Asset Pricing and the Intertemporal Risk-Return Tradeoff

The intertemporal risk-return tradeoff is the cornerstone of modern empirical finance and has been the focus of much debate over the years. The reason for this is because extant literature cannot agree as to the very nature of this important relation. This is troublesome in terms of academic theory given that it challenges the notion that investors are risk-averse agents and is furthermore troublesome in practice given that market participants expect to be rewarded with higher expected returns in order to take on higher risks. The motivation for this thesis stems from the conflicting and inconclusive empirical evidence regarding the risk-return tradeoff. Through each of the chapters, it sheds new light on possible reasons as to why extant studies offer conflicting evidence and, given the enhancements and innovative approaches proposed here, it provides empirical evidence in support of a positive intertemporal risk-return tradeoff when examining several international stock markets. The research questions this thesis addresses are as follow. Firstly, is it possible that extant conflicting evidence is manifested in the use of historical realized returns to proxy for investors’ forward-looking expected returns? Secondly, can accounting for shifts in investment opportunities (i.e. intertemporal risk) better explain investors’ risk aversion and changes in the dynamic risk premium? Thirdly, is it possible that conflicting findings are the result of neglecting to account for the possibility that there exist heterogeneous investors in the stock market with divergent expectations? The empirical findings can be summarized as follows; firstly, there is a strong possibility that many existing studies cannot find a positive risk-return relation because they are relying on ex post historical realized returns as a proxy for investors’ forward-looking expected returns. Secondly, there is evidence in favor of the Merton (1973) notion that there exists intertemporal risk which impacts investors and that this type of risk should be considered. This has been also another reason why extant literature cannot agree on the nature of the intertemporal risk-return tradeoff. Finally, even after accounting for investor heterogeneity, the findings provide support for the Merton (1973) theoretical Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model. Namely, in contrast to existing studies on the matter, there is evidence of fundamental traders over longer horizons and no evidence of feedback traders at such horizons. Although this sheds new light on some of the driving forces behind stock prices, the nature of investors’ degree of risk aversion seems to be best supported by the Merton (1973) theoretical Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model

Speculative dynamics and price behavior in the Shanghai Stock Exchange

This article examines the extent to which the trading behavior of heterogeneous investors manifests in stock price changes of asset portfolios which constitute the Shanghai Stock Exchange. There are three major findings that materialize. Firstly, reliable statistical evidence of a negative relation between the conditional first and second moments of the return distributions of stock prices lends support to the volatility feedback effect. Secondly, ‘feedback’, or momentum-type investors, are not present in this market as is often detected from the daily price changes of other industrialized markets. Finally, trade volume as a proxy for ‘information-driven’ trading suggests that such investors play a statistically significant role in stock price movements. Parameter estimates from this latter group of investors imply that a rise in stock prices from a high volume trading day is more likely than a rise resulting from a low volume trading day

The folate‐binding module of Thermus thermophilus cobalamin‐dependent methionine synthase displays a distinct variation of the classical TIM barrel: a TIM barrel with a `twist’

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141455/1/ayd2kw5140.pd

Does investor sentiment really matter?

We examine the role sentiment plays and its manifestation in the trading behavior of investors in the U.S. stock market. Our findings support the notion that sentiment-induced buying and selling is an important determinant of stock price variation. While ‘classical’ asset pricing categorizes investors who trade in ways not consistent with mean-variance optimization as ‘irrational,’ we show that this traditional view should not hastily be evoked to characterize sentiment-driven investing. We instead show that sentiment-driven investors can trade against the herd and sell when prices are overinflated as a result of over-bullishness and vice versa. The asset pricing implications of this paper are that sentiment is linked to shifts in risk tolerance and this triggers contrarian-type behavior. In sum, we uncover the following regarding the behavior of sentiment-driven investors; firstly, they are more apt to trade on survey-based indicators rather than market-based indicators. Secondly, they trade on the basis of information extracted from individual, rather than institutional, investor surveys. Thirdly, they respond asymmetrically to shifts in sentiment and trade more aggressively during periods of declining sentiment. Finally, there is asymmetry in the role of sentiment with respect to business conditions whereby such buying and selling is more pronounced during bear markets

Risk Dynamics Around Restatement Announcements

We investigate the dynamic nature and temporal daily changes in systematic (beta), as well as idiosyncratic and total risk around restatement announcements. We find that beta increases by 51% at restatement announcement but it reverts to the pre-restatement level within 1 month. However, idiosyncratic risk experiences a longer-term increase of approximately 20% following a restatement. Cross-sectional analysis shows that the results are more pronounced with restatements associated with irregularity. Overall, our findings suggest that risk components are time-varying with the systematic component rapidly mean-reverting but the idiosyncratic component experiencing a longer-term increase

Measuring the relative return contribution of risk factors

This paper proposes a simple method to measure and compare the average relative return contribution of proposed risk factors. The method is applied to six common risk factors, including market, size, value, momentum, profitability, and investment, using 49 U.S. industry portfolios in the period 1969–2014. We find that the average relative return contributions of the market factor and mispricing alpha are highest in all models and sample periods. When multifactors are included, their main effect is to reduce the contribution of the average market factor return with some reduction in the contribution of mispricing alpha

Investigation of the RNA-Protein Interactions in Bacterial Ribonuclease P (RNase P).

Ribonuclease P (RNase P) is a highly conserved ribonucleoprotein (RNP) that catalyzes the cleavage of the 5’ leader off of all precursor tRNA (pre-tRNA) molecules in a metal dependent manner. Given the RNP nature of this essential ribozyme, discerning how the RNA and protein components of RNase P work together to perform this critical reaction is key to understanding how the enzyme works. The work presented here enhances current knowledge of RNase P substrate recognition, assigns additional functional roles to the required protein, and characterizes RNase P RNA – metal interactions in RNase P on a molecular level. Genomic analysis reveals that particular nucleotides are preferred in the 5’ leader sequence of pre-tRNAs, a region of the substrate proposed to interact with the protein component of RNase P. To test if this preference has relevance to substrate binding or processing, a series of affinity and single turnover measurements with pre-tRNAs substrates that varied the nucleotide identity at a particular 5’ leader position were undertaken. These studies reveal the first observed sequence specific interaction between a nucleotide in the 5’ leader of pre-tRNA and RNase P. Further investigations with B. subtilis RNase P protein mutants identified and characterized the specific contact between the 5’ leader and the protein. The protein contribution to catalysis was further studied with a combination of affinity studies and transient kinetic techniques. These investigations identify a number of roles for the most conserved region of the bacterial protein including stabilizing the RNP structure, and enhancing a kinetically important metal dependent conformational change. Additionally, a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) were used to identify and characterize an inner-sphere metal binding site in the putative active site of this metallo-ribozyme. Overall, the work presented in this thesis has advanced the understanding of how RNA, protein, and metals work synergistically to perform a fundamental biological process in the essential RNP and enzyme RNase P.Ph.D.ChemistryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62208/1/jkristin_1.pd

CSR and Firm Risk: Is Shareholder Activism a Double-Edged Sword?

Few can argue with the notion that corporations should at least consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) to better understand the impact of their operations on society. However, recent empirical tests suggest CSR has an ambiguous impact on firm performance. To shed new light on this debate, we examine the extent to which voting support for nonbinding shareholder-initiated CSR proposals is empirically linked to changes in firms’ underlying systematic risks. Using a rich dataset of proposals in the US from 1998 to 2011, we contribute several novel findings. First, we show that shareholder voting support is nonlinearly linked to changes in systematic risk. Specifically, proposals with low voting support increase risk while those with high support decrease risk. This nonlinearity is particularly pronounced for consumer-sensitive firms that cater primarily to individual consumers rather than for firms in non-consumer-sensitive industries that produce goods or services meant for industrial or governmental use. Second, the 2007–2009 financial crisis exacerbated increases in firms’ systematic risks for proposals with low voting support. Our results, which highlight asymmetry regarding firms’ CSR initiatives, remain robust when controlling for firm-specific factors as well as shifts in investor sentiment. From a risk management perspective, our findings suggest that CSR initiatives need strong shareholder support to realize benefits from the so-called ‘risk-reduction hypothesis’

Stock market integration for the transition economies: Time-varying conditional correlation approach

This is the accepted version of the following article: WANG, P. and MOORE, T. (2008), Stock market integration for the transition economies: Time-varying conditional correlation approach. The Manchester School, 76: 116–133. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9957.2008.01083.x, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467- 9957.2008.01083.x/abstract.In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the three emerging Central Eastern European stock markets have become integrated with the aggregate eurozone market over the sample period from 1994 to 2006 by utilizing the dynamic conditional correlation. We find a higher level of the stock market correlation during the period after the Asian and Russian crises and also during the post-entry period to the European Union. It is found that financial market integration seems to be a largely self-fuelling process, depending on existing levels of financial sector development for the Czech Republic and Hungary

Convergence in cryptocurrency prices? The role of market microstructure

Do we observe convergence between cryptocurrencies over time? This study explores this question with eight major cryptocurrencies in circulation and posits a framework to evaluate whether shifts in their market microstructures drive convergence. Three main findings emerge. First, convergence can emerge between cryptocurrencies with distinct technological functions and classifications. Second, market microstructure behavior drives convergence. Third, estimated transition paths show tighter convergence for half of our sampled cryptocurrencies during the time when the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) introduced bitcoin futures contracts.N/