Dubrovin Frobenius manifolds, Hurwitz spaces, and Extended Jacobi groups.

I define a certain extension of the Jacobi group An, and a Dubrovin-Frobenius structure is constructed on its orbit space

Financial reporting about provisions: evidence from Portuguese listed companies

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThis project provides evidence about the practices of financial reporting regarding provisions namely presentation, recognition, measurement and disclosure in the consolidated annual reports in 2010 and 2009 of Portuguese non-financial companies listed in the Euronext Lisbon. Moreover it updates the findings of previous literature, analyzes the compliance with IAS 37 and identifies its main issues. The findings suggest that there exists room for improvement of provisions reporting in Portugal, as requirements are in some cases not followed in full and there is unclear information, so the research recommends to regulators, preparers and users in order to address those issues

A Study of Canadian Bankruptcies, 2014-2022

This paper studies Canadian monthly bankruptcy data from January 2014 to February 2022 with an aim towards identifying the existence of underlying heterogeneity in the decision-making of firms across different industry sectors during periods of economic adversity. The data used include provincial two-digit NAICS bankruptcy level data, provincial pandemic-related data concerning the evolution of cases and stringency of adopted policies, and external factors pertaining to the domestic and foreign economies such as industry GDP, the overnight rate target, exchange rates, imports and exports, prices, and bond liquidity premium. The method is two-fold. First, we identify changes in bankruptcy trends caused by the pandemic both provincially and by industry sector, and then contrast the findings with the results from a zero-inflated Poisson GLM model that assesses the probability of bankruptcies occurring at different points in time given the set of inputs described above. Second, the model is used to predict bankruptcy numbers for three different intervals during the reference period: 2019, 2020-2022, and 2021-2022. It is noted that despite the model’s ability to accurately predict bankruptcy values for 2019, its accuracy decreases for the pandemic period, even when pandemic-related variables are controlled for. The conclusion is that the drop in Canadian bankruptcies during the pandemic seen in the data must be accounted for some other factor that upheld firms’ continued operations. The presence of underlying heterogeneity is inferred from the fact that if heterogeneity was not present, then controlling for industry sector would suffice to capture the effect of such a program, thus increasing the accuracy of predictions for the pandemic period

Equity research: Jerónimo Martins SGPS, SA

The main objective of this dissertation is to carry out a global valuation of Jerónimo Martins and determine its value per share based on cash flows forecasts. In that sense, an analysis of the company was made, as well as a market study regarding the evolution of the retail industry. Jerónimo Martins SGPS is a Portuguese company, leader in the food retail market in Poland and one of the major players in the Portuguese market, beyond that it is also presence in the Colombian market. Jerónimo Martins also operates in the specialized retail, namely in cosmetics and confectionery markets and in the agribusiness industry. On 31/12/2020 Jerónimo Martins SGPS was listed on the Euronext Lisbon stock exchange and closed the year with a value of €13.82 per share. To determine the company value three valuation methods were used, the DCF, the EVA and the multiples methodology. According with the DCF model, the target price is €13.92, which represents an appreciation of 0.76% and thus the value offered by the market does not recognize the potential growth of the company. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to analyse the sensitivity of the share price to the discount rate and to the perpetual growth rate, two of the most crucial variables. In conclusion, it was done a comparative analysis of the results obtained through the several methods, which lead to a Buy recommendation, in line with the analysis carried out by CAIXA BANK.Esta dissertação tem como principal objetivo realizar uma avaliação global à Jerónimo Martins e determinar o valor das suas ações com base nas perspetivas futuras. Para isso, foi feita uma análise da empresa e também um estudo ao mercado que engloba a evolução do setor do retalho. A Jerónimo Martins SGPS é uma empresa portuguesa, líder no mercado alimentar na Polónia e um dos maiores players no mercado português e conta ainda com presença no mercado Colombiano. A Jerónimo Martins tem também presença no retalho especializado, nomeadamente em cosmética e confeitaria e também no mercado agro-alimentar. A 31/12/2020 a Jerónimo Martins SGPS estava cotada na bolsa de valores Euronext Lisboa e fechou o ano com as ações a valerem 13.82 euros Para determinar o valor da empresa vão ser utilizados três métodos de avaliação, o DCF, o EVA e por último, foi utilizado o método dos múltiplos. Segundo o modelo DCF, o preço alvo é de €13.92, o que representa uma apreciação de 0.76% e deste modo o valor oferecido pelo mercado não reconhece o potencial crescimento da empresa. Foi também realizado uma análise de sensibilidade tendo por base variações em duas das variáveis mais críticas, para que seja possível avaliar a sensibilidade do preço da ação relativamente à taxa de desconto e à taxa de crescimento perpétuo. Em suma, é também realizada uma comparação dos resultados obtidos através dos diversos métodos, o que origina uma recomendação de compra, em linha com a análise realizada pelo CAIXA BANK

Contemporary Mathematical Approaches to Computability Theory

In this paper, I present an introduction to computability theory and adopt contemporary mathematical definitions of computable numbers and computable functions to prove important theorems in computability theory. I start by exploring the history of computability theory, as well as Turing Machines, undecidability, partial recursive functions, computable numbers, and computable real functions. I then prove important theorems in computability theory, such that the computable numbers form a field and that the computable real functions are continuous

Market value of corruption

This paper studies the impact of the Brazilian anticorruption legislation, PL 6826/2010, on stock returns. I show that, around the law approval date, the greater the link between the corporate and political worlds, the worse is the companies’ performance. Companies awarded with public contracts in 2012 suffer more with the new legislation approval. Firms with above median contract values have 2.9% lower returns than its peers. The negative effect is more pronounced for bigger and more complex entities, associated with higher levels of Corporate Responsibility and Governance and not subject to the US FCPA.UNL - NSB

An equity wealth preservation strategy: Following the macro trend

Financial crisis have happened in the past and will continue to do so in the future. In the most recent 2008 crisis, global equities (as measured by the MSCI ACWI index) lost a staggering 54.2% in USD, on the year. During those periods wealth preservation becomes at the top of most investor’s concerns. The purpose of this paper is to develop a strategy that protects the investment during bear markets and significant market corrections, generates capital appreciation, and that can support Millennium BCP’s Wealth Management Unit on their asset allocation procedures. This strategy extends the Dual Momentum approach introduced by Gary Antonacci (2014) in two ways. First, the investable set of securities in the equities space increases from two to four. Besides the US it will comprise the Japanese, European (excl. UK) and EM equity indices. Secondly, it adds a volatility filter as well as three indicators related to the business cycle and the state of the economy, which are relevant to decide on the strategy’s exposure to equities. Overall the results attest the resiliency of the strategy before, during and after historical financial crashes, as it drastically reduces the downside exposure and consistently outperforms the benchmark index by providing higher mean returns with lower variance

Molecular tools to dissect the role of Dmrt2a and Dmrt2b in the left-right axis formation in zebrafish

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Genética Molecular e BiomedicinaWe tend to view the vertebrate body as bilaterally symmetric, but in fact, this only happens from the outside. Internally, most of the organs from heart to liver are asymmetrically positioned. Skeleton and its associated muscles, symmetric structures of the vertebrate body, have its origins in the transient symmetric blocks of mesoderm called somites whereas the asymmetric morphogenesis of the internal organs is due to asymmetric gene expression in the lateral plate mesoderm (LPM). Previous studies using Morpholino (MO) technology have shown that dmrt2a is involved in these two processes in zebrafish. When Dmrt2a levels are reduced, asymmetric gene expression in the LPM becomes randomized and symmetric gene expression in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM) is disrupted. The paralogous of dmrt2a, the fish specific dmrt2b has been shown to be involved in regulating asymmetric gene expression in the LPM as well. Here we used the recent Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) technology to generate dmrt2a and dmrt2b mutant alleles that will allow us in the future to uncover the downstream effectors of these transcription factors using high-throughput experiments. In addition, we overexpressed dmrt2a at the one-cell stage to characterize asymmetry versus symmetry phenotypes. The results show clearly the ability of TALEN technology to generate mutant alleles in zebrafish. Nevertheless, dmrt2a and dmrt2b homozygous mutants developed so far fail to recapitulate their previously described MO phenotypes which raise the question on what molecular mechanism(s) allow(s) zebrafish to cope with frameshift mutations. The overexpression of dmrt2a shows that a time window of opportunity during which symmetric embryonic territories are able to respond to asymmetric signals does exist during embryonic development