Seasonal Trends in Lithuanian Stock Market

Purpose of the article is to disentangle different calendar effects which leave efficiency holes in Lithuanian market. This paper presents and tests if commonly described seasonal patterns exist in Lithuanian stock market. Analysis of three different sections: period-of-the-year; week-of-the-month and day-of-the-week, suggests that calendar effects do exist in this market. The multitude of explanations for the seasonal effect leaves the reader confused about its primary cause(s): is it tax-loss selling, window dressing, information, bid-ask bounce, or a combination of these causes? The confusion arises, in part, because evidence has generally been presented in support of a particular hypothesis though the same evidence may be consistent with another hypothesis. Methodology/methods are logical and systemic analysis of research literature based on the comparative and generalization methods as well as statistical methods. Scientific aim of the article is the lack of arguments questioning if market prices operating system is fully effective. Novelty of the paper is to the answer to the question what seasonal anomalies are also present in the stock market of new open economy countries. Findings show that using this modified strategy investor could achieve 20.7% compounded annual growth rate versus 7.8% achieved using simply holding stocks throughout. The hypothesis asserts that returns generally will be greater following the “January effect”. There is limited amount of data for constructing robust seasonal strategies so we modified Buy and Hold strategy with simple rules of using best and worst months to show how they influence OMXV index performance. In the conclusions, empirical results using stock index returns for 2000 - 2010 support the hypothesis in Lithuaian stock market. Abnormal activity of OMXV index’s performance is found in the end of summer and throughout autumn. August is best performer of the year while October is performing worst

Ceremonies and Models

A model is an artefact used by a group of specialists that inspires a conversation composed of specialised linguistic practices. From their use of their model, specialists will claim to make new, reliable predictions or explanations about some other artefact. While those outside the specialism may be at sea with the explanations, those inside the specialism identify themselves by showing satisfaction. Members of the group use the models because they find the ensuing discussions satisfying. The use of specialist language, by an identifiable group which imputes to objects the group's own special meanings and whose members engage in activities that give them satisfaction turns their activity, the use of the model, into a ceremony

Day-of-the-week trading patterns of individual and institutional investors

This study examines the day-of-the-week trading patterns of individual and institutional investors. Consistent with previous evidence, we find an increase in the proportion of Monday trading volume attributable to individual investors relative to other days of the week. However, we document that this increase results from a reduction in trading by institutional investors, rather than from an absolute increase in trading by individual investors. In fact, the absolute trading volume by individual investors is significantly lower on Monday than on any other weekday. We also document that the degree of day-of-the-week effect varies with the quality and dissemination of public information proxied by the market capitalization of each company

Does mood affect trading behavior?

We test whether investor mood affects trading with data on all stock market transactions in Finland, utilizing variation in daylight and local weather. We find some evidence that environmental mood variables (local weather, length of day, daylight saving and lunar phase) affect investors’ direction of trade and volume. The effect magnitudes are roughly comparable to those of classical seasonals, such as the Monday effect. The statistical significance of the mood variables is weak in many cases, however. Only very little of the day-to-day variation in trading is collectively explained by all mood variables and calendar effects, but lower frequency variation seems connected to holiday seasons

Closure: A response to Miroslav Holub

A response to Miroslav Holub's essay on "Wisdom as a metaphor" related to the professional domain of engineering which concludes that experience and action are needed to transform metaphorical expressions of wisdom into literal tenets

Metalanguage in L1 English-speaking 12-year-olds: which aspects of writing do they talk about?

Traditional psycholinguistic approaches to metalinguistic awareness in L1 learners elicit responses containing metalanguage that demonstrates metalinguistic awareness of pre-determined aspects of language knowledge. This paper, which takes a more ethnographic approach, demonstrates how pupils are able to engage their own focus of metalanguage when reflecting on their everyday learning activities involving written language. What is equally significant is what their metalanguage choices reveal about their understanding and application of written language concepts

The weekly structure of US stock prices

In this paper we use fractional integration techniques to examine the degree of integration of four US stock market indices, namely the Standard and Poor, Dow Jones, Nasdaq and NYSE, at a daily frequency from January 2005 till December 2009. We analyse the weekly structure of the series and investigate their characteristics depending on the specific day of the week. The results indicate that the four series are highly persistent; a small degree of mean reversion (i.e., orders of integration strictly smaller than 1) is found in some cases for S&P and the Dow Jones indices. The most interesting findings are the differences in the degree of dependence for different days of the week. Specifically, lower orders of integration are systematically observed for Mondays and Fridays, consistently with the “day of the week” effect frequently found in financial data.The second-named author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (ECO2008-03035 ECON Y FINANZAS, Spain) and from a PIUNA Project from the University of Navarra

Combined therapies of antithrombotics and antioxidants delay in silico brain tumor progression

Glioblastoma multiforme, the most frequent type of primary brain tumor, is a rapidly evolving and spatially heterogeneous high-grade astrocytoma that presents areas of necrosis, hypercellularity and microvascular hyperplasia. The aberrant vasculature leads to hypoxic areas and results in an increase of the oxidative stress selecting for more invasive tumor cell phenotypes. In our study we assay in silico different therapeutic approaches which combine antithrombotics, antioxidants and standard radiotherapy. To do so, we have developed a biocomputational model of glioblastoma multiforme that incorporates the spatio-temporal interplay among two glioma cell phenotypes corresponding to oxygenated and hypoxic cells, a necrotic core and the local vasculature whose response evolves with tumor progression. Our numerical simulations predict that suitable combinations of antithrombotics and antioxidants may diminish, in a synergetic way, oxidative stress and the subsequent hypoxic response. This novel therapeutical strategy, with potentially low or no toxicity, might reduce tumor invasion and further sensitize glioblastoma multiforme to conventional radiotherapy or other cytotoxic agents, hopefully increasing median patient overall survival time.Comment: 8 figure

Do professional investors behave differently than amateurs after the weekend?

This paper compares the trading patterns of amateurs to that of professional investors during the days following the weekend. The comparison is based on all the daily transactions of a sample of both amateurs and professionally managed investors in a major brokerage house in Israel between 1994-1998. We find that weekends influence both amateurs and professional investors, however they affect professionals and amateurs in opposite directions. The results are consistent with previous hypotheses about the effects of the weekend on individuals and institutions in the US and with the way these differences may explain the weekend effect in returns in the US and in other markets. The results are also consistent with the absence of a weekend effect in returns in Israel during the period examined, since the conflicting effects of the weekend on individuals and professionally managed investors may have canceled each other. --