The majority of risk adjusted performance measures (RAPM) currently in use – e.g., Treynor ratio, (?/?)) ratio, Omega index, RoVaR, ‘coherent’ preference criteria, etc. – are incompat- ible with any sensible utility function and would be best avoided. We argue instead for the assessment...

With institutional investors increasingly involved in alternative investments, portfolio optimisation within a large universe of hedge funds has become a key area for research. This paper develops a portfolio construction model that is specifically designed for funds of hedge funds,...

Generalizations of traditional preference criteria such as the Sharpe ratio, the information ratio and the Jensen alpha are obtained by maximizing a certain equivalent excess return (CER) under relevant investment conditions. They are increasing functions of CERs and therefore equivalent...

We design average portfolio insurance (API) strategies with an investment floor and a buffer that is a power of a geometric average of the underlying asset price. We prove that API strategies are optimal for investors with hyperbolic absolute risk aversion who become progressively more risk...

This paper is the first to utilize a direct test for periodic, partially collapsing speculative bubbles in US REIT prices. A long history of data is employed for the All, Mortgage and Equity REIT categories. This approach is more powerful than existing tests and is based on the formulation of a...

While style analysis has been studied extensively in equity markets, applications of this valuable tool for measuring and benchmarking performance and risk in a real estate context are still relatively new. Most previous real estate studies on this topic have identified three investment...

The trustees of funded defined benefit pension schemes must make two vital and inter-related decisions - setting the asset allocation and the contribution rate. While these decisions are usually taken separately, it is argued that they are intimately related and should be taken jointly. The...

This study considers the stock performance of America’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens following the annual survey by Business Ethics. We examine both possible short-term announcement effects around the time of the survey’s publication, and whether longer-term returns are higher for firms that...

We view risk management as an integral part of good management. Risk management should take a balanced view of decision problems encompassing all significant risks and rewards. Operational risks are only one type of risks and therefore are only one piece in the jigsaw puzzle that only makes...

We study the empirical performance of the classical minimum-variance hedging strategy, comparing several econometric models for estimating hedge ratios of crude oil, gasoline and heating oil crack spreads. Given the great variability and large jumps in both spot and futures prices, great care is...