TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE LOCAL ADVANTAGE? - Investment value of the analyst local advantage in the Finnish stock market in 2006–2014

An investor can either conduct independent analysis or rely on the analyses of others. Stock analysts provide markets with expectations regarding particular securities. However, analysts have different capabilities and resources, of which investors are seldom cognizant. The local advantage refers to the advantage stemming from cultural or geographical proximity to securities analyzed. The research has confirmed that local agents are generally more accurate or produce excess returns. This thesis tests the investment value of the local advantage regarding Finnish stocks via target price data. The empirical section investigates the local advantage from several aspects. It is discovered that local analysts were more focused on certain sectors generally located close to consumer markets. Market reactions to target price revisions were generally insignificant with the exception to local positive target prices. Both local and foreign target prices were overly optimistic and exhibited signs of herding. Neither group could be identified as a leader or follower of new information. Additionally, foreign price change expectations were more in line with the quantitative models and ideas such as beta or return mean reversion. The locals were more accurate than foreign analysts in 5 out of 9 sectors and vice versa in one. These sectors were somewhat in line with coverage decisions and buttressed the idea of local advantage stemming from proximity to markets, not to headquarters. The accuracy advantage was dependent on sample years and on the measure used. Local analysts ranked magnitudes of price changes more accurately in optimistic and foreign analysts in pessimistic target prices. Directional accuracy of both groups was under 50% and target prices held no linear predictive power. Investment value of target prices were tested by forming mean-variance efficient portfolios. Parallel to differing accuracies in the levels of expectations foreign portfolio performed better when short sales were allowed and local better when disallowed. Both local and non-local portfolios performed worse than a passive index fund, albeit not statistically significantly. This was in line with previously reported low overall accuracy and different accuracy profiles. Refraining from estimating individual stock returns altogether produced statistically significantly higher Sharpe ratios compared to local or foreign portfolios. The proposed method of testing the investment value of target prices of different groups suffered from some inconsistencies. Nevertheless, these results are of interest to investors seeking the advice of security analysts.

Production of phycobiliproteins by Arthrospira platensis under different lightconditions for application in food products

There has been an increase in investment in research on new sources of natural pigments for food application. Some cyanobacteria can change the structures responsible for light harvesting and cellular processes according to the wavelength and light intensity. This phenomenon has been described as complementary chromatic adaptation. The present study aimed to investigate the growth of Arthrospira platensis using different light qualities, irradiance, and wavelength by evaluating the production of biomass, proteins, and phycobiliproteins. The occurrence of the chromatic adaptation phenomenon in this cyanobacterium was also investigated. The microorganism used in this study, A. platensis, was grown in a Zarrouk medium under three irradiance levels, 50, 100, and 150 μmol fotons.m–2.s–1 with illumination provided by white and green fluorescent lamps. The condition of 150 µmol fotons.m–2.s–1 white light was the one that promoted the highest biomass production of A. platensis cultures (2115.24 mg.L–1). There was no difference in the production of total protein and total phycobiliproteins under the studied conditions. It is likely that the large supply of nitrogen in the Zarrouk medium was sufficient for cell growth and maintenance, and it supplied the production of accessory pigments composed of protein. Finally, there was no evidence of the complementary chromatic adaptation phenomenon in A. platensis cultivated under green light. Moreover, this condition did not increase phycocyanin production.

Review of investment strategy, portfolio management, and scorecard based portfolio selection tool for direct property investments in Finland

The lack of research of private real estate is a well-known problem. Earlier studies have mostly concentrated on the USA or the UK. Therefore, this master thesis offers more information about the performance and risk associated with private real estate investments in Nordic countries, but especially in Finland. The structure of this master thesis is divided into two independent sections based on the research questions. In first section, database analysis is performed to assess risk-return ratio of direct real estate investment for Nordic countries. Risk-return ratios are also assessed for different property sectors and economic regions. Finally, review of diversification strategies based on property sectors and economic regions is performed. However, standard deviation itself is not usually sufficient method to evaluate riskiness of private real estate. There is demand for more explicit assessment of property risk. One solution is property risk scoring. In second section risk scorecard based tool is built to make different real estate comparable in terms of risk. In order to do this, nine real estate professionals were interviewed to enhance the structure of theory-based risk scorecard and to assess weights for different risk factors.

Investimento direto estrangeiro e o desempenho das exportações brasileiras

Brazil, in the 1990s, assumed a remarkable position as a host of foreign direct investment. It is worth mentioning that the service sector received the highest proportion of foreign investment. This market seeking strategy was responsible for the growth of the Brazilian imports. The results are confirmed by the performance of foreign enterprises into different groups of activities. Those enterprises with majority of foreign capital have increased their imports the most from 1995 to 2000. Therefore, during the 1995-2000 period, this study does not support the view that foreign investment has directly improved the performance of the Brazilian exporting sector.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment Inflows on the Economic Growth of Bangladesh. The Roles of Infrastructural Facilities

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow has been a key concern for Bangladesh to obtain additional support for the economic development. The Government of Bangladesh continuously competing with other South Asian countries and putting more effort to increase the number of FDI inflows in the country. From the country’s perspective, the constant increasing rate of economic growth shows a positive outcome of FDI inflow. However, the country still not performing up to the mark to pull enough FDI inflows to its potential. Thus, this study discusses about the major determinants and factors affecting FDI inflows in Bangladesh. Among those determinants and factors, infrastructural facility is considered as the most important to affect FDI inflows. FDI inflow is fundamentally depending upon infrastructural facilities to achieve its desire success. Foreign investors take this issue very seriously because based on this they can measure their ease of doing business in the host country. Despite of providing a large market size, due to having weak and lack of infrastructural facilities, Bangladesh is facing trouble in drawing attention of the foreign investors. In order to make the infrastructural facilities happen, it is highly required to organize each of the systems under of it. The body of this study discussed about the weak infrastructures in Bangladesh such as transport and communication, power and energy, education system, and governance services. Improvement in one of these systems cannot provide valuable positive changes on FDI inflows. It requires improvement in all the weak systems to grasp multinational companies and attract foreign investors. On the basis of this research problem, research questions are established. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to answer the research questions. Furthermore, several theories have been applied to justify possible scenarios from the research problem. In addition, the history in between Bangladesh, trade liberalization, and FDI inflows is presented briefly.

China: estabilidade e crescimento econômico

China: stability and economic growth. China experienced an extraordinary economic growth since 1978, while keeping inflation low. Which are the main determinants for this performance and to what point has macroeconomic policy been responsible? Obviously, many factors have been important although none of them may be appointed as the sole determinant. The paper also argues whether China would be able to keep this pace of growth or will slow down, like many other Asian countries. It is argued that China will maintain her average rate of growth in the near future.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment Inflows on the Economic Growth of Bangladesh. The Roles of Infrastructural Facilities

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow has been a key concern for Bangladesh to obtain additional support for the economic development. The Government of Bangladesh continuously competing with other South Asian countries and putting more effort to increase the number of FDI inflows in the country. From the country’s perspective, the constant increasing rate of economic growth shows a positive outcome of FDI inflow. However, the country still not performing up to the mark to pull enough FDI inflows to its potential. Thus, this study discusses about the major determinants and factors affecting FDI inflows in Bangladesh. Among those determinants and factors, infrastructural facility is considered as the most important to affect FDI inflows. FDI inflow is fundamentally depending upon infrastructural facilities to achieve its desire success. Foreign investors take this issue very seriously because based on this they can measure their ease of doing business in the host country. Despite of providing a large market size, due to having weak and lack of infrastructural facilities, Bangladesh is facing trouble in drawing attention of the foreign investors. In order to make the infrastructural facilities happen, it is highly required to organize each of the systems under of it. The body of this study discussed about the weak infrastructures in Bangladesh such as transport and communication, power and energy, education system, and governance services. Improvement in one of these systems cannot provide valuable positive changes on FDI inflows. It requires improvement in all the weak systems to grasp multinational companies and attract foreign investors. On the basis of this research problem, research questions are established. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to answer the research questions. Furthermore, several theories have been applied to justify possible scenarios from the research problem. In addition, the history in between Bangladesh, trade liberalization, and FDI inflows is presented briefly

Investment in the Brazilian economy during the crisis

In this short article, it is analyzed as to whether financial flows and credit concessions explain the behavior of investment in the Brazilian economy during the 2008 crisis. Beyond the importance of demand, changes in expectations seem to be an important source of instability in investment and, as a consequence, in the economy.

Fiscal policy and private investment: latin america in a comparative perspective

The main objective of the paper is to assess the impact of fiscal variables on private investment comparing some Latin-American economies to other advanced ones. For such purposes, the authors carry out an econometric analysis for the period 1990-2008. They make use of two dynamic panel models in which they group countries with similar characteristics and development levels. In one of them, they include Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay; whereas in the second one the countries accounted for are the U.S., Canada, Spain, Korea, Ireland and Japan. They specify in both models an investment function using as arguments a wide range of variables, including those related with fiscal policy. From their results the authors infer that governments can, with higher spending, boost up the economy even when they finance spending with higher taxes. In Latin America, where income concentration is enormous, a proposal to boost up the economy through higher government expenditure financed with a progressive income tax, is even more justified.

Effects of overvaluation and exchange rate volatility over industrial investment: empirical evidence and economic policy proposals for Brazil

The present article aims to analyze the recent behavior of real exchange rate in Brazil and its effects over investment per worker in Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. Preliminary estimates presented in the article shows an over-valuation of 48% of real exchange rate in Brazil. The reaction between the level (and volatility) of real exchange rate and investment (per worker) in Brazil is analyzed by means of a panel data econometric model for 30 sectors of Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. The empirical results show that the level and volatility of real exchange rate has a strong effect over investment per worker in Brazilian industry. Finally, we conclude the article presenting a proposal for a new macroeconomic regime that aims to produce an acceleration of economic growth of Brazilian economy and, by that, a catching-up process with developed countries.

Crawling up the value chain: domestic institutions and non-traditional foreign direct investment in Brazil, 1990-2010

Brazil attracted relatively little innovation-intensive and export-oriented foreign investment during the liberalization period of 1990 to 2010, especially compared with competitors such as China and India. Adopting an institutionalist perspective, I argue that multinational firm investment profiles can be partly explained by the characteristics of investment promotion policies and bureaucracies charged with their implementation. Brazil's FDI policies were passive and non-discriminating in the second half of the 1990s, but became more selective under Lula. Investment promotion efforts have often been undercut by weakly coordinated and inconsistent institutions. The paper highlights the need for active, discriminating investment promotion policies if benefits from non-traditional FDI are to be realized.

The Brazilian deindustrialization: financialization is not guilty

The financialization of the Brazilian economy is often criticized as being responsible of the slowdown of capital accumulation in this country. Indeed, very high interest rates are maintained in order to finance the public debt, and this fosters capitalists to get more Treasury bonds rather than to invest in the productive area. Nevertheless, the evolution of the profit rate in this area also explains the particular relation existing between capitalists, finance and productive investment, as Marx showed it more than a century ago.