Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index and Bank Stock Prices in China: A Causality Analysis

This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) Composite Index and the indexes of 10 Chinese listed banks to test whether the listing of these banks had played a role in leading the Chinese stock market. Using daily prices from 1 June 2006 to 15 November 2007, we applied the Granger causality test and found that a uni-directional causality relationship existed either way between most bank stock prices and the market index while the bi-directional relationship only identified among five of the ten banks. This research finding is in part consistent with previous studies showing that stock markets in great China region are integrated and are strongly influenced by the psychological factors of investors. In the following co-integration test, both AEG and Johansen’s methods concluded a long-run stable equilibrium relationship between majority of the banking stock prices and the SSE Composite Index.Shanghai Stock Exchange, VAR, Johansen co-integration tests, Granger causality tests

Impact of the US Credit Crunch and Housing Market Crisis on China

There are many similarities between the US, the UK and the Chinese housing markets, including the movements of interest rates and house prices. Some Chinese banks, especially the Bank of China, have been exposed to the US mortgage securitization market. These have triggered a serious concern as to whether the US credit crunch and housing market crisis may be replicated in China. This paper shows that there are some significant differences between China and the West, especially the US and the UK. Compared with the US and other western industrialized economies, the booming house market in China has been supported by fast economic growth, rapid urbanization and high domestic savings. In addition, Chinese banks are less exposed to mortgage defaults than their western counterparts because house buyers are mainly urban and high income residents who are required to have high down payments. These Sino-Western economic and social differences suggest that the US credit crunch and housing market crisis may have some negative impacts on Chinese commercial banks and the overall economy but are unlikely to cause a similar financial and housing crisis in China despite the current struggling Chinese stock markets and a slowdown of house price growth.US credit crunch, housing market crisis, China

Approach Towards The Development Of Novel Disease Modifying Therapeutics For Parkinson\u27s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease, which is characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) and the presence of intraneuronal proteinaceous deposits named Lewy bodies (LBs) or Lewy neurites (LNs). A broad spectrum of motor and non-motor symptoms has been observed in PD, with bradykinesia, resting tremor, rigidity, and postural instability as its key clinical features. Although the etiology of PD is still not well-understood, multiple pathological factors including oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, α-synuclein (αSN) protein aggregation, as well as genetic and environmental aspects are strongly implicated in the disease progression. The present treatments available for PD generally fall into four major categories, namely levodopa/carbidopa, monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) inhibitors, catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) inhibitors, and dopamine agonists. However, these current clinical treatments are only able to provide symptomatic relief and fail to delay the disease progression. Furthermore, the long-term use of levodopa leads to motor complications including the development of dyskinesia. Thus, there is still a great unmet need for effective treatment of PD which should involve disease modification. Due to the complexity observed in the disease pathogenesis, treatments that incorporates the pathogenic factors involved in PD might offer an advantage in combating the disease by modifying the disease progression. The hypothesis of this project is that the incorporation of dopamine D2/D3 agonistic binding component to accessory moieties targeting either αSN aggregation or MAO-B enzyme may lead to multifunctional drugs with a potential to provide both symptom-reliving and disease-modifying effects as a promising approach for new generation PD treatment. In this dissertation, two library of compounds have been developed based on the previously established hybrid structure approach, and the initial structure-activity relationship (SAR) study has been perused to identify possible lead compounds through in vitro and in vivo evaluations. The first main objective is to design and develop a series of novel dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonists that can potentially modulate α-synuclein (αSN) aggregation by combining the dihydroxy or hydroxy-methoxy component with D2/D3 agonist fragment through various linkers according to the hybrid molecular template. Based on the results of in vitro receptor assays, compounds (−)-8a (D-593), (−)-20 (D-618), (−)-14 (D-644), and (−)-49 (D-670) were selected and further evaluated to determine their potential αSN aggregation modulatory properties and neuroprotective effect. Subsequently, compound (−)-8a (D-593) was identified as a lead compound by using a well-established Parkinson’s disease (PD) animal model. The second main objective is to design and synthesize a series of novel dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonists that may potentially inhibit monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) activity by introducing the propargyl group into the hybrid molecular template. An initial SAR study was conducted based on the generated compound library through in vitro receptor assays and enzymatic studies which led to the identification of compounds (−)-62b (D-629) and (−)-76 (D-614) as potential candidates. Moreover, in vitro neuroprotection models and a PD animal model were used to further evaluate them, and (−)-76 (D-614) was identified as the lead compound that requires further modification

Research on the Applicability of Value Investment in China’s A-Share Market

Value investment has been widely respected and applied in the capital market of developed countries, and its effectiveness has also been verified in a large number of practices. However, since it was introduced to China in 1990s, the concept of value investment has been buried for a long time due to the lack of supervision and the backwardness of investment concepts. With the improvement of the market environment, the progress of supervision system and the update of investors’ ideas in recent years, does China’s A-share market have the conditions for value investment? This paper will discuss this problem theoretically and empirically. Firstly, this paper combs the development of value investment theory and expounds the views and propositions of value investment. Secondly, under the guidance of value investment theory, this paper selects the data of CASMR database 2018-2021. In the first stage, five sectors are selected as the low growth and high growth track of value investment by using multi-factor model. In the second stage, using EVA analysis, five leading stocks in each industry are selected for empirical test, combined with the fundamental analysis in each stage. The results show that the average annual rate of return of the top enterprises is over 50% and the average annual rate of return is over 30% in the high-growth industries screened out under the concept of value investment; This paper verifies that value investment is not only suitable for China A-share market, but also an excellent investment idea with low risk and high return, and puts forward some relevant investment suggestions