Sell-side fundamental analyst reports are highly valued in the financial industry and include three main quantitative components: earnings forecasts, target prices, and buy/sell recommendations. An important question for investment managers is then, how accurate are the forecasts of fundamental...

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...

This research adds to the current literature of measuring fund persistence by introducing two novel quantitative methods. Firstly, an existing method based on the Markov modelling of a fund's Morningstar rating over time is examined. An improvement to this model is then suggested based on the...

Near-the-money options experience a rapid decline in time value over the weeks leading up to the expiry date. A possible strategy to alleviate the impact of the time decay effect is to unwind the hedge prior to expiry. However, appreciable time value is present for a reason: it is an indication...

At its core, portfolio and risk management is about gathering and processing market-related data in order to make effective investment decisions. To this end, risk and return statistics are estimated from relevant financial data and used as inputs within the investment process. It is this...

Offshore assets present investors with an increased investment universe and additional opportunities for reward, but embedded exposure to exchange rates can result in additional risk. In this work, we consider a global equity portfolio of five equity indices (US, Japan, Europe, UK and Canada),...

This paper addresses several theoretical and practical issues in option pricing and implied volatility calibration in a fractional Black-Scholes market. In particular, we discuss how the fractional Black-Scholes model admits a non-constant implied volatility term structure when the Hurst...

Risk factors and systematic factor strategies are fast becoming an integral part of the global asset management landscape. In this report, we provide an introduction to, and critique of, the factor investing paradigm in a South African setting. We initially discuss the general factor...