In the past quarter of a century, the pace of structural change in the equity markets has accelerated dramatically and, as it has, regulation has come to play an increasingly central role in the development of market structure. The purpose of Regulation of U.S. Equity Markets is to consider regulation's contribution to the efficiency of the U.S. equity markets. Sharply different opinions are expressed on the matter, as the discussion ranges from Congressional oversight, to SEC involvement in market structure issues, to the self-regulatory responsibilities of the market centers, most notably, the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Within a few years of their liberation from Spanish rule in the 1820s, several of the new Spanish American republics floated loans in London's financial market. All the debtor nations, from Mexico to Chile, had defaulted within five years, a situation which resulted in their exclusion from European capital markets for much of the 19th century. Most studies of such debt approach the subject from the debtor's viewpoint, some arguing that the British government was an economic imperialist. Concentrating on Mexico, this book provides an important corrective, focusing on the creditors, the individual investors who risked their money to buy bonds. These investors ranged from country clergy to politicians of the rank of Benjamin Disraeli.

Thousands of investors lost their money due to Mexico's persistent defaults and failure to pay the promised dividends. They were represented by the Committee of Mexican Bondholders, a London based organization established in 1830 to negotiate a settlement of the debt with the Mexican government. Almost sixty years of futile discussions followed, with the debt rescheduled on several occasions until the final settlement in the 1880s. Costeloe analyzes the negotiations, the bond issues, the identity of the bondholders, the activities of the Committee, and the attitude of the British government. By concentrating on the creditor, he brings a new perspective to the whole issue of Third World or foreign debt in the 19th century.

Researchers, policymakers and commentators have long debated the patterns through which adverse shocks in a few markets may quickly spread to a range of apparently disconnected financial markets causing widespread losses and turmoil. This book uses modern linear and non-linear econometric methods to characterize how shocks to the yield of risky fixed income securities, such as sub-prime asset-backed or low-credit rating sovereign bonds, are transmitted to the yields in other markets. These include equity and corporate bond markets as well as relatively risk-free fixed income securities, such as highly rated asset-backed securities and sovereign bonds from core Eurozone countries. The authors analyse and compare the results from linear and non-linear models to identify and assess four distinct contagion channels characterizing both US and European financial markets. These include the correlated information, risk premium, flight-to-liquidity, and flight-to quality channels. The results of this study support the theory that both investors and policy-makers ought to pay special attention to liquidity and commonalities in the perceptions of the probabilities of default, as channels through which financial shocks propagate.

This work concerns management's ability to anticipate how investors will respond to the investing, financing, and operating decisions they make as they manage their business. Claiming that investor behavior is rational and predictable, as supported by extensive research in financial economics, Richard Altman presents a new kind of reference book: the first to bring reasoned theory and the results of exhaustive worldwide academic research to the interpretation of company stock price movements.

Following an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the issue, Altman devotes two chapters to examining the investing decisions of management that affect asset, unit, and corporate structures. Investor response to financing decisions and financial policy are covered in the next two chapters, and are followed by a review of the response to operating decisions embodied in management's reported earnings and earnings forecasts. This chapter also looks at investor response to investment research and securities analysis. The market for corporate control and management's defense of that market are analyzed in two subsequent sections, while the link between the managerial labor market and managerial performance, pay, and tenure is also thoroughly explored. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of management response to investor decisions. This work will be a unique and valuable tool for management professionals and others in the finance, investment, and banking fields. It will also be a useful resource for business students and for public and academic libraries.

The reforms initiated in 1991 have transformed India's economy and capital market. The book offers a comprehensive evaluation of developments in both sectors from an investor's viewpoint. The potential growth of India's stockmarket is examined as the country progresses with its economic liberalisation. The insights offered into investing in India can be profitably applied by seasoned investors as well as by non-professionals. This exclusive analysis of the Indian market will be of interest to students and policy makers as much as to anyone interested in investing in one of the major markets to have emerged from its seclusion and opened itself up to global investors.

Paul J.J. Welfens and Holger C. Wolf While the economies of Asia and, more recently, South as well as North America have enjoyed sustained high growth, the growth performance of western Europe and in particular continental Europe has been rather modest. Coupled with sizable improvements in labor productivity and - at best - steady capital productivity, growth proved insufficient to sustain employment levels, much less to replicate the US job creation success. Relative inflation performance has been much better: in the run-up to European Monetary Union inflation rates have dramatically converged towards the lower end of the distribution while risk premia on formerly high inflation economies have fallen. Yet, looking forward, the undoubted success in achieving price stability is mitigated by the lackluster growth -and in particular employment -performance. Indeed, the relative little attention paid to initiatives directed at raising economic growth is startling, not only in the light of the US policy record but also in light of the remarkable rebound of those European economies which have aggressively tackled the structural problems, most prominently the UK and Ireland.

This book argues that the development of equity market is a crucial in the construction of a viable financial system for many developing countries. Drawing upon the Emerging Markets Database of the International Finance Corporation (World Bank) and analyzing a wide range of previously unavailable data, Sudweeks identifies the factors conducive to equity market development, and why these markets may be of interest to international portfolio managers. The book is written in non-technical language and brings together for the first time a variety of different views and experience in equity market development from the private, public, and academic sectors.

Following a general introduction, Sudweeks addresses the theory behind the development of equity markets. Separate chapters discuss the benefits and costs of equity markets in developing countries, the general conditions for equity market development, measures to develop the supply and demand of shares, and portfolio implications of investing in developing countries. Three case studies examine equity market development in Brazil, India, and Korea to determine which factors have had an impact on market development. Sudweeks concludes that equity market development must be part of an overall financial development program, that equity market development is a complex, but somewhat predictable activity, and that successful equity market development requires a long-term commitment on the part of governments and key players.

Cross-Border Investing: The Case of Central and Eastern Europe offers a view that reflects two main hypotheses: -You cannot understand foreign direct investment (FDI) trends and developments unless you understand the company's motives to invest, -You cannot understand a company's cross-border investment decision-making unless you understand what the investment area offers.
This is the reason why this text builds up a relationship between the world of companies' decision-makers and that of the policy makers in the public sector. It does so by linking the business processes to the factors that together constitute the location profile of a country or a region.
Based on more than 15 years of practical experience as well as research in the field of FDI, Dr Julia Djarova offers a Cross-Border Investment Model to describe the logic behind the decision-making process concerning foreign investments made by companies. The model is illustrated by a number of case studies of multinationals.

This book provides a comprehensive overview for various segments of the global credit default swap (CDS) markets, touching upon how they were affected by the recent financial turmoil. The book uses empirical analysis on credit default swap markets, applying advanced econometric methodologies to the time series data. It covers not only well-studied sovereign credit default swap markets but also sector credit default swap indices (i.e., CDS index for the banking sector) and corporate credit default swap indices (i.e., Markit iTraxx Japan CDS index), which have not been fully examined by the previous literature. The book also investigates causality and co-movement among several credit default swap markets, or between CDS and other financial markets.

Building upon a wide range of literatures, this book argues that international regulatory institutions become stronger when oligopolistic institutional arrangements decay and competitive pressures intensify. This is shown to be the case for global finance by the study of two inter-state institutions - the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions, and of the international banking and securities industries which they seek to regulate. There is also the development of the concept of "private" regimes.

Many large corporations delegate investment decision-making authority to their divisions. Because they are better informed, divisional managers should be able to make better decisions than corporate headquarters. However, they can use this informational advantage to pursue their own interests. The objective of this work is to analyze the problem of delegated decision-making within firms when investment projects are characterized by the possibility to make subsequent decisions after the initial investment decision has been made. By analyzing this question, the monograph combines and unifies two important lines of literature: on the one hand the literature on controlling investment decisions, on the other hand the investment valuation literature.

This text brings together a number of research studies, all of which examine the behaviour of foreign exchange rates. The main focus of the collection is on empirical characterization of high-frequency exchange rate data. The pioneering studies demonstrate and explain, amongst other things, the regular patterns in intra-day foreign exchange rate activity, the effects of macroeconomic news of rates and analyze the profitability of technical trading rules in these markets. The collection should be of use to students, academics and practitioners who are interested in exchange rate dynamics.

Frontier Emerging Equity Markets Securities Price Behavior and Valuation uses the Russian example to illustrate the intricate mechanics of frontier emerging equity market analysis. Frontier markets are those equity markets that do not benefit from the same degree of securities transparency and information dissemination as future emerging markets. In many cases, frontier equity markets are those which have been created almost literally overnight, without the infrastructure and institutional readiness of the nations in which they are located. During the 1990s, frontier emerging markets have formed a new investment asset class which requires a very different set of valuation metrics from mature emerging markets. In developing a multi-stage approach to the understanding and valuing of such markets, this book uses the case of the Russian frontier equity market to illustrate topics such as the relationship between equity market infrastructure and valuation during the genesis' period of an emerging financial market; evolving market efficiency; and the crucial role of depository receipt programs in the development of these markets. Further, this book develops the first comprehensive framework for valuing a frontier equity market. The role of equity risk premium, as it affects early dynamic equity valuation, is also covered in order to illuminate important drivers of securities price performance. The book closes by discussing the philology of the frontier market valuation debate, in which every market participant is an important purveyor of information and a contributor to the final valuation dimension of equities. The main asset used to present the empirical concepts is a complete research database drawn from actual frontier market investing, which previously had been unavailable to academic researchers. As an active institutional asset management professional at a major Wall Street investment firm, the author marries academic theories, such as market efficiency and market segmentation, to the real world of high stakes and high risk frontier market investing. This book illustrates the applicability and, in some cases, the uselessness of financial theory when applied to this new and rising asset class. It opens the discussion of equity valuation theory for an environment where many conventional rules of asset price determination need to be rewritten. As the first research-level monograph exclusively dedicated to frontier emerging equity market analysis, it offers a unique dual perspective on how academic financial research finds it a complementary and sometimes antagonistic counterpart of real-life investment decision-making. This book can help both professional investors and students of finance to understand frontier equity market valuation and development.

This book is the first to directly address Asia's new rich with an easy-to-follow guide to investment and the world of global finance. There are currently approximately 15 million high net worth households in the world today, a number that is growing by 900,000 new millionaires in the world each year. Many of the Asian new rich, however, lack even basic information about investment strategies and how to put their wealth to work. With rich experience in the private sector, Bruce Von Cannon makes it seem easy in this enjoyable and readable new book.

Robo-Advisory is a field that has gained momentum over recent years, propelled by the increasing digitalization and automation of global financial markets. More and more money has been flowing into automated advisory, raising essential questions regarding the foundations, mechanics, and performance of such solutions. However, a comprehensive summary taking stock of this new solution at the intersection of finance and technology with consideration for both aspects of theory and implementation has so far been wanting. This book offers such a summary, providing unique insights into the state of Robo-Advisory. Drawing on a pool of expert authors from within the field, this edited collection aims at being the vital go-to resource for academics, students, policy-makers, and practitioners alike wishing to engage with the topic. Split into four parts, the book begins with a survey of academic literature and its key insights paired with an analysis of market developments in Robo-Advisory thus far. The second part tackles specific questions of implementation, which are complemented by practical case studies in Part III. Finally, the fourth part looks ahead to the future, addressing questions of key importance such as artificial intelligence, big data, and social networks. Thereby, this timely book conveys both a comprehensive grasp of the status-quo as well as a guiding outlook onto future trends and developments within the field.

In a Ponzi scheme, new investments are used to pay existing investors, to cover the cost of salespersons, and to finance the Ponzi schemer's satisfying lifestyle. Although Charles Ponzi recruited investors in Boston in 1919 and died in 1949, his design and mode of operation are alive and well today. Indeed, losses from Ponzi schemes in the United States are equal to losses from shoplifting. Ponzi schemes catch in their net highly sophisticated individuals and institutions as well as low-income and middle-income investors, and these schemes have attracted investors all over the world, in Russia, England, India, Albania, Romania, Portugal, Costa Rica, and elsewhere. Looking into the innumerable cases of Ponzi schemes throughout the years, Tamar Frankel observes that even though patterns began to emerge in the stories of con artists and their victims' behavior, the main puzzles still remain: How do con artists dazzle and lure wealthy and educated individuals and representatives of large institutions to hand over huge sums of money? How do con artists divert investors' attention from the soft spots of their stories? And while there are so many books and articles about Ponzi schemes, their warnings and constant advice on how to detect and avoid con artists go unheeded. In The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle, Frankel explores con artists' fascinating power of persuasion and deception, and analyzes their subtle signals that mimic truth and honesty. She identifies the reasons for the local and global success and longevity of such schemes and seeks to understand the nature of the con artists and their victims. She combines the many stories of Ponzi schemes, derived mostly from court cases and newspaper articles, to show the patterns of such frauds, the nature of the con artists, and character of their victims. These patterns tell us much about human nature, about our society, and about ourselves. The book first analyzes the design and pattern of the con artists' attractive offers and how they hide deceptions, then deals with the ways in which schemes are advertised and sold. Next, it focuses on the core of con artists' success, then discusses the characters of con artists and their victims. Finally, Frankel offers a number of observations on the lessons we can learn from these stories and analyses. She concludes that our attitude to con artists is ambivalent and uncertain perhaps because their behavior is so close to the behavior of honest people; or perhaps because they act like the social leaders with whom they are likely to mingle, or perhaps their actions are necessary to shake up a complacent society. Therefore, she writes, self-protection from charming, dangerous con artists must involve self-examination: once we recognize our own tendencies we can better protect ourselves from their toxic attraction.

This book is split into four distinct sections to provide a complete account of investment performance measurement. The first section examines the development of the concept of performance measurement with the evolution of benchmarks and the increasing sophistication of performance analysis. The practical implications of performance measurement are tackled in the second section, with particular emphasis on the calculations that can be used to derive a rate of return for a fund and risk is also examined in detail. The third section covers the performance measurement of pension funds over the last 25 years and the lessons that can be learned about the investment performance and measurement process. The final section considers the future prospects for performance measurement and proposes potential future directions for the measurement of investment performance.

In 1884, Charles Dow, the Wall Street Journal's famous first editor, published the first stock market average... and in the years after, he formulated, through his editorials, a wide-ranging economic philosophy that has come to be known as "Dow's Theory." In fact, S.A. Nelson coined the term when he collected Dow's editorials together in this 1902 volume. Topics discussed include: methods of reading the market cutting losses short the danger in overtrading the recurrence of crises the tipster and much more. Dow's observations and Nelson's commentary sound strikingly modern even a century later, and remain vital components of an intelligent understanding of fundamental concepts of the stock market. S.A. NELSON was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal during the early 20th-century.

In the last two decades the Tokyo Stock Exchange implemented several important reforms in regulations, market trading mechanisms, and IT trading systems. In this book we analyze the impact of the evolution of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), at the same time discussing reforms in stock trading by related accounting standards and legal regulations. With daily stock return and market microstructure data, we analyze how these reforms have significantly influenced the pricing structure and price discovery process of traded stocks, as well as the trading style of institutional investors, individual investors, and high frequency traders. The research methodology we employ is primarily standard market microstructure tests as well as methods used in conventional empirical financial economics. We simultaneously use the most relevant concepts in these fields for our empirical tests and provide a comprehensive picture of trading, price discovery, pricing structure, and public vs. private information dissemination.

Expert guidance on managing credit risk in bond portfolios

Managing Credit Risk in Corporate Bond Portfolios shows readers how to measure and manage the risks of a corporate bond portfolio against its benchmark. This comprehensive guide explores a wide range of topics surrounding credit risk and bond portfolios, including the similarities and differences between corporate and government bond portfolios, yield curve risk, default and credit migration risk, Monte Carlo simulation techniques, and portfolio selection methods.

Srichander Ramaswamy, PhD (Basel, Switzerland), is Head of Investment Analysis at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor of Banking and Finance, University of Lausanne.

Praise for "Invest Like A Fox. . . Not Like A Hedgehog"

"We've known Bob for years as Trustee and Chairman at Fairfax County Employees' Retirement System. Under Bob's leadership, Fairfax County has moved ahead of the curve by pursuing forward-looking and innovative investment solutions that are enormously beneficial for its members. We pay very close attention to what Bob has to say."
--Dan Bernstein, Director of Research, Bridgewater Associates, Inc.

"A thoughtful, thorough evaluation of the dynamic processes required to achieve investment success. This book clearly establishes that the only formula for success is a disciplined focus on the way to analyze markets, not on statistical formulas that trigger preprogrammed responses. The essential focus on managing risk and the willingness to pursue strategies that diverge from the crowd are pearls of wisdom that would be worthwhile reading for individual and institutional investors alike."
--Thomas H. Weaver, CFA, Managing Director, FrontPoint Partners, Morgan Stanley Investment Management

In the competitive world of investing, most individuals earn less than 7% annually--even during good markets. Individual investors are not the only ones reaping lower than expected returns. Many institutional investors, such as mutual funds and pension plans, frequently earn less than their targeted goals.

While making money in today's investment arena can be difficult, the key to success lies in acquiring the adaptability of a fox and abandoning the rigid beliefs that define a hedgehog. With Invest Like a Fox . . . Not Like a Hedgehog, financial professional Robert Carlson will show you exactly how this can be accomplished.

Written in a straightforward and accessible style, "Invest Like a Fox . . . Not Like a Hedgehog" outlines a proven approach to long-term investing that focuses on reducing risk while improving returns. Filled with in-depth insights and expert advice, this detailed guide will change the way you think about investing and assist you in developing an investment strategy that will work in today's dynamic markets.