Serbia – Croatia relations: No way forward in sight

A rapprochement between Serbia and Croatia might well represent a stimulus for growth and normalisation across the Balkans, in a similar fashion to the French-German leadership in driving European integration back in the 1950s. How far are we from a comprehensive settlement? Milan Dinic sets out to discuss

Citizen terrorism: the Paris killings and networked media

This article is by LSE student and Polis Silverstone Scholar Milan Dinic (@MilanDinic1) The tragic killings which took place in a magazine office and a grocery store in Paris show a shift in the relationship between terror and media. It reflects the increasing domination of citizen/networked journalism over mainstream news media, and the rise of something which I would call citizen terrorism

Engaging young people to vote: between “clickocracy” and realism

Milan Dinic on the “Engaging young people to vote” session from Polis 2015 Conference, 27 March. Speakers: Emily Revess (chair), Danny Bartlett, Matteo Bergamini, Alan Strange, Georgia Gould Young people aged 18-24 are the least likely to turn up and vote. A 2013 Cabinet Office study showed that young people living in communal establishments or private renters were less likely to register for voting. This especially applies to students who, in most cases, study in away from home and live on their own. So, often it is not just the fact that young people don’t feel a connection to politics, but there are other, more technical reasons as well

Can nationalism save the press?: the case of The National in Scotland

The launch of a nationalist newspaper is big media news in Scotland. But does the creation of the National title have wider significance as journalism businesses seek new ways to connect to the public. Milan Dinic (@MilanDinic1) comes from a region that knows all about nationalism and as a journalist (currently studying at the LSE) he knows all about newsrooms. Here’s his take

Book Review

Acute cholesterol depletion is generally associated with decreased or abolished T cell signalling but it can also cause T cell activation. This anomaly has been addressed in Jurkat T cells using progressive cholesterol depletion with methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (MBCD). At depletion levels higher than 50% there is substantial cell death, which explains reports of signalling inhibition. At 10–20% depletion levels, tyrosine phosphorylation is increased, ERK is activated and there is a small increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+. Peripheral actin polymerisation is also triggered by limited cholesterol depletion. Strikingly, the lipid raft marker GM1 aggregates upon cholesterol depletion and these aggregated domains concentrate the signalling proteins Lck and LAT, whereas the opposite is true for the non lipid raft marker the transferrin receptor. Using PP2, an inhibitor of Src family kinase activation, it is demonstrated that the lipid raft aggregation occurs independently of and thus upstream of the signalling response. Upon cholesterol depletion there is an increase in overall plasma membrane order, indicative of more ordered domains forming at the expense of disordered domains. That cholesterol depletion and not unspecific effects of MBCD was behind the reported results was confirmed by performing all experiments with MBCD–cholesterol, when no net cholesterol extraction took place. We conclude that non-lethal cholesterol depletion causes the aggregation of lipid rafts which then induces T cell signalling

Serbia holds a position few others in Europe can match – but is yet to find how to use it

‘Serbia certainly holds a position that few other states in Europe can match: it is a country that is seeking EU membership, and yet also has long standing close ties to Russia. However, it needs to be clear about how best it can leverage this to bring about meaningful results,’ LSEE’s James Ker-Lindsay argues in an interview with the Serbian weekly Svedok. In a conversation with journalist and LSE student Milan Dinic, he discusses the country’s relationship with Kosovo, Russia, and the European Union

Transparency of media ownership and privatisation: challenges faced by Serbia

Transparency of ownership represents one of the foundations of free and independent media. While in western democracies ownership transparency tends to be high, LSE student Milan Dinic argues that this is not the case in countries undergoing transition to the west, Serbia being one of them. He looks at the state of media ownership in Serbia as the country attempts to privatise its media, much of which is state-owned

The relation between short interest and future returns of NASDAQ listed stocks

The short interest of a stock refers to the total amount of shares shorted by traders, professional investors and hedge funds, who profit from a decline in the stock price. Market participants can gain an informational advantage if the short interest level of a stock contains relevant information about the future share price development. Although prior research has shown that stocks with high short interest levels are more likely to experience negative abnormal returns in the following months, the relation has not been widely investigated for NASDAQ listed securities during the rising equity market from 2012 to 2019. The aim of this Bachelor’s thesis is to analyse the one-month abnormal return of NASDAQ listed stocks with either a very low or a very high short interest level during the period 2012 to 2019. Both the short interest as a percentage of float (SIPF) and the short interest ratio (SIR) are applied to determine which metric provides higher and more significant abnormal returns. Stocks are ranked each month to form equal-weighted portfolios based on either the SIPF or the SIR level retrieved from Bloomberg. The lightly shorted portfolios include securities below the 1st and 10th percentiles, while the heavily shorted portfolios contain stocks above the 90th and 99th percentiles. To evaluate the absolute performance, the total return over the entire period, as well as the geometric average return, is determined. Abnormal returns are estimated through ordinary least squares regressions and by applying two different multi-factor asset pricing models. The empirical results indicate that portfolio formations based on the metric SIPF deliver higher and more significant returns than ones sorted by SIR, regardless of the asset pricing model. Lightly shorted portfolios generate significant excess returns when containing stocks below the 1st percentile (1.1% per month) and below the 10th percentile (1.0% per month). In contrast, the heavily shorted portfolios experience a significant negative abnormal return if they comprise stocks above the 90th percentile (-0.9% per month) and above the 99th percentile (-1.4% per month). In conclusion, short interest as a percentage of float can be a valuable sentiment indicator for forecasting the future share price development of NASDAQ listed securities. The findings of this study confirm prior research suggesting that buying stocks with a very low short interest level potentially leads to higher returns for investors, while stocks with a very high short interest level should be avoided or sold due to the high probability of underperforming considerably. Further studies could investigate the relation between short interest and the subsequent stock return for non-U.S. markets. It would be desirable to implement short interest estimations from financial data providers covering shorter time periods – for example, on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis