While conventional academic finance emphasizes theories such as Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) and the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), the emerging field of behavioral finance investigates the cognitive factors and emotional issues that impact the decision-making process of individuals,...

The goal of this paper is to present an original and simple analysis aimed to understand why investing in capital markets can be very dangerous for "naive investors". Stock markets display often exploding volatility. They are characterized by instability and subject to external shocks. If...

The recent financial crisis renewed concerns about a possible destabilizing impact of derivatives trading. Despite a very active research, the question whether or not derivatives tend to destabilize financial markets has not yet been answered to satisfaction. This contribution aims to revise the...

This paper examines both the linear and nonlinear causal relationships between crude oil price changes and stock market returns for the United States. In particular, the study applied a battery of unit root tests to ascertain the time series properties of crude oil price changes and stock market...

The liquidity of an asset in modern financial markets is a key and, yet, elusive concept. A market is often said to be liquid when the prevailing structure of transactions provides a prompt and secure link between the demand and supply of assets, thus delivering low costs of transaction....

The main result of this paper consists in the resolution of the inverse problem for the Black-Cox (1976) model, using the method proposed by Sukhomlin (2007). Based on the backward approach, we obtain an exact expression of the implied volatility expressed as a function of quantifiable market...

This paper examines the factors that affect inflows - outflows of capital in bond mutual funds that operated in the Greek market during the period 1997-2005. Investors in bond mutual funds do not seek for high gross returns in order to determine their investment decisions in contrast with...

Standard consumption-based models typically fail in pricing asset returns. In a famous seminal paper, Mehra and Prescott (1985), using a standard consumption model, prove the presence of a puzzle (i.e. equity premium puzzle). The recent financial literature still has to provide a convincing...

This study proposes a process for observing evidence of insider trading in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). This is performed by building an environment which, based upon previous research, common sense and information technology, may be used for observing such evidence. It is designed to be...

Over the last two decades, a number of financial disasters have occurred due to failure in risk management procedures. If some, as the Asian financial crisis, had a very much more muted global impact (even though they sent shock waves through global financial markets, the main damage were fairly...