Are Broker Quotes Too Optimistic? Korean Evidence

We examine the behavior of broker quotes in Korean housing markets by comparing the Kookmin Bank apartment (a condominium in a high- rise residential building) price index, a broker quote based apartment price index, and a repeat sales apartment price index that we built using transaction prices, which have become available since January 2006. Broker quotes may differ from actual prices depending on the housing market conditions. Specifically, we test the hypotheses: (1) price increases shown by the broker quote based apartment price index are greater than those shown by the repeat sales apartment price index in an up market; and (2) the broker quote based price index shows a far less price reduction than the repeat sales price index in a down market. We find that indeed in a down market, the broker quote based price index shows far less price reduction than the repeat sales price index (5.75%-8.07%). However, the broker quote based price index does not distort the prices in an up market, where trading volumes are high. It appears that the price inflation in the broker quotes rises as the transaction volume drops. While broker quotes are substantially higher than transaction prices in a down market, the broker sentiment, which is a qualitative assessment of market conditions, appears to be more in line with transaction prices. We have also documented that the broker quote based index reaches its peak about two months after the peak of the repeat sales based index. Finally, broker quotes are smooth in comparison to transaction prices and they are smoothed more in a down market than an up market. Our results suggest that an optimistic view of broker quotes is problematic only in down markets where trading volumes are limited. The price inflation in broker quotes is a risk to the financial system in a market with only a broker quote based index in that it overstates the collateral values underlying mortgage loans in a down market.Broker quotes; Broker quote based apartment price index; Repeat sales apartment price index; House price cycle; Broker sentiment; Korean housing markets

Stock Price Manipulation : The Role of Intermediaries

We set out to study stock price manipulation when the manipulator is in the role of an intermediary (broker). We find that in the absence of superior information, the broker can manipulate equilibrium outcomes without losing its credibility with respect to accurate forecasting. The result extends to the case when the broker prefers more investment to come into the market. However, when moderate competition among brokers is introduced, then the investors get a favored outcome. When competition exceeds a certain threshold, neither the brokers nor the investors get their respective favored outcomes. In any case, if the broker bias for more investment dominates competition, the brokers get their favorite outcome at the expense of investors.Stock Price Manipulation, Broker Manipulation, Broker Competition, Broker Bias, Emerging Markets

The Flawed State Of Broker-Dealer Regulation And The Case For An Authentic Federal Fiduciary Standard For Broker-Dealers

THE FLAWED STATE OF BROKER-DEALER REGULATION AND THE CASE FOR AN AUTHENTIC FEDERAL FIDUCIARY STANDARD FOR BROKER-DEALER

Broker Positions in Task-Specific Knowledge Networks

In this paper we empirically investigate various benefits and costs associated with broker characteristics of individuals who operate in the account management system of financial service providers. We narrow our focus to broker positions in two specific task-specific knowledge networks that facilitate account management. We study the effect of broker positions on the contribution of individuals to organizational performance. We measure such a contribution by measuring the perceptions of others concerning a particular individual. We also explore how certain personal costs are associated with these task-specific broker positions. More specifically, we explore how these positions affect role ambiguity and role conflict, as self-perceived by that particular individual. To test the hypothesized effects we collect data for a network consisting of 55 individuals. We conclude with stating that service specification broker positions benefit organizations, but service delivery broker positions are detrimental to an organization and that they also invoke personal costs.social networks;account management;role stress;task-specific broker positions

Listing Contract Length and Time on Market

Miceli (1989) in a search for the optimal time to allow a broker to market property provides a theoretical model which posits that the principal (seller) may use the length of the listing contract to motivate the agent (listing broker) to better align incentives. Expanding slightly on Miceli, this present work predicts that longer time allotted the broker to market residential property will decrease broker effort resulting in lower search intensity and eventually a longer marketing span for property, ceteris paribus. This prediction is borne out across three empirical modeling methodologies commonly used in time on market studies.

Constructing elliptic curves of prime order

We present a very efficient algorithm to construct an elliptic curve E and a finite field F such that the order of the point group E(F) is a given prime number N. Heuristically, this algorithm only takes polynomial time Otilde((\log N)^3), and it is so fast that it may profitably be used to tackle the related problem of finding elliptic curves with point groups of prime order of prescribed size. We also discuss the impact of the use of high level modular functions to reduce the run time by large constant factors and show that recent gonality bounds for modular curves imply limits on the time reduction that can be obtained.Comment: 13 page

Multi-homing tunnel broker

A proper support for communications has to provide fault tolerance capabilities such as the preservation of established connections in case of failures. Multihoming addresses this issue, but the currently available solution based in massive BGP route injection presents serious scalability limitations, since it contributes to the exponential growth of the BGP table size. An alternative solution based on the configuration of tunnels between the multihomed site exit routers and the ISP border routers has been proposed for IPv6 in RFC 3178. However, the amount of manual configuration imposed by this solution on the ISP side prevents its wide adoption. In particular, this solution requires at the ISP the manual configuration of a tunnel endpoint per each multihomed client that it serves. We present a multihoming tunnel broker (MHTB) that provides automatic creation of the tunnel endpoint at the ISP side.This work was supported by the SAM (Advanced Servers with Mobility)project, funded by the Spanish National research and Development Programme as TIC2002-04531-C04-03.Publicad

Modular polynomials for genus 2

Modular polynomials are an important tool in many algorithms involving elliptic curves. In this article we investigate their generalization to the genus 2 case following pioneering work by Gaudry and Dupont. We prove various properties of these genus 2 modular polynomials and give an improved way to explicitly compute them