Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the validity and predictability of technical analysis in the Taiwan stock market. Bootstrapped tests of White (2000) and of Hansen (2005) are employed to ascertain whether there exists a superior trading rule among two broadly used sets of technical analysis. One coming from Brock et al. (1992) and the other from Sullivan et al. (1999). Moreover, this study brings together powerful bootstrapped tests along with two institutional adjustments to ascertain the efficacy of technical analysis: (1) non-synchronous trading and (2) transaction costs. The empirical results indicate that this triad-data snooping, non-synchronous trading and transaction costs, has a great impact on the performance of technical analysis. In fact, the Taiwan stock market stands for market efficiency, and economical profits cannot be rendered from technical analysis in this market.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that the introduction of exchange traded derivative warrants has on the underlying securities' price, volume and volatility in the Australian market. The impact that derivative trading has on the underlying security is essential to our understanding of security market behaviour and important in the fields of market efficiency and pricing of derivatives. The major findings of significant negative abnormal returns, reduction in skewness, no change in beta and small changes in variance are consistent with recent research findings in the US, UK and Hong Kong. However, the findings of derivative warrant listing resulting in decreased trading volume is in contrast with most prior research in the field. The results of this research, showing a negative price impact, decreased volume and no change in risk, and other recent empirical findings such as Mayhew and Mihov (2000) or Faff and Hillier (2003), indicate a requirement for further development of the theoretical frameworks.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore a high-frequency tactical asset allocation strategy. In particular, we investigate the profitability of momentum trading and contrarian investment strategies for equities listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). In these two strategies we take into consideration the short-selling restrictions imposed by the ASX on the stocks used. Within our sample portfolios we look at the relationship between stock returns and past trading volume for these equities. This research also investigates the seasonal aspects of contrarian portfolios and observes weekly, monthly and yearly effects. We report significant contrarian profits for the period investigated (from 2001 to 2006) and show that contrarian profit is a persistent feature for the strategies examined. We also document that contrarian portfolios earn returns as high as 6.54% per day for portfolios with no short-selling restrictions, and 4.71% in the restricted model. The results also support the view that volume traded affects stock returns, and show that market imperfections such as short-selling restrictions affect investors' returns.

The main purpose of this paper is to show that the lack of misreaction to common information in previous research may be due to methodological weakness. As of now, there is no evidence which suggests that stocks under-react to common information at short horizons and over-react at longer horizons. Even if stocks under- and/or over-react to common information at the security level, the reaction pattern may not be evident at the market level if only some stocks have such a pattern and their capitalization is small. We show in this manuscript that the lack of misreaction to common information in previous research may be due to methodological weakness. By focusing on the stock level reaction, we find a statistically and economically significant reaction pattern to common information as the behavioral models suggest. This finding thus complements the findings of stock misreaction to firm-specific information, and may benefit researchers attempting to understand investor behavior.

The main purpose of this paper is to model bank spread behavior under capital regulation and deposit insurance. Comparative static results show that an increase in the capital-to-deposits ratio or the deposit insurance decreases the bank's interest margin or spread. It is also shown that an increase in the equity that implies its opportunity cost of the coupon rate on the fixed leg decreases the margin. Previous research on market-based evaluations of bank equity has modeled the bank as a narrowing banking firm with risky assets and insured liabilities. The equity of the bank is viewed as a call option on its risky assets. No attempt was made to explicitly analyze a synergy between lending and deposit-taking, and, in our view, the equity of the bank is viewed as a swap option on coupon bonds. Synergy banking, particularly in the return to retail banking, is important in distinguishing banks from other lenders such as finance companies and mutual fund institutions. These other lenders call for the breaking up of banks into separate lending and deposit-taking operations, respectively. Our findings provide an insight for synergy banking operations concerning regulated bank spread behavior in the return to retail banking.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on some of the standard models of accounting earnings and returns relations mainly collected through the literature. Standard models such as earnings level and earnings changes, among others, have been investigated in this study. Models that correspond better to the data drawn from the Athens Stock Exchange have been selected. Models I, II, V, VII and IX have statistically significant coefficients of explanatory variables. In addition, model II with the MSE (minimum value of squared residuals) loss function in ARIMAX (2,0,2) is prevalent. Models that include prior earnings in various forms using levels, changes in price and changes in earnings, change in price to beginning price, lagged parameters and differentiated price models have statistically significant explanatory power.