Non-technical skills for managing risk and performance in financial trading

Recent large-scale failures in financial institutions have been found to be caused, in-part, by human factors-related issues in financial trading. In other environments where risk management and performance are intertwined, a human factors approach is often adopted to understand how the ‘non-technical skills (NTS)’ (leadership (LD), decision-making (DM), situation awareness (SA), teamwork) of organisational actors influence outcomes. Yet, to date, there has been minimal application of human factors research in financial trading. This study (i) identifies ‘real-world’ (i.e. non-laboratory) research studies investigating the NTS important for performance in financial trading, (ii) examines and synthesises data on the NTS found to underpin good or poor performance and (iii) considers the quality and coverage of research investigating NTS in financial trading, and identifies potential areas for future research. Nineteen studies were identified through a systematic literature search and then content-analysed for associations between NTS and performance in financial trading. The review found a range of decision-making (e.g. heuristics and biases, intuitive DM, emotional regulation) and LD skills (e.g. setting standards, monitoring behaviour, encouraging speaking-up) to have been identified as important for managing risk and performance in financial trading environments. Furthermore, SA (e.g. information search and assessment strategies, vigilance, identifying ‘noise’ data) and teamwork (e.g. avoiding ‘role’ conflict, communication between traders) were found to be important, yet remain less explored within the literature, and should be the focus of future research. NTS appear essential for effective risk management within the financial sector, yet further field research is required to examine the context-relevant behaviours that underpin safe activity. This will facilitate the development of evidence-based systems for assessing and training NTS competencies.     

Impact of short selling activity on market dynamics: Evidence from an emerging market

With unique daily short sale data of Borsa Istanbul (stock exchange of Turkey), we investigate the dynamic relationship between short selling activity and volatility, liquidity and market return from January 2005 to December 2012 using a VAR(p)-cDCC-FIEGARCH(1,d,1) approach. Our findings suggest that short sellers are contrarian traders and contribute to efficient stock market in Turkey. We also show that increased short selling activity is associated with higher liquidity and decreased volatility. However this relation weakens during the financial turmoil of 2008. Our results indicate that any ban on short sales may be detrimental for financial stability and market quality in Turkey.     

融资融券对我国股市波动性的影响

本文采集股价指数月收益率和融资融券交易额每月日平均变化率的数据,针对融资融券对我国股市波动性的影响,进行实证检验,并对结果做进一步的解释。     

Competition in the stock market with asymmetric information

We build a game theoretical model to examine how the level of information advantage of insiders and the competition between insiders and sophisticated investors affect stock price movements and traders’ trading strategies and profits. We show that the competition between insiders and sophisticated investors can reduce the losses of less sophisticated investors, and thus alleviates the disadvantaged position of the less sophisticated investors. Further, traders’ profits are affected by the accuracy of insiders’ private information, and the number of days that insiders have obtained the information in advance. These findings show the importance of information transparency and the role of sophisticated investors in limiting insiders’ trading advantages and mitigating the expropriation of investors by insiders.     

The impact of governance and transparency on firm investment in Vietnam

A large literature asserts a causal relationship between the quality of economic governance and economic performance. However, attempts to establish such a link at an aggregate level have met with considerable methodological criticism. This paper seeks to overcome this limitation. We match a panel of Vietnamese enterprises from 2006 to 2010 with a unique panel dataset measuring sub‐national economic governance to estimate a relationship between local governance and private investment. We do not find a significant relationship between investment and most traditional forms of governance. However, there is one important exception – transparency, especially the public posting of planning documents, is strongly associated with higher investment across a range of different specifications. Our results have significant implications for policy, given the prevailing theory that changes in the quality of local economic governance will spur improved economic performance.     

自然资源资产全民所有权的实现逻辑及机制完善

研究目的：围绕新时代人民日益增长的美好生活需要，揭示自然资源资产全民所有权的实现逻辑，提出完善全民 所有权实现机制的建议。研究方法：归纳法，演绎法。研究结果：自然资源资产生态属性决定生态产品是自然资源资 产所有权实现的重要内容；全民所有权行使主体直接行使所有权意义上的资源资产管理权利，实现自然资源资产保值 增值；通过自然资源保护和市场交易实现生态产品供给及经济收益最大化，通过公益支出实现公共服务均等化，从而满 足人民日益增长的美好生活需要，构成自然资源资产全民所有权实现的基本逻辑。研究结论：自然资源资产全民所有 权实现，需在改善自然资源资产本底基础上，通过权利赋予、市场流转、收益分配和配套制度建设，为全体公众谋利益。     

Relevance of Fundraising Charities’ Content-Marketing Objectives: Perceptions of Donors,Fundraisers, and Their Consultants

Many fundraising charities invest heavily in content marketing, often using consultants to direct their content-marketing efforts. Thus it is vital to establish whether certain key aims of content marketing suggested by literature in the field actually match the aspects of content marketing deemed most important by charity donors. This paper examines the significance attached by samples of charities, donors, and content-marketing consultancies to four possible major objectives of content marketing—the attainment of high–search-engine-results-page rankings, image enhancement through impression management, the stimulation of public perceptions of organizational transparency, and the creation of messages that “go viral.” Several major differences in perceptions emerged among the three groups, with substantial implications for how fundraising charities should manage their content-marketing programs and activities. Charity managements need to consider carefully and critically the possible returns on large-scale expenditures intended to pursue the putative aims of content marketing that are routinely advocated by practitioner and academic literature.     

Liquidity,information, strategic trading in an electronic order book: New insights from the European carbon markets

The electronic limit order book (LOB hereafter) has rapidly become the primary way of trading European carbon assets over the 4 years of the EU ETS programme (2008–2012). In this first attempt of examining the informational content of an electronic order book, we evidence that order flow imbalances have a moderate capacity to predict short term price changes. However, we find that both LOB slope and immediacy costs help to forecast quote improvements and volatility in the next 30 min. Further, we explain why informed trading is highly influential and show that it consists in mixing order splitting strategies and posting fleeting orders once the asymmetric information is reduced (Rosu, 2009). Overall, the consolidated status of the order book mirrors a high level of market uncertainty and a low degree of informational efficiency. In this way, strategic trading can in itself explain some of order book properties, independently of the degree of traders’ sophistication and market competition.     

辽宁上市公司董事会报告透明度影响因素研究

以46家辽宁上市公司为样本,对影响董事会报告透明度因素的研究发现:股权集中度、管理层持股比例、董事会规模、独立董事比例与董事会报告透明度呈正相关关系;股权制衡度,董事长与总经理是否两职合一,审计意见类型与董事会报告透明度呈负相关关系。上市公司应该通过股票期权等方式提升管理人员的持股比例,激励他们积极治理公司,提高董事会报告信息披露的透明度;上市公司第二大股东应适度提高持股比例,防止一股独大现象;同时减少董事长与总经理两职合一,也会有助于提高董事会报告的透明度。     

Interest rate dynamic effect on stock returns and central bank transparency: Evidence from emerging markets

Interest rate dynamic effect on stock returns is examined under different levels of central bank transparency under an asset pricing context. Using a large set of emerging countries in a panel data framework, we provide evidence for a negative link between stock returns and interest rate differences. However, this negative effect is reduced significantly under a transparent central bank, underlying a non-linear impact on stock returns. Our study is focused on a period from 1998 to 2008 where fundamental changes in the level of central banks’ transparency were occurred. Our findings imply that restrictive monetary policies under high levels of transparency lead to smoother reductions on stock returns with significant benefits for financial stability.