We test whether the unconventional monetary policy (UMP) announcements by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank represent a risk factor for the hedge fund industry as a whole and for ten commonly used strategies in particular. Using modified event studies and Markov switching models,...

The performance of dynamic trading and investment strategies can be difficult to predict. Although not without its problems, analysis of the historical performance of a strategy can provide valuable insight into its general risk and return properties. Furthermore, historical analysis allows one...

We derive the price of inflation-indexed bonds of which the payments are linked to a lagged price index, and solve for the optimal bond portfolio under both inflation and indexation lags in closed form. We show that indexation lags increase the number of state variables characterizing both the...

Economic shocks can have diverse effects on financial market dynamics at different time horizons, yet traditional portfolio management tools do not distinguish between short- and long-term components in alpha, beta, and covariance estimators. In this paper, we apply spectral analysis techniques...

We develop and implement linear formulations of general N-th order Stochastic Dominance criteria for discrete probability distributions. Our approach is based on a piece-wise polynomial representation of utility and its derivatives and can be implemented by solving a relatively small system of...

ETFs and index funds have grown at very rapid rates in recent years. Originally launched to track some large liquid indices in developed markets, they now also concern less liquid asset classes such as emerging market bonds. Illiquidity certainly affects the quality of the replication, and in...

An exploratory study is conducted to assess the persistence of cointegration among U.S. equities. In other words, if a pair of equities is found to be cointegrated in one period, is it likely that it will be found to be cointegrated in the subsequent period? An examination is performed of pairs...

This paper studies the predictive performance of multivariate models at forecasting the (excess) returns of portfolios mimicking the Market, Size, Value, Momentum, and Low Volatility factors isolated in asset pricing research. We evaluate the accuracy of the point forecasts of a number of linear...

It is now an accepted fact that the majority of financial markets worldwide are neither normal nor constant, and South Africa is no exception. One idea that can be used to understand such markets and has been gaining popularity recently is that of regimes and regime-switching models. In this...

Building on the increased interest in the spillover effects among oil prices and other financial assets, this paper examines dynamic connectedness and contagion effects of their implied volatility shocks. We then proceed to the examination of the optimal hedging strategies and optimal portfolio...