Paying attention to social media stocks

Social media has reshaped business models, economies, politics, and culture around the world. In this paper, we identified social media stocks from various sectors by using a strict, academic definition and then studied their performance and return characteristics. Multivariate regression results demonstrate that being recognized as a social media firm yields extra return. The performance of social media stocks is not associated with macro-level sentiment, but rather with firm-level attention paid by potential investors. Causality tests indicate that the default risk premium and volatility have incremental power in explaining the performance of social media stocks

Benefits of international diversification with investment constraints: An over-time perspective

This paper investigates the benefits and asset allocation of the optimal international diversification for the U.S.A. investor while considering various portfolio constraints. Although the global financial market is becoming more integrated, the findings suggest that adding lower and upper weighting bounds reduces, but does not completely eliminate, the potential economic value of international investment. The addition of investment constraints makes asset allocation more feasible and decreases the volatility in portfolio return. The time-variation in the optimal asset allocation implies that fund managers should rebalance international portfolios dynamically. The out-of-sample test suggests that the Markowitz model with constraints realizes trivial improvement in mean-variance efficiency but still demonstrates significant reduction in risk.Diversification benefits Investment constraints International portfolio management

Understanding the Channels of Bank Value Creation During Times of Crisis: Deconstructing ROA

An understanding of the performance channels that have the greatest impact on financial institutio

Variation in Stock Return Risks: An International Comparison

Using returns of 4,916 stocks from 22 developed countries and 15 developing countries, this study examines the relative magnitude of conditional volatility and the international market systematic risk of stock prices in countries at different developmental stages and in various geographical areas. Consistent with the finding of Bekaert et al. (2008), the results of non-parametric Mann-Whitney tests suggest that the stock prices in emerging markets are riskier than the ones in developed countries, measured by both conditional volatility and global beta. Our empirical findings also support the geographical variation in stock risks. Specifically, the equity values in Southeast Asia, South Europe, and Latin America are more volatile than the rest of the world. Similar results can be found in the country-level tests. The time-series analysis suggests that the stock returns in high risk countries tend to be less volatile but the conditional volatility of stock return in less risky countries leans to increase.Conditional volatility, international market systematic risk, GARCH, Mann-Whitney test, JEL Classification: C12, JEL Classification: F36, JEL Classification: G15

Stock return, risk, and legal environment around the world

This paper investigates how the legal environment in a country influences performance and risk of stock across countries at different developmental stages and of various rules of jurisdiction. Using data of 4916 stocks from 37 countries, our empirical findings confirm that equities in countries with English common law origin have higher risk premiums than those in civil law countries, particularly for countries of the French/Spanish code. The indicators representing high efficiency in law system, low corruption, strong legal protection of investors' rights, and reliable political environment are associated with low risk and high performance. The various elements of legal procedural formalism, however, have differing effects on volatility and return.Legal environment International equity markets Generalized method of moments

Do investors still benefit from international diversification with investment constraints?

This paper empirically investigates the potential benefits of international diversification for the U.S. investor with various investment constraints from both long-term and time-rolling perspectives. While the addition of portfolio bounds makes asset allocation more feasible, our findings suggest that adding short-selling and over-weighting constraints reduce but do not completely eliminate the diversification benefits of international investment. The over-time analyses show that diversifying portfolios internationally is still beneficial even though financial markets are becoming more integrated. The out-of-sample test suggests that the Markowitz model does not necessarily realize improved mean-variance efficiency but demonstrates risk reduction. The significant time variation in optimal asset allocation implies the necessity for the fund manager to rebalance international portfolio dynamically.Short-sales constraints Over-weighting investment constraints International diversification