Exploring the Relation between Realised Volatility and Trading Volume: Evidence from International Stock Market

Objective: The sequential information theory and mixed distribution hypothesis contends that there exists a bi-directional relation between realised volatility and trading volume. This position has led to the proposition that new information spreads sequentially and reaches market participants at varying times. The purpose of this study was to re-examine these theories. Research Design & Methods: A Granger causality test, Mean Square Error and Mean Average error models were applied to investigate the relationship between realised volatility and trading volume for a sample of five international stock markets from March 5, 2018, to March 5, 2023. Findings: The findings of this study contradict the proposition put forth by the sequential information theory and mixed distribution hypothesis where no meaningful relationship was observed between realised volatility and trading volume except for the CAC 40. Hence, new information rather filters through financial markets at the same time. This finding maybe the explanation for the ever-increasing financial contagion between financial markets. Contribution & Value Added: Traders may need to rely on other indicators and adjust their strategies to incorporate different signals or factors that are more relevant for predicting or identifying market movements. It may become more challenging to gauge the liquidity conditions in the market based solely on volatility. Market participants may need to rely on other liquidity indicators, such as bid-ask spreads, order book depth, or trade size distribution, to assess market liquidity

University Supervisors’ and Student Teachers’ Assessment of the Value of Teaching Practice and School Context Challenges in Kenya

This paper explores University supervisors’ and student teachers’ assessment of the value of teaching practice and school context challenges in Kenya based on a study that examined perceptions on the influence of the school context on the teacher interns performance in Moi University. Data was collected from a sample of thirty one university supervisors and one hundred and forty eight Fourth Year Bachelor of Education students proportionate to the four Degree programmes offered in the School of Education using questionnaires and interviews. Descriptive statistics were computed using the SPSS computer package. It was found that despite the varied teaching practice school characteristics of school administration, the pupils, the teachers and the learning resources presenting a challenge to the student teachers’ translation of theory into practice they were in agreement that teaching practice in the particular schools had made them more competent teachers and that they had adequate opportunity for practice. Though the student teachers generally felt that teaching practice experience was valuable to them irrespective of the school context, the university supervisors considered the Provincial school category more adequate in providing opportunity for practice. In view of this, it is recommended that there be regular evaluation of the teaching practice school contexts with regard to the adequacy of the opportunities they provide to the student teachers for practice so as to eliminate those seriously inadequate. Teaching practice schools should find ways of reducing debilitating factors so as to enhance the teaching-learning process and student teaching. Keywords: School context challenges, university supervisors, student teachers, value of teaching practic

Exploring illiquidity risk pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic era: Evidence from international financial markets

Research aims: Illiquidity risk is one of the complex issues that institutional investors and market participants continually face over time. It is because the constructs of illiquidity risk are sometimes complicated, robust, and not so evident in secondary markets. Hence, this study aims to empirically explore illiquidity risk before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand how much investors were expected to lose if they invested in stock markets during these periods.Design/Methodology/Approach: This study used a GARCH model and the Amihud illiquidity ratio to achieve its objective. Trading volumes and price returns for the JSE, CAC 40, DAX, Nasdaq, BIST 100, and SSE were from June 30, 2017, to June 30, 2019, and January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021.Research findings: As expected, the findings revealed higher illiquidity risk during periods of financial distress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. During the financial crisis, investors could lose up to $22268.44 a day in less developed markets, such as the JSE, while the average loss in developed markets ranged between$0.22 to $11.53 in the Nasdaq and DAX, respectively. On average, a much lower figure was observed before the financial crisis. The BIST100, CAC 40, DAX, and Nasdaq are excellent options for those seeking lower-risk premiums.Theoretical and Practitioner/Policy implication: Policies such as adequate market microstructure and greater transparency in trading are strongly recommended for less developed markets, especially during periods of financial distress. Also, the findings of this study provide valuable insight into short-term traders and market participants attracted to liquid markets, where they can easily enter and exit their positions with minimal transaction costs. To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first to model illiquidity risk in stock markets.Research limitation/Implication: It is possible that the current study did not accurately capture the cost of illiquidity in the sampled financial markets and cannot be applied to other financial markets

Pebble transducers with unary output

Boja\'nczyk recently initiated an intensive study of deterministic pebble transducers, which are two-way automata that can drop marks (named "pebbles") on their input word, and produce an output word. They describe functions from words to words. Two natural restrictions of this definition have been investigated: marble transducers by Dou\'eneau-Tabot et al., and comparison-free pebble transducers (that we rename here "blind transducers") by Nguy\^en et al. Here, we study the decidability of membership problems between the classes of functions computed by pebble, marble and blind transducers that produce a unary output. First, we show that pebble and marble transducers have the same expressive power when the outputs are unary (which is false over non-unary outputs). Then, we characterize 1-pebble transducers with unary output that describe a function computable by a blind transducer, and show that the membership problem is decidable. These results can be interpreted in terms of automated simplification of programs.Comment: 39 page

Continuous rational functions are deterministic regular

A word-to-word function is rational if it can be realized by a non-deterministic one-way transducer. Over finite words, it is a classical result that any rational function is regular, i.e. it can be computed by a deterministic two-way transducer, or equivalently, by a deterministic streaming string transducer (a one-way automaton which manipulates string registers). This result no longer holds for infinite words, since a non-deterministic one-way transducer can guess, and check along its run, properties such as infinitely many occurrences of some pattern, which is impossible for a deterministic machine. In this paper, we identify the class of rational functions over infinite words which are also computable by a deterministic two-way transducer. It coincides with the class of rational functions which are continuous, and this property can thus be decided. This solves an open question raised in a previous paper of Dave et al.Comment: 41 page

Integration of Special Needs Education in Primary Teacher Education Curriculum and Acquisition of knowledge by Teacher Trainees in Kenya

This paper discusses the findings of a research study on the relationship between integration of SNE in the PTE curriculum and instructional efficacy in terms of knowledge among the teacher trainees in Kenya. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected from 27 Education teacher trainers and a sample of 306 trainees using questionnaires, interviews and document analysis. The findings revealed that knowledge on categories of learners with SEN, their characteristics and how different impairments affect learning, were adequately provided through the PTE curriculum, however aspects of knowledge that related to skills (learning to do) such as intervention measures for pupils with SEN in the general classroom, procedures for identifying and assessing pupils with SEN, and resource materials and facilities for pupils with SEN, were inadequate. Pearson correlation coefficient of .417 indicated a moderate positive relationship between the two variables which is significant at alpha (α) =.05 (p=.031<.05). It was concluded that the teacher trainees did not acquire adequate knowledge on SNE through the PTE curriculum commensurate to the expectations of an inclusive teacher yet it is evident that the adequacy of knowledge is significantly related to the extent to which SNE is integrated in the PTE curriculum. Consequently, it is recommended that the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development should ensure integration and complete fusion of aspects of SNE in the PTE curriculum during curriculum design to enhance acquisition of knowledge for instructional efficacy among teacher trainees. This would contribute to successful implementation of inclusive education in Kenya. Key words: Inclusive education, curriculum integration, knowledge, special educational needs, instructional efficacy

Determinants of Share Prices: the Case of Listed Firms on Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Equity investments offer considerable returns to investors and is considered to be a major source of capital for most large firms. However, these returns are subject to movement in share prices. This study investigate the determinants of share prices using fourteen companies listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange from 2009-2013. Using a multiple regression analysis, the result reveals that dividend per share, earnings per share, and price-earnings ratio accounts for 57.8% of share prices movements. Furthermore, earnings per share and price earnings are significantly positively correlated to share prices although dividend per share was not. This finding implies that, managers can create value for their shareholders by increasing dividend per share, earnings per share and price-earnings