Purpose – Academic research has shown that diversification today may not only include stocks and bonds but also alternative investments like hedge funds. However, practical and effective methods to identify the hedge fund styles that really enhance the risk return characteristics of a...

Directors' Dealings have been extensively analysed especially for U.S. and U.K. stock markets. This event study is meant to bridge the gap for Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The question to be investigated is whether board members and other company insiders earn abnormal returns with market...

Most research on the performance and risk of hedge funds are based on calculations that just use the data from one index provider. Also most product providers and even more and more investors are using hedge fund indices for benchmarking purposes. As some academic articles pointed out, the world...

The investment in commodities is starting to be more important during the last years. The paper describes the characteristics of financially important commodities. In many cases a passive investment in an index is most suitable. As the GSCI is found to be the most important, its underlying...

The paper examines the key drivers of gold investment. Since 2000 the gold price has risen drastically, making gold an interesting add-on to a portfolio. As gold futures have negative roll returns, gold pool accounts are characterized by high credit risk and physical possession of gold means...

This paper discusses the management of loan commitments (Kreditzusagen). First, we elaborate on the necessary steps to efficiently manage liquidity facilities. In particular, the drawdown pattern of single commitments and a portfolio of such commitments have to be modelled. Based on the drawdown...

This paper studies 'Stylised Facts' and 'Determinants' of short-and long-term CDS-spreads of banks. As short-term spreads we choose 6M-, as long-term spreads we choose 5Y-spreads. In the section 'Stylised Facts' we found that the correlation between short-and long-term spreads for the total...

Loss Given Default (LGD) is a major element for pricing credits and bonds. As there has been a substantial amount of research during the last years, this paper aims to give an overview. Initially, defaults and recovery definitions for credits and the differences to bonds are discussed. A survey...

Hedge Funds are often considered as a possibility for optimizing traditional portfolios due to their alternative risk factors and sources of return. But as the return distribution of hedge funds shows negative skewness and excess kurtosis, using portfolio optimization techniques, based on the...