Time consistency of Lévy models

Time consistency of the models used is an important ingredient to improve risk management. The empirical investigation in this article gives evidence for some models driven by Lévy processes to be highly consistent. This means that they provide a good statistical fit of empirical distributions of returns not only on the timescale used for calibration but on various other timescales as well. As a result these models produce more reliable risk numbers and derivative prices.     

每天下午你都需要“Tea Time”

无论是平时上班还是周末居家,无论是春风暖阳还是秋雨冷风,无论是独自一人还是佳朋满座,在每一天的下午,你都需要腾出一段不长不短的空闲,沏一壶氤氲红茶,尝几块精雅糕点,好好享受“Tea Time”。这样的下午茶时光,哪怕只是小憩半个钟头,都能获得许多意想不到的好处。就像十七世纪的英国绅士和淑女们,于杯盏茶香之间,尽享悠闲从容的浮生至乐。     

New development: Time for a consequential impact tax to support the NHS?

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is facing its most serious financial crisis since its inception and positive, enduring, fundamental changes need to be made if the NHS is to survive as a financially sustainable entity. This article looks at the costs of lifestyle self-abuse behaviour (over 15% of the total NHS spending) and proposes a new tax to offset the costs of treatment and preventative education. The idea is applicable to other countries facing similar problems.     

Does the Market Incorporate Previous IPO Withdrawals When Pricing Second‐Time IPOs?

This paper examines the initial public offering (IPO) valuations of issuers that return to the IPO market successfully after withdrawing their first IPO attempt. We find that these second-time IPOs sell at a significant discount relative to similar contemporaneous IPOs that succeed in their first attempt. We also demonstrate that switching underwriters on the second IPO attempt reduces, but does not eliminate, the discount for second-time IPOs. When compared to their matched first-time IPOs, second-time IPOs have similar price revisions and post-IPO long-run stock and operating performances. Overall, these results suggest that the negative information conveyed by the withdrawal event is incorporated into the lower offer valuations for second-time IPOs. Switching investment banks can mitigate, but not eliminate, the perceived higher risk of the second-time offerings.     

Are oil, gold and the euro inter-related? Time series and neural network analysis

This paper investigates inter-relationships among the price behavior of oil, gold and the euro using time series and neural network methodologies. Traditionally gold is a leading indicator of future inflation. Both the demand and supply of oil as a key global commodity are impacted by inflationary expectations and such expectations determine current spot prices. Inflation influences both short and long-term interest rates that in turn influence the value of the dollar measured in terms of the euro. Certain hypotheses are formulated in this paper and time series and neural network methodologies are employed to test these hypotheses. We find that the markets for oil, gold and the euro are efficient but have limited inter-relationships among themselves.     

Buy Smart,Time Smart: Are Takeovers Driven by Growth Opportunities or Mispricing?

Excessively high pricing by bidders and targets can be explained by new growth opportunities created by the merger or by irrational overpricing in financial markets. We integrate both explanations through a new decomposition of firm value and investigate whether it is “true” growth value or mispricing that drives takeover waves. We find that “bidders buy smart.” Bidders primarily have high market values because of growth opportunities and overpricing, and select targets that are less overpriced with similar fundamental growth value. Bidders also seem to “time smart.” Takeover activity increases when bidders are more overpriced, in order to cushion against price corrections.     

Does the Diversification Potential of Securitized Real Estate Vary Over Time and Should Investors Care?

This paper examines the dynamics of the covariance matrix of return rates for securitized real estate, other company stocks, and government bonds for a cross-section of eight countries. In-sample analysis establishes that in all countries the covariance matrix is time-varying and reacts stronger to bad than to good news. Using a realistic out-of-sample exercise, we find that portfolios selected with a forecasted dynamic covariance matrix are less risky than portfolios constructed with the static matrix. However, benefits of using the dynamic covariance matrix for active portfolio management are mostly offset by rebalancing cost. Passive buy-and-hold investors benefit, because the forecasted dynamic covariance matrix provides better risk assessment.     

Can Linear Predictability Models Time Bull and Bear Real Estate Markets? Out-of-Sample Evidence from REIT Portfolios

A recent literature has shown that REIT returns contain strong evidence of bull and bear dynamic regimes that may be best captured using nonlinear econometric models of the Markov switching type. In fact, REIT returns would display regime shifts that are more abrupt and persistent than in the case of other asset classes. In this paper we ask whether and how simple linear predictability models of the vector autoregressive (VAR) type may be extended to capture the bull and bear patterns typical of many asset classes, including REITs. We find that nonlinearities are so deep that it is impossibile for a large family of VAR models to either produce similar portfolio weights or to yield realized, ex-post out-of-sample long-horizon portfolio performances that may compete with those typical of bull and bear models. A typical investor with intermediate risk aversion and a 5-year horizon ought to be ready to pay an annual fee of up to 5.7 % to have access to forecasts of REIT returns that take their bull and bear dynamics into account instead of simpler, linear forecast.     

Time variation paths of international transmission of stock volatility — US vs. Hong Kong and South Korea

This study examines continuous time variation paths of sensitivities of the Hong Kong and South Korea stock markets to the US stock market and bond market (proxied by long-term interest rates) by using the Flexible Least Squares (FLS) estimation technique. The FLS findings suggest that changes in both the US stock market and US long-term interest rates may simultaneously have significant effects on the Hong Kong stock market in some time periods. In other periods, neither may have significant effects on the Hong Kong stock market. The results also indicate that the South Korea stock market is overall insensitive to changes in the US capital markets. However, it becomes more sensitive in the 1990s. Some macroeconomic variables may explain changes in the sensitivities of the Hong Kong and South Korea stock markets to changes in the US capital markets.     

The Impact of Range Pricing on Marketing Time and Transaction Price: A Better Mousetrap for the Existing Home Market?

In various markets around the country, some real estate professionals are employing a new pricing strategy that involves marketing homes for sale with a price range rather than a single asking price. This strategy is often touted as a mechanism that will attract more potential buyers to look at a house and thus result in reduced marketing times for existing homes, with prices determined by competitive forces. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether houses using range pricing, often referred to as value range marketing, sell in the same amount of time and sell for similar prices as those marketed in the traditional manner. Two staged least squares with a correction for sample selection and Weibull duration models are used to test the hypotheses, employing a sample of 5,852 residential houses that were sold during the period January 1999 to December 2000. In contrast to claims of the strategy’s proponents, the results indicate that houses take longer to sell when using the range pricing strategy after controlling for physical characteristics and market conditions. Furthermore, there is no evidence that this strategy has any significant impact on transaction prices.     

Survival Analysis of a Household Portfolio of Insurance Policies: How Much Time Do You Have to Stop Total Customer Defection?

Customer‐side influences on insurance have been relatively ignored in the literature. Using the household as the unit of analysis, this article focuses on the behavior of households having multiple policies of different types with the same insurance company, and who cancel their first policy. How long after the household's cancellation of the first policy does the insurer have to retain the customer and avoid customer defection on all policies to the competition? And, what customer characteristics are associated with customer loyalty? Using logistic regression and survival analysis techniques, an assessment is made of the probability of total customer withdrawal, and the length of time between first cancellation and subsequent customer withdrawal. Using a European database spanning 54 months of household multiple policyholder behavior, the results show that cancellation of one policy is a very strong indicator that other household policies will be canceled. Further, the insurer can have time to react to retain the customer after the first cancellation, however, this time is significantly dependent on the method used to contact the company, household demographics, and the nature of the household's insurance policy portfolio. Surprisingly, core customers having three or more policies in addition to the canceled policy are more vulnerable to total defection on all policies than noncore customers. Further, the potential customer repelling effects of premium increases seem to wear out after 12 months. Strategic implications of the results are presented.     

Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Causes of U.S. Commercial Bank Failures This Time Around

In this study, we analyze why commercial banks failed during the recent financial crisis. We find that traditional proxies for the CAMELS components, as well as measures of commercial real estate investments, do an excellent job in explaining the failures of banks that were closed during 2009, just as they did in the previous banking crisis of 1985–1992. Surprisingly, we do not find that residential mortgage-backed securities played a significant role in determining which banks failed and which banks survived. Our results offer support for the CAMELS approach to judging the safety and soundness of commercial banks, but call, into serious question the current system of regulatory risk weights and concentration limits on commercial real estate loans.     

The Right Time For The Financial Cooperation——An Interview with Jiang Jianqing, President of ICBC, on His Return From Africa

China and Africa are important strategic partners to each other. In the background of the global financial crisis, this relationship is deepening, economic and trade cooperations     

A commentary on “Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Causes of U.S. Commercial Bank Failures This Time Around”

Cole and White (J Financ Serv Res 2012) show that small banks which failed during the financial crisis–like small banks which faile in previous crises–tended to have high concentration of loans financing commercial real estate and real estate development several years before failure. In contrast, large banks failed during the financial crisis due to the novel strategy of investing in poorly underwritten subprime mortgages. The fact that large banks fail as a resut of changing business models while small banks fail for predictable reasons makes justifies a heightened level of supervision of large banks (consistent with the Dodd-Frank Act).     

A Time Series Analysis of Economical Phenomena in Japan’s Lost Decade (1): Determinacy Property of the Velocity of Money and Equilibrium Solution

The extended velocities of money given by the ratio of NGDP and M₂+CD in Japan’s lost decade are analyzed through the non-linear time series analysis based upon the theory of KM₂O-Langevin equations. The time series of logarithmic returns of some extended velocities of money are judged to have a determinacy property in a specified time domain whose final time coincides with the time 1999q1 when the Bank of Japan took the zero interest rate policy. This implies that there exists a stochastic process with the time series stated above its realization and it satisfies certain functional relation. This gives a meaning from a viewpoint of time series analysis that the velocity of money can be regarded as an equilibrium solution of the demand and the supply between the goods market and the money market.