Consumer Behavior in Mortgage Market: Evidence from Russia

The purpose of this master thesis is to identify behavioral patterns of potential borrower in mortgage market in crisis conditions and to link mortgage products available on Russian market with potential borrowers segments in dependence of detected patterns. Empirical results achieved through 172 answers of potential borrowers allowed to classify them in four groups in dependence of respondent perceptions about mortgage and future. On the basis of literature review and currently state of Russian mortgage market particular mortgage products were suggested to each of four clusters of potential borrowers. Then, recommendations for Russian banks how to apply received results were developed. Current master thesis has strong both academic and managerial contributions. It it adds significant value to existing consumer behavior studies; and provides practical recommendations for Russian banks how to understand mortgage borrower behavior in order to increase trust to mortgage among population.

Taxi side car, Central News, New York : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59415

1000 cm3, Dejon sur [side-car] Harley Davidson [critérium motocycliste de l'A.A.M.M., Association des anciens motocyclistes militaires à Auxerre, le 24 mai 1920] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59361

[Un side-car du critérium motocycliste de l'A.A.M.M., Association des anciens motocyclistes militaires à Auxerre, le 24 mai 1920] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59363

Auto-car Cook : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 60260

PRONOSTICATION || nouuelle Composee par troys ou || quatre. A Nantes sur vne escabelle || En lannee quon dit et appelle || Pour lan Mil cinq cens trente quatre. S. l. n. d. [Paris, 1533], in-8 de 8 f. non chifir. de 26 lignes à la page, car. goth., sign. A.

Daniel (Jehan), dit maistre Mîtou. Pronostication nouvelle (1533)

Car Crash

A student crashes a car through the main entrance of Brock University and ransacks the office of the University President. The Buick La Sabre is driven through the glass doors of the Schmon Tower in the early morning, just as staff are beginning to report for work. The occupant of the vehicle proceeds to the tower's thirteenth floor, where he overturns furniture in the President's offices and breaks windows. University officials find him sitting in the President's chair, claiming he is God or Jesus.

Frank Chapman Jr. [?] in a touring car, beside the Palmetto Grove house, Covina, California, 1909

Frank Chapman Jr. [?] in a touring car, beside the Palmetto Grove house, Covina, California, August, 1909.

Chapman family members in a touring car, possibly in Covina, California, 1909

Chapman family members in a touring car outsdie a residence, possibly in Covina, California, October, 1909.

Stock market reactions to changes in the FTSE SmallCap and S&P/TSX SmallCap indices

Stocks added to (deleted from) the Russell 2000 and the S&P 600 indexes experience positive (negative) abnormal returns following the announcement. However, researchers disagree on whether these abnormal returns are permanent or temporary and offer competing explanations. I address this controversy by examining market reactions for firms that are added to or deleted from the FTSE Small Cap index (the main testing sample) and the S&P/TSX SmallCap index (the comparison sample). For the main testing sample, all stocks except pure additions, experience a permanent price change that is accompanied by a permanent change in liquidity. However, for the comparison sample, abnormal returns over the announcement period fully reverted within 30 days. In further examination of stock liquidity for the main testing sample, sample stocks experience permanent change in liquidity. Taken together, the observed results support the price pressure and liquidity hypotheses.

The carbon disclosure project, an evolution in international environmental corporate governance : motivations and determinants of market response to voluntary disclosures

This paper examines the factors associated with Canadian firms voluntarily disclosing climate change information through the Carbon Disclosure Project. Five hypotheses are presented to explain the factors influencing management's decision to disclose this information. These hypotheses include a response to shareholder activism, domestic institutional investor shareholder activism, signalling, litigation risk, and low cost publicity. Both binary logistic regressions as well as a cross-sectional analysis of the equity market's response to the environmental disclosures being made were used to test these hypotheses. Support was found for shareholder activism, low cost publicity, and litigation risk. However, the equity market's response was not found to be statistically significant.

Profitable opportunities around macroeconomic announcements in the U.S. Treasury market

This thesis studies the impact of macroeconomic announcements on the U.S. Treasury market and investigates profitable opportunities around macroeconomic announcements using data from the eSpeed electronic trading platform. We investigate how macroeconomic announcements affect the return predictability of trade imbalance for the 2-year, 5-year, IO-year U.S. Treasury notes and 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds. The goal of this thesis is to develop a methodology to identify informed trades and estimate the trade imbalance based on informed trades. We use the daily order book slope as a proxy for dispersion of beliefs among investors. Regression results in this thesis indicate that, on announcement days with a high dispersion of beliefs, daily trade imbalance estimated by informed trades significantly predicts returns on the following day. In addition, we develop a trade-imbalance based trading strategy conditional on dispersion of beliefs, informed trades, and announcement days. The trading strategy yields significantly positive net returns for the 2-year T-notes.

Market reactions to changes in the Nasdaq-100 Index membership

We examine stock market reactions around the Nasdaq-100 Index reconstitutions. We find a symmetric and transitory price response accompanied by a significant increase in trading volume on the effective date. Firms added to the Nasdaq-100 Index experience significant increases in institutional ownership, the number of market makers, and the number of shareholders. In contrast, firms removed from the index show significant decreases in the number of institutional shareholders. Additions to the Nasdaq-100 Index also show significant increases in four liquidity measures, whereas deletions demonstrate significant decreases in two liquidity measures. These changes in liquidity are related to the abnormal return on the announcement day. Taken together, the results suggest support for the price pressure, liquidity, and investor awareness hypotheses.

ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF EMERGING MARKET MUTUAL FUNDS IN CANADA

Emerging markets have received wide attention from investors around the globe because of their return potential and risk diversification. This research examines the selection and timing performance of Canadian mutual funds which invest in fixed-income and equity securities in emerging markets. We use (un)conditional two- and five-factor benchmark models that accommodate the dynamics of returns in emerging markets. We also adopt the cross-sectional bootstrap methodology to distinguish between ‘skill’ and ‘luck’ for individual funds. All the tests are conducted using a comprehensive data set of bond and equity emerging funds over the period of 1989-2011. The risk-adjusted measures of performance are estimated using the least squares method with the Newey-West adjustment for standard errors that are robust to conditional heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation. The performance statistics of the emerging funds before (after) management-related costs are insignificantly positive (significantly negative). They are sensitive to the chosen benchmark model and conditional information improves selection performance. The timing statistics are largely insignificant throughout the sample period and are not sensitive to the benchmark model. Evidence of timing and selecting abilities is obtained in a small number of funds which is not sensitive to the fees structure. We also find evidence that a majority of individual funds provide zero (very few provide positive) abnormal return before fees and a significantly negative return after fees. At the negative end of the tail of performance distribution, our resampling tests fail to reject the role of bad luck in the poor performance of funds and we conclude that most of them are merely ‘unlucky’.