Studying all possible pairs of eleven major currencies and eleven portfolios in 1976-2008 we show that, when there is no leverage, carry trade is significantly profitable for most currency pairs and portfolios. Positive returns do not diminish in time providing a strong case against the...

Funds of Hedge Funds (FHF) are perceived to be the premier choice of institutional investors for first-time allocations into the alternative investment asset class. While many papers cover the bright side of FHF investing, we in this paper empirically investigate the maximum drawdowns of FHF....

The financial crisis and the rescue measures taken by governments and central banks increased investors' interest in liquidity and in real assets supposed to offer a hedge against inflation. Against this background, we investigate empirically four real assets (real estate, commodities,...

This paper analyzes diversification benefits from international securitized real estate in a mixed-asset context. We apply regression-based mean-variance efficiency tests, conditional on currency-unhedged and fully hedged portfolios to account for foreign exchange risk exposure. From the...

This paper examines the direct private equity investment strategies across sovereign wealth funds and their relationship to the funds' organizational structures. SWFs seem to engage in a form of trend chasing, since they are more likely to invest at home when domestic equity prices are higher,...

Assessments of investors’ risk appetite/aversion stance via indicators often yields results which seem unsatisfactory (see e.g. Illing and Aaron (2005)). Understanding how such indicators work therefore seems essential for further improvements. The present paper seeks to contribute to this...

We use a quantile-based measure of conditional skewness (or asymmetry) that is robust to outliers and therefore particularly suited for recalcitrant series such as emerging market returns. Our study is on the following portfolio returns: developed markets, emerging markets, the world, and...

This paper (i) proposes a simple multi-currency model of speculative foreign exchange (FX) trading, (ii) uses a natural experiment to identify the implied components of the optimal trading strategy, and (iii) proposes a new spectral inference method to strengthen the statistical evidence on the...

This paper provides a broad empirical examination of the major currencies' roles in international capital markets, with a special emphasis on the first year of the euro. A contribution is made as to how to measure these roles, both for international financing as well as for international...

The purpose of this study is to assess the diversification benefits resulting from international asset allocation. In this study, we examine Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in its international context (ICAPM) using the monthly equity returns for 26 countries (18 developed and 8 emerging...