The objective of this study is to identify the thematic areas for cooperation among the Muslim countries in the field of portfolio investment. The study covers the investment principles of return maximization, risk minimization and diversification. The core area of the study is to explore the...

This paper studies the particularities of portfolio selection on the Romanian stock market using the risk-return maximization criteria introduced by Harry Markowitz (1952). We used daily prices for the 36 most liquid companies traded on Bucharest Stock Exchange during January 2010 – March 2012...

The paper develops measures of home bias for 48 countries over the period 2001 to 2011 by employing various models: International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM), Mean-Variance, Minimum-Variance, Bayes-Stein, Bayesian and Multi-Prior. ICAPM country portfolio weights are computed relative to...

While the empirical literature has often documented a “default anomaly”, i.e. a negative relation between default risk and stock returns, standard theory suggests that default risk should be priced in the cross-section. In this paper, we provide an explanation for this apparent puzzle using...

We investigate if using a CPPI-style methodology it is possible to “improve” the distribution of portfolio returns from the point of view of an investor holding a balanced portfolio with different allocations in Equities, and whose concern is to avoid significant negative returns and in...

We study the behavior and interaction of systematic and idiosyncratic components of risk in a cross-section of U.K. stocks. We find no clear evidence of a trend in any component of total risk, but we document different “regimes” in the behavior of each component of total risk, in their...

The theoretical aspects of calendar effects and anomalies on the Ukrainian stock market and the empirical evidence of daily, monthly and quarterly returns of PFTS-index and their volatility are examined. A strong evidence of a calendar effect i.e. December effect on Ukrainian PFTS exchange was...

The sharp raise of the price of agricultural commodities between 2006 and 2008 seems to have a rationalization that goes beyond the mere interaction between supply and demand. Data evidence suggests that financial factors, rather than real determinants, played an important role in determining...

This paper proposes a straightforward Markov-switching asset allocation model, which reduces the market exposure to periods of high volatility. The main purpose of the study is to examine the performance of a regime-based asset allocation strategy under realistic assumptions, compared to a buy...

The question of whether foreign investments should be systematically hedged against currency risk has not been clearly answered to date. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have provided contradictory conclusions. This paper examines to what extent foreign bonds and equities are exposed...