Investing Online: Concerns about the Evolving Use of the Internet as an Investment Tool in the Secondary Market Context

La croissance dramatique du commerce électronique des titres cache un grand potentiel pour les investisseurs, de même que pour l’industrie des valeurs mobilières en général. Prenant en considération ses risques particuliers, les autorités réglementaires vivent un défi important face à l’Internet en tant que nouveau moyen d’investir. Néanmoins, malgré l’évolution technologique, les objectifs fondamentaux et l’approche des autorités réglementaires restent similaires à ce qui se produit présentement. Cet article analyse l’impact de l’Internet sur le commerce des valeurs mobilières en se concentrant sur les problèmes soulevés par l’utilisation de ce nouveau moyen de communication dans le contexte du marché secondaire. Par conséquent, son objectif est de dresser le portrait des plaintes typiques des investisseurs, de même que celui des activités frauduleuses en valeurs mobilières propres au cyberespace. L’auteur fait une synthèse des développements récents en analysant l’approche des autorités réglementaires, les études doctrinales, la jurisprudence et les cas administratifs. L'auteure désire remercier la professeure Raymonde Crête pour ses précieux commentaires et conseils.

The secondary market for life insurance policies in the United States market evolution and product valuation

In this work we discuss the secondary market for life insurance policies in the United States of America. First, we give an overview of the life settlement market: how it came into existence, its growth prospects and the ethical issues it arises. Secondly, we discuss the characteristics of the different life insurance products present in the market and describe how life settlements are originated. Life settlement transactions tend to be long and complex transactions that require the involvement of a number of parties. Also, a direct investment into life insurance policies is fraught with a number of practical issues and entails risks that are not directly related to longevity. This may reduce the efficiency of a direct investment in physical policies. For these reasons, a synthetic longevity market has evolved. The number of parties involved in a synthetic longevity transaction is typically smaller and the broker-dealer transferring the longevity exposure will be retaining most or all of the risks a physical investment entails. Finally, we describe the main methods used in the market to evaluate life settlement investments and the role of life expectancy providers.

The Economic Value of Residential Land in Historical Areas: An Application of the Residual Method to the Secondary Market

Land value bears significant weight in house prices in historical town centers. An essential aim for regulating the mortgage market, particularly in the financial and property crisis that countries such as Spain are undergoing, is to have at hand objective procedures for its valuation, whatever the conditions (location, construction, planning). Of all the factors contributing to house price make-up, the land is the only one whose value does not depend on acquisition cost, but rather on the location-time binomial. That is to say, the specific circumstances at that point and at the exact moment of valuation. For this reason, the most commonly applied procedure for land valuation in town centers is the use of the residual method: once the selling price of new housing in a district is known, the other necessary costs and expenses of development are deducted, including those of building and the developer’s profit. The value left is that of the land. To apply these procedures it is vital to have figures such as building costs, technical fees, tax costs, etc. But, above all, it is essential to obtain the selling price of the new housing. This is not always feasible, on account of the lack of newbuild development in this location. This shortage of information occurs in historical town cities, where urban renewal is slight due to the heritage-protection policies, and where, nevertheless there is substantial activity in the secondary market. In these circumstances, as an alternative for land valuation in consolidated urban areas, we have the adaptation of the residual method to the particular characteristics of the secondary market. To these ends, there is the proposal for the appreciation of the dwelling which follows, in a backwards direction, the application of traditional depreciation methods proposed by the various valuation manuals and guidelines. The reliability of the results obtained is analyzed by contrasting it with published figures for newly-built properties, according to different rules applied in administrative appraisals in Spain and the incidence of an eventual correction due to conservation state.

Secondary market for commercial business loans : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, March 9, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

Secondary market for commercial business loans : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, April 21, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

Secondary market for commercial business loans : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, February 16, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

H.R. 2600, the Business, Commercial, and Community Development Secondary Market Development Act : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, October 7, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

H.R. 2600, the Business, Commercial, and Community Development Secondary Market Development Act : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, September 23, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

Creation of a secondary market for commercial business loans : hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Growth and Credit Formation of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, first session, March 2, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

Secondary market pricing behaviour around UK bond auctions

Using an event study approach, this article reports evidence that the UK Treasury bond market displayed anomalous pricing behaviour in the secondary market both immediately before and after auctions of seasoned bonds. Using a benchmark return derived from the behaviour of the underlying yield curve, the market offered statistically and economically significant excess returns, around the auctions held between 1992 and 2004. A cross-sectional analysis of the cumulative excess returns shows that the excess demand at the auctions is a key determinant of this excess return.

The influence of marketing factors and substance characteristics on pharmaceutical sales in a state-controlled prescriptions pharmaceuticals market

The present dissertation investigates the influence of brand as well as substance-related marketing attributes on prescription pharmaceutical sales within a state-controlled market. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was conducted in the first instance, during which knowledge about the most relevant research within this field was gathered. Consequently, over 538 publications were reviewed and indicated as being potentially relevant, leading to an eventual count of 98 core publications. However, most of these studies had been conducted in the mainly unrestricted US market. These findings were then summarised and statistically evaluated. In a second step, based on the literature review, a qualitative study, containing focus and Delphi groups, was then performed. The participants in these studies were involved in pharmaceutical marketing within a state-controlled prescriptions pharmaceuticals market. Consequently, the findings were slightly different to those derived by the systematic literature review. Based on this second step, seven hypotheses were proposed. In the third step, these hypotheses were tested, using collected data and a secondary market dataset provided by a market research institute. A statistical analysis was then performed, applying descriptive as well as multiple regression analytical methods. The evaluation of the results resulted in a conceptual model of physician targeting, leading to several theoretical, methodological and managerial implications.

Auctioning versus grandfathering in cap-and-trade systems with market power and incomplete information

We compare auctioning and grandfathering as allocation mechanisms of emission permits when there is a secondary market with market power and firms have private information on their own abatement technologies. Based on real-life cases such as the EU ETS, we consider a multi-unit, multi-bid uniform auction. At the auction, each firm anticipates its role in the secondary market, either as a leader or a follower. This role affects each firms’ valuation of the permits (which are not common across firms) as well as their bidding strategies and it precludes the auction from generating a cost-effective allocation of permits, as it occurs in simpler auction models. Auctioning tends to be more cost-effective than grandfathering when the firms’ abatement cost functions are sufficiently different from one another, especially if the follower has lower abatement costs than the leader and the dispersion of the marginal costs is large enough.

Racionalidade de emissão de obrigações subordinadas: Estudo de caso do Banco Comercial do Atlântico (BCA) Cabo Verde

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Gestão de Instituições Financeiras

Estudi del desenvolupament i situació reglamentària de la ràdio cognitiva

Este proyecto estudia la tecnología Radio Cognitiva. El concepto clave de esta tecnología es que permite a usuarios sin licencia compartir el espectro radioeléctrico de forma oportunista con los usuarios con licencia. Para empezar, se analizarán las características principales, su funcionamiento y como coexisten con los usuarios principales. Más adelante, se explicaran los métodos que se usan para la gestión del espectro radioeléctrico y las actividades de estandarización para la implementación de las redes de radio cognitiva. Por último, se analizara la posibilidad de la implementación de esta tecnología en España, analizando las ventajas e inconvenientes de inicializar un mercado secundario del espectro radioeléctrico.

Commodity Future Price Premiums – Case EU ETS

The purpose of this thesis was to study commodity future price premiums and their nature on emission allowance markets. The EUA spot and future contracts traded on the secondary market during EU ETS Phase 2 and Phase 3 were selected for empirical testing. The cointegration of spot and future prices was examined with Johansen cointegration methodology. Daily interest rates with a similar tenor to the future contract maturity were used in the cost-of-carry model to calculate the theoretical future prices and to estimate the deviation from the fair value of future contracts, assumed to be explained by the convenience yield. The time-varying dependence of the convenience yield was studied by regression testing the correlation between convenience yield and the time to maturity of the future contract. The results indicated cointegration between spot and future prices, albeit depending on assumptions on linear trend and intercept in cointegration vector Dec-14 and Dec-15 contracts. The convenience yield correlates positively with the time-to-maturity of the future contract during Phase 2, but negatively during Phase 3. The convenience yield featured positive correlation with spot price volatility and negative correlation with future price volatility during both Phases 2 and 3.