatility. We estimate the term structure of volatility for US treasury rates for the period 1983 - 1995, based on a history of yield curves. We estimate both conditional and first differences term structures of volatility and subsequently estimate the implied parameters of the Gaussian model with non-linear least squares estimation. Results for bond options illustrate the effects of differing parameters in pricing.

Beta: problemas e evidência empírica

Realiza uma revisão bibliográfica dos testes empíricos do modelo CAPM - Capital Asset Pricing Model, e mostra os resultados de testes de modelos multi-fatores para ações brasileiras.

O modelo de avaliação de ativos: (Capital asset pricing model)

Examina o modelo de seleção de portfólios desenvolvido por Markowitz, principalmente no que concerne: as suas relações com a teoria da utilidade de Von Neumann-Morgenstern; aos algo ritmos de solução do problema de Programação Quadrática paramétrica dele decorrente; a simplificação proporcionada pelo Modelo Diagonal de Sharpe. Mostra que a existência de um título sem risco permite a especificação do Teorema da Separação e a simplificação do problema de seleção de portfólios. Analisa o modelo denominado por CAPM, de equilíbrio no Mercado de Capitais sob condições de incerteza, comparando os processos dedutivos empregados por Lintner e Mossin. Examina as implicações decorrentes do relaxamento dos pressupostos subjacentes ã esse modelo de equilíbrio geral, principalmente a teoria do portfólio Zero-Beta desenvolvida por Black.

Affine processes, arbitrage-Free Term structures of legendre polynomials,and option pricing

Multivariate Affine term structure models have been increasingly used for pricing derivatives in fixed income markets. In these models, uncertainty of the term structure is driven by a state vector, while the short rate is an affine function of this vector. The model is characterized by a specific form for the stochastic differential equation (SDE) for the evolution of the state vector. This SDE presents restrictions on its drift term which rule out arbitrages in the market. In this paper we solve the following inverse problem: Suppose the term structure of interest rates is modeled by a linear combination of Legendre polynomials with random coefficients. Is there any SDE for these coefficients which rules out arbitrages? This problem is of particular empirical interest because the Legendre model is an example of factor model with clear interpretation for each factor, in which regards movements of the term structure. Moreover, the Affine structure of the Legendre model implies knowledge of its conditional characteristic function. From the econometric perspective, we propose arbitrage-free Legendre models to describe the evolution of the term structure. From the pricing perspective, we follow Duffie et al. (2000) in exploring Legendre conditional characteristic functions to obtain a computational tractable method to price fixed income derivatives. Closing the article, the empirical section presents precise evidence on the reward of implementing arbitrage-free parametric term structure models: The ability of obtaining a good approximation for the state vector by simply using cross sectional data.

Equity pricing in the mining sector: evidence from NYSE and LSE

The study examines the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) for the mining sector using weekly stock returns from 27 companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for the period of December 2008 to December 2010. The results support the use of the CAPM for the allocation of risk to companies. Most companies involved in precious metals (particularly gold), which have a beta value less than unity (Table 1), have been actuated as shelter values during the financial crisis. Values of R2 do not shown very explanatory power of fitted models (R2 < 70 %). Estimated coefficients beta are not sufficient to determine the expected returns on securities but the results of the tests conducted on sample data for the period analysed do not appear to clearly reject the CAPM

A contribuição dos Modelos de Avaliação para a previsão do retorno dos títulos finançeiros de empresa do PSI20 - Análise Comparativa entre Capital Asset Pricing Model e Arbitrage Pricing Theory

O crescimento económico de um país depende dos fundos disponíveis, quer para o financiamento da formação de capital quer para a sua reposição. Fundos obtidos pelas empresas e organismos públicos através de diversas formas, entre as quais, se destaca a emissão de valores mobiliários. Os aforradores, detentores de recursos, ao comprarem valores mobiliários, aliam uma alta rentabilidade a uma elevada liquidez na remuneração dos seus investimentos. As bolsas de valores são o meio onde as empresas, os organismos públicos e os aforradores, têm a possibilidade de verem esses interesses conciliados de uma maneira eficiente, eficaz e transparente, garantindo assim, uma maior liquidez aos títulos financeiros transaccionados em bolsa de valores. As empresas possuem várias alternativas de financiamento, o mercado de capitais é considerado pelos gestores, a fonte onde o rendimento ou o retorno obtido pode ser maior, perante a contrapartida de se incorrer um maior risco. Este mercado surge como alternativa aos empréstimos bancários, as empresas podem, dessa forma, adquirir financiamento de terceiros, os quais se tornarão accionistas dessa empresa. Podem emitir novas acções no mercado accionista de forma a atrair investidores externos que garantam a sustentabilidade do negócio. As acções possuem diversas caracteristicas e modalidades e fazem com que o capital da empresa seja partilhado por todos os seus accionistas, tendo em conta a proporção por eles adquirida individualmente. Esta dissertação investiga a dinâmica de compra e de venda das acções no mercado bolsista, os factores que determinam o seu preço, assim como os modelos que permitem a avaliação das mesmas e a inferência da taxa de retorno esperada por um investidor. A avaliação das acções é o tema de maior importância para esta análise, mais concretamente, a determinação e previsão do preço, e não apenas o preço propriamente dito, pois este é facultado diáriamente por vários jornais e também na internet. Perante o estudo da determinação de preços de uma acção num horizonte temporal, um investidor pode inferir se as suas acções estão a ser avaliadas sob um preço justo, e mais importante, pode apurar a sua previsão consoante dados e análises de factores. Outro ponto importante abordado nesta investigação tem que ver com a possibilidade das empresas em conhecer o modo como o mercado faz a sua avaliação a fim de tomar decisões certas acerca do orçamento de capital. Apenas se deve julgar a atractividade de um negócio se se souber como são avaliadas as acções. Nos mercados financeiros existe a tendência, por parte dos agentes económicos, de relacionarem o preço com o valor dos títulos financeiros. As decisões para a transacção de títulos financeiros são tomadas segundo a sua comparação. O preço ou cotação de mercado é formado em mercados organizados, pelo que depende das regras de funcionamento do mercado, tais como, os mínimos para transacção ou a variação máxima e mínima permitida. Estão associados a uma transação dependendo assim da procura e oferta dos títulos e incorporam ainda os custos de transacção. A ideia subjacente ao modelo Capital Asset Pricing Model é a de que, os investidores esperam uma recompensa pela preocupação dos investimentos realizados com risco ou com um retorno incerto. Quando se investe em títulos com risco, espera-se um retorno extra (comparando com os Bilhetes do Tesouro sem risco, recebe-se apenas os juros) ou um prémio de risco pela preocupação. A incerteza no retorno dos títulos provem de duas fontes, nomeadamente os factores macroeconómicos, pode-se chamar também, um factor comum, e os factores específicos inerentes à actividade da empresa. O facto comum é assumido como tendo um valor esperado zero pois é medido por nova informação respeitante à macroeconomia. O modelo assume duas ideias fundamentais: em primeiro lugar, existe consenso em relação ao facto dos investidores exigirem um retorno adicional por correrem riscos, e em segundo lugar, os investidores preocupam-se geralmente com o risco de mercado geral que não pode ser eliminado através de diversificação da carteira de investimentos. Este modelo pode ser bastante eficaz pois apenas considera um único factor para o cálculo da rendibilidade esperada de um título financeiro, que é a volatilidade do mercado no geral, a qual pode ser estudada. Ao contrário dos modelos multifactoriais, que incluem vários factores macroeconómicos tornando o objectivo da análise pouco intuitivo e complexo. Existem vários modelos para avaliação dos títulos de uma empresa cotada em bolsa de valores, geralmente estes modelos utilizam taxas de juro sem risco para equilibrar carteiras diversificadas, embora seja necessário analisar o retorno de um título ou carteira sob a influência de diversas variáveis macroeconómicas. Por exemplo outro modelo aplicado neste dissertação é o modelo Arbitrage Pricing Theory que perante o seu resultado comparado com o primeiro modelo, se pode definir qual dos modelos tem uma aplicação mais conclusiva para o mercado accionista português. Este modelo de avaliação por arbitragem estabelece uma relação linear entre o excedente do retorno esperado dos activos face à taxa de juro certa (sem risco) e um conjunto de variáveis. Pressupõe que a taxa de rentabilidade de um activo com risco é uma função linear de um conjunto de factores comuns a todos os activos financeiros. Tem como ideia subjacente, a constituição de uma carteira de não arbitragem, ou seja, uma carteira que não envolve qualquer risco (sistemático ou específico) e não requer investimento inicial pois a venda de certos activos gera fundos para adquirir novos. A metodologia implementada abrange o mercado financeiro e modelos possíveis para esta questão. Para responder às hipóteses de investigação efectuou-se a aplicação efectiva do modelo CAPM e do modelo APT, com a captação de dados oficiais em instituições financeiras e na Bolsa de Valores NYSE Euronext Lisbon. Considerou-se um período temporal num passado próximo de forma a poder obter-se conclusões concretas e indicadores precisos para a sua implementação e desenvolvimento no futuro. A principal conclusão desta dissertação relaciona-se com o facto de não se verificar a total validação da aplicação dos modelos, contudo o modelo CAPM é mais conclusivo do que o modelo APT, pois pode-se afirmar que tem aplicação prática em empresas que se conheça à priori a sua capitalização bolsista e beta anual. Por exemplo, aos títulos financeiros de empresas com capitalizações bolsistas inferiores a cinco mil milhões de euros e com um beta anual inferior a 1 poderá aplicar-se o modelo, assim como a títulos de empresas com capitalizações bolsistas superiores a dez mil milhões de euros e beta anual superior 1,5. Os sectores da Banca e do Papel também poderão ter potencial de aplicação do modelo.

Conditional inactivation of the Men1 gene leads to pancreatic and pituitary tumorigenesis but does not affect normal development of these tissues

Mutations of the MEN1 gene, encoding the tumor suppressor menin, predispose individuals to the cancer syndrome multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, characterized by the development of tumors of the endocrine pancreas and anterior pituitary and parathyroid glands. We have targeted the murine Men1 gene by using Cre recombinase-loxP technology to develop both total and tissue-specific knockouts of the gene. Conditional homozygous inactivation of the Men1 gene in the pituitary gland and endocrine pancreas bypasses the embryonic lethality associated with a constitutional Men1(-/-) genotype and leads to beta-cell hyperplasia in less than 4 months and insulinomas and prolactinomas starting at 9 months. The pituitary gland and pancreas develop normally in the conditional absence of menin, but loss of this transcriptional cofactor is sufficient to cause beta-cell hyperplasia in some islets; however, such loss is not sufficient to initiate pituitary gland tumorigenesis, suggesting that additional genetic events are necessary for the latter.

Pricing-to-market using EGARCH-error correction model

In this paper, the authors use an exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (EGARCH) error-correction model (ECM), that is, EGARCH-ECM, to estimate the pass-through effects of foreign exchange (FX) rates and producers’ prices for 20 U.K. export sectors. The long-run adjustment of export prices to FX rates and producers’ prices is within the range of -1.02% (for the Textiles sector) and -17.22% (for the Meat sector). The contemporaneous pricing-to-market (PTM) coefficient is within the range of -72.84% (for the Fuels sector) and -8.05% (for the Textiles sector). Short-run FX rate pass-through is not complete even after several months. Rolling EGARCH-ECMs show that the short and long-run effects of FX rate and producers’ prices fluctuate substantially as are asymmetry and volatility estimates before equilibrium is achieved.

Pricing-to-market and the volatility of UK export prices

This empirical study examines the Pricing-To-Market (PTM) behaviour of 20 UK export sectors. Using both Exponential General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) and Threshold GARCH (TGARCH) estimation methods, we find evidence of PTM that is accompanied by strong conditional volatility and weak asymmetry effects. The PTM estimates suggest that when the currency of exporters appreciates in the current period, exporters pass-on between 31% and 94% of the Foreign Exchange (FX) rate increase to importers. However, both export price changes and producers' prices are sluggish, perhaps being driven by coordination failure and menu driven costs, amongst others. Furthermore, export prices contain strong time varying effects which impact on PTM strategy. Exporters do not typically appear to put much more weight on negative news of (say) an FX rate appreciation compared to positive news of an FX rate depreciation. Much depends on the export sector. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

Liquidity, governance and adverse selection in asset pricing

A plethora of recent literature on asset pricing provides plenty of empirical evidence on the importance of liquidity, governance and adverse selection of equity on pricing of assets together with more traditional factors such as market beta and the Fama-French factors. However, literature has usually stressed that these factors are priced individually. In this dissertation we argue that these factors may be related to each other, hence not only individual but also joint tests of their significance is called for. ^ In the three related essays, we examine the liquidity premium in the context of the finer three-digit SIC industry classification, joint importance of liquidity and governance factors as well as governance and adverse selection. Recent studies by Core, Guay and Rusticus (2006) and Ben-Rephael, Kadan and Wohl (2010) find that governance and liquidity premiums are dwindling in the last few years. One reason could be that liquidity is very unevenly distributed across industries. This could affect the interpretation of prior liquidity studies. Thus, in the first chapter we analyze the relation of industry clustering and liquidity risk following a finer industry classification suggested by Johnson, Moorman and Sorescu (2009). In the second chapter, we examine the dwindling influence of the governance factor if taken simultaneously with liquidity. We argue that this happens since governance characteristics are potentially a proxy for information asymmetry that may be better captured by market liquidity of a company's shares. Hence, we jointly examine both the factors, namely, governance and liquidity - in a series of standard asset pricing tests. Our results reconfirm the importance of governance and liquidity in explaining stock returns thus independently corroborating the findings of Amihud (2002) and Gompers, Ishii and Metrick (2003). Moreover, governance is not subsumed by liquidity. Lastly, we analyze the relation of governance and adverse selection, and again corroborate previous findings of a priced governance factor. Furthermore, we ascertain the importance of microstructure measures in asset pricing by employing Huang and Stoll's (1997) method to extract an adverse selection variable and finding evidence for its explanatory power in four-factor regressions.^