An information explanation of the survival of technical analysis in capital market

In an efficient market, technical analysis cannot earn abnormal returns. Technical strategies are inferior to a buy and hold strategy since they typically churn investor accounts. Nonetheless, technical analysis appears to thrive. The purpose of this paper is to explain why technical analysis survives even though it is inferior to a buy-and-hold strategy. A model is developed that compares four investor groups --informed insiders, buy-and-hold investors, technical traders, and uninformed naive fundamental traders --and are comparedin the model. Surprisingly, it demonstrates the superiority of technical analysis relative to fundamental analysis. The equilibrium requires that different classes of investors earn different rates of return. Informed traders can only earn sufficient returns to cover their costs if there exist traders who, in some sense, are trading on bad information or noise in the Fisher Black sense. The ultimate explanation for the survival of naive investment strategies is that informed traders must have someone with whom to trade. If all uninformed traders are driven out of the market there is no benefit to being informed

An information explanation of the survival of technical analysis in capital market

In an efficient market, technical analysis cannot earn abnormal returns. Technical strategies are inferior to a buy and hold strategy since they typically churn investor accounts. Nonetheless, technical analysis appears to thrive. The purpose of this paper is to explain why technical analysis survives even though it is inferior to a buy-and-hold strategy. A model is developed that compares four investor groups --informed insiders, buy-and-hold investors, technical traders, and uninformed naive fundamental traders --and are comparedin the model. Surprisingly, it demonstrates the superiority of technical analysis relative to fundamental analysis. The equilibrium requires that different classes of investors earn different rates of return. Informed traders can only earn sufficient returns to cover their costs if there exist traders who, in some sense, are trading on bad information or noise in the Fisher Black sense. The ultimate explanation for the survival of naive investment strategies is that informed traders must have someone with whom to trade. If all uninformed traders are driven out of the market there is no benefit to being informed

Heterogeneity in criminal behavior after child birth: the role of ethnicity

This paper documents behavioral differences in parental criminality between majority and minority ethnic groups after child birth. The particular effect we exploit is that of the gender of the first-born child on fathers’ convictions rates. Based on detailed judicial and demographic data from New Zealand, we first show that the previously documented inverse relationship between having a son and father’s criminal behaviour holds across the average of the population. However, when splitting the fathers’ sample by ethnicity, the effect appears to be entirely driven by the white part of the population and that there is no effect on the native Māori. The strong ethnic divide is observed along many dimensions and challenges the implicitly made assumption in the economics of crime literature that findings are universally applicable across cultures and race

Microscopic origin of frictional rheology in dense suspensions: correlations in force space

We develop a statistical framework for the rheology of dense, non-Brownian suspensions, based on correlations in a space representing forces, which is dual to position space. Working with the ensemble of steady state configurations obtained from simulations of suspensions in two dimensions, we find that the anisotropy of the pair correlation function in force space changes with confining shear stress ($\sigma_{xy}$) and packing fraction ($\phi$). Using these microscopic correlations, we build a statistical theory for the macroscopic friction coefficient: the anisotropy of the stress tensor, $\mu = \sigma_{xy}/P$. We find that $\mu$ decreases (i) as $\phi$ is increased and (ii) as $\sigma_{xy}$ is increased. Using a new constitutive relation between $\mu$ and viscosity for dense suspensions that generalizes the rate-independent one, we show that our theory predicts a Discontinuous Shear Thickening (DST) flow diagram that is in good agreement with numerical simulations, and the qualitative features of $\mu$ that lead to the generic flow diagram of a DST fluid observed in experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, +Supplemental Materia

Determinants and Prevention Strategies of Substance Abuse in Pacific Countries: A Systematic Review

Objectives: People abuse substances like drugs, alcohol, and tobacco for different reasons, including pleasure, improved performance and vigilance, relief of depression, curbing hunger, and weight control. In this review, we sought to identify the determinants and prevention strategies that have been undertaken to minimize the issue of substance abuse. Methods: The systematic review was conducted following the Cochrane Library Guidelines and PRISMA checklist. We searched six online databases to identify studies from January 2000 to July 2017. Results: Only peer-reviewed studies published in the English language that had full text accessible were included. We reviewed 19 studies; only one was quasi-experimental and the majority were descriptive studies. The determinants of substance abuse identified include personal, faciliatory/promotor, environmental, and social factors. The prevention strategies identified use culturally appropriate and gender-sensitive treatments, and identify sources of strength in families, community, individual, and even spiritual. Conclusions: Substance abuse poses significant public health risks and therefore requires adequate interventions such as educating and informing individuals of the health risks associated with substance abuse and must be considered locally to promote the well-being of people

Political systems and the financial soundness of Islamic banks

We investigate whether and how political systems affect the financial soundness of conventional and Islamic banks. Using factors extracted from principal component analysis, we find that Islamic banks underperform their conventional counterparts in more democratic political systems but outperform them in hybrid and Sharia'a-based legal systems. The findings reflect the challenges Islamic banks face in Western countries in terms of perception, financial infrastructure, and regulatory constraints while mirroring the recognition of their specificities and their cultural and religious compliance with Sharia'a law in Muslim countries. The findings are robust to a battery of alternative estimation techniques and methods of correcting standard errors

The Performance of Islamic Vs. Conventional Banks: Evidence on the Suitability of the Basel Capital Ratios

This paper examines the effect of various types of bank capital on the profitability and efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks. Our results show that higher quality forms of capital improve the profitability and efficiency for both systems although the results are stronger for conventional banks. The capital effect is more pronounced for large, too-big-to-fail, and highly capitalized banks. The results are robust across various subsamples, alternative profitability and efficiency measures, and different estimation techniques

Induction of fibroblast senescence generates a non-fibrogenic myofibroblast phenotype that differentially impacts on cancer prognosis

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) remain a poorly characterized, heterogeneous cell population. Here we characterized two previously described tumor-promoting CAF sub-types, smooth muscle actin (SMA)-positive myofibroblasts and senescent fibroblasts, identifying a novel link between the two

Skin sympathetic nerve activity and the temporal clustering of cardiac arrhythmias

BACKGROUND: Simultaneous noninvasively recorded skin sympathetic nerve activity (SKNA) and electrocardiogram (neuECG) can be used to estimate cardiac sympathetic tone. We tested the hypothesis that large and prolonged SKNA bursts are associated with temporal clustering arrhythmias. METHODS: We recorded neuECG in 10 patients (69 ± 10 years old) with atrial fibrillation (AF) episodes and in 6 patients (50 ± 13 years old) with ventricular tachycardia (VT) or fibrillation (VF) episodes. Clustering was defined by an arrhythmic episode followed within 1 minute by spontaneous recurrences of the same arrhythmia. The neuECG signals were bandpass filtered between 500-1000 Hz to display SKNA. RESULTS: There were 22 AF clusters, including 231 AF episodes from 6 patients, and 9 VT/VF clusters, including 99 VT/VF episodes from 3 patients. A total duration of SKNA bursts associated with AF was longer than that during sinus rhythm (78.9 min/hour [interquartile range (IQR) 17.5-201.3] vs. 16.3 min/hour [IQR 14.5-18.5], P = 0.022). The burst amplitude associated with AF in clustering patients was significantly higher than that in nonclustering patients (1.54 μV [IQR 1.35-1.89], n = 114, vs. 1.20 μV [IQR 1.05-1.42], n = 21, P < 0.001). The SKNA bursts associated with VT/VF clusters lasted 9.3 ± 3.1 minutes, with peaks that averaged 1.13 ± 0.38 μV as compared with 0.79 ± 0.11 μV at baseline (P = 0.041). CONCLUSION: Large and sustained sympathetic nerve activities are associated with the temporal clustering of AF and VT/VF. FUNDING: This study was supported in part by NIH grants R42DA043391 (THE), R56 HL71140, TR002208-01, R01 HL139829 (PSC), a Charles Fisch Cardiovascular Research Award endowed by Suzanne B. Knoebel of the Krannert Institute of Cardiology (TK and THE), a Medtronic-Zipes Endowment, and the Indiana University Health-Indiana University School of Medicine Strategic Research Initiative (PSC)

A Roadmap for Potential Improvement of Newborn Screening for Inherited Metabolic Diseases Following Recent Developments and Successful Applications of Bivariate Normal Limits for Pre-Symptomatic Detection of MPS I, Pompe Disease, and Krabbe Disease

The mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS), Pompe Disease (PD), and Krabbe disease (KD) are inherited conditions known as lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) The resulting enzyme deficiencies give rise to progressive symptoms. The United States Department of Health and Human Services\u27 Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP) suggests LSDs for inclusion in state universal newborn screening (NBS) programs and has identified screening deficiencies in MPS I, KD, and PD NBS programs. MPS I NBS programs utilize newborn dried blood spots and assay alpha L-iduronidase (IDUA) enzyme to screen for potential cases. Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) offer potential as a confirmatory test. KD NBS programs utilize galactocerebrosidase (GaLC) as an initial test, with psychosine (PSY) activity increasingly used as a confirmatory test for predicting onset of Krabbe disease, though with an excessive false positive rate. PD is marked by a deficiency in acid α-glucosidase (GAA), causing increased glycogen, creatine (CRE), and other biomarkers. Bivariate normal limit (BVNL) methods have been applied to GaLC and PSY activity to produce a NBS tool for KD, and more recently, to IDUA and GAG activity to develop a NBS tool for MPS I. A BVNL tool based on GAA and CRE is in development for infantile PD diagnosis. Early infantile KD, MPS I, and PD cases were pre-symptomatically identified by BVNL-based NBS tools. This article reviews these developments, discusses how they address screening deficiencies identified by the RUSP and may improve NBS more generally