Low-latency liquidity inefficiency strategies

The vast amount of high-frequency data heralds the use of new methods in financial data analysis and quantitative trading. This study delivers a proof-of-concept for a high frequency-based trading system based on an evolutionary computation method. Motivated by a theoretical liquidity asymmetry theorem from the market microstructure literature, grammatical evolution is used to exploit volume inefficiencies at the bid–ask spread. Using NASDAQ Historical TotalView-ITCH level two limit order book data, execution volumes can be tracked. This allows for testing of the strategies with minimal assumptions. The system evolves profitable and robust strategies with high returns and low risk.     

Energy Costs in Germany—Developments, Drivers and International Comparison

This article summarises results a study undertaken by Frontier Economics and the EWI for the German Ministry of Economics. The study makes progress in creating transparency of energy supply prices and cost (for electricity, gas and oil products) in Germany in an international context. In Germany most retail prices have increased significantly since 1998 and are at the highest level for most customer groups and products in international comparison. Main drivers that differentiate prices internationally are, duties and taxes, network tariffs, political interference with retail prices and the degree of end customer competition. Based on this analysis the authors recommend a review of the consistency of policy measures (especially taxes, duties, levies and subsidies) with the energy policy goals of price competitiveness, security of supply and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the authors suggest further refining network regulation, enhancing competition in the retail sector and improving transparency of price information.     

Eco-Dumping, Capital Mobility, and International Trade

A small open economy’s optimal environmental policy is studied in a model with international capital mobility and local pollution. The country produces traded as well as non-traded goods. Is it in the country’s interest to engage in ecological dumping by choosing generous pollution allowances for the traded-good sector? The answer depends decisively on the policy regime in use. Dumping is not optimal if the country ensures that the implicit rent on pollution is completely appropriated within the country. However, if the implicit factor reward on pollution leaves the country because it accrues to (foreign) owners of mobile capital, the local welfare maximizing government tends to discriminate against the traded-good sector, the opposite of ecological dumping.     

Anfang gut, alles gut? Eine Empirische Untersuchung über den fünftageindikator Zur frühprognose auf Aktienmärkten

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Investing in developing countries — Chances,hazards, facts

From its beginnings on the DEG (German Development Company) has always been working with two aims in mind. Development policy provided one and the external economic relations of the Federal Republic of Germany the other. It is contributing to economic development by supporting investments by German firms in the Third World and by encouraging cooperation between German investors and local businessmen on a partnership basis.     

Index tracking with constrained portfolios

Passive portfolio management strategies, such as index tracking, are popular in the industry, but so far little research has been done on the cardinality of such a portfolio, i.e. on how many different assets ought to be included in it. One reason for this is the computational complexity of the associated optimization problems. Traditional optimization techniques cannot deal appropriately with the discontinuities and the many local optima emerging from the introduction of explicit cardinality constraints. More recent approaches, such as heuristic methods, on the other hand, can overcome these hurdles. This paper demonstrates how one of these methods, differential evolution, can be used to solve the constrained index-tracking problem. We analyse the financial implication of cardinality constraints for a tracking portfolio using an empirical study of the Down Jones Industrial Average. We find that the index can be tracked satisfactorily with a subset of its components and, more important, that the deviation between computed actual tracking error and the theoretically achievable tracking error out of sample is negligibly affected by the portfolio's cardinality. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.