Download or read book Essays on Fitting Factor Models for Asset Returns written by Sangeetha Srinivasan and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Factor models are used to describe the fundamental drivers of financial asset returns. There are 3 types: time-series factor, statistical factor and fundamental factor models. While factor models have existed for almost 60 years, industry-wide adoption with factor-based investing has surged in the last decade. This dissertation is centered on factorAnalytics, an open source R package co-developed with other UW students and faculty members, that demystifies the industry black-box models, making model fitting tools readily available for any interested academic or practitioner. Chapter 1 compares the characteristics of the three types of models in terms of model specification, estimation, interpretation and various in-sample and out-of-sample performance metrics using S&P 500 stock returns. Like Connor (1995), we find that the fundamental factor model outperforms the time-series and statistical factor models since it makes use of additional information on asset-specific characteristics. Moreover, we find that adding statistical factor(s) extracted from the residuals of time-series or fundamental factor models, or, fitting fundamental factors to the residuals of a time-series factor model, to create hybrid models, further improves performance. Investment management firms need to understand peer positioning for a variety of reasons, including risk management. Factor models provide a framework to estimate peer exposures, especially useful when holdings-based information is lacking. Chapter 2 presents a multi-asset time-series factor model constructed from long-short portfolios of asset class index returns, applied to peer-average returns from the Morningstar U.S. fund allocation categories. We show that factors are better than asset classes for assessing unknown exposures and decomposing risk in multi-asset portfolios. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to create more efficient, better risk-diversified portfolios using factors when making allocation decisions. We use the multi-factor model to construct equal-asset-risk and equal-factor-risk portfolios and compare them to the equal-weighted and minimum-variance portfolios. We also show that a zero-investment equal-factor-risk portfolio sleeve helps bridge the gap between pure risk parity and traditional portfolios, enhancing Sharpe ratio across all risk categories. Chapters 3-5 contain vignettes for each type of factor model that describe and demonstrate model fitting, factor risk (volatility, value-at-risk and expected shortfall) decomposition, and related S3 generic methods.

Download or read book Essays on Factor Models in Asset Pricing written by Alberto Ciampini and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Honor of Peter C B Phillips written by Thomas B. Fomby and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-21 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume honors Professor Peter C.B. Phillips' many contributions to the field of econometrics. The topics include non-stationary time series, panel models, financial econometrics, predictive tests, IV estimation and inference, difference-in-difference regressions, stochastic dominance techniques, and information matrix testing.

Download or read book Two Essays on Asset Pricing written by Dan Luo and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Two Essays on Asset Pricing" by Dan, Luo, 罗丹, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: This thesis centers around the pricing and risk-return tradeoff of credit and equity derivatives. The first essay studies the pricing in the CDS Index (CDX) tranche market, and whether these instruments have been reasonably priced and integrated within the financial market generally, both before and during the financial crisis. We first design a procedure to value CDO tranches using an intensity-based model which falls into the affine model class. The CDX tranche spreads are efficiently explained by a three-factor version of this model, before and during the crisis period. We then construct tradable CDX tranche portfolios, representing the three default intensity factors. These portfolios capture the same exposure as the S&P 500 index optionmarket, to a market crash. We regress these CDX factors against the underlying index, the volatility factor, and the smirk factor, extracted from the index option returns, and against the Fama-French market, size and book-to-market factors. We finally argue that the CDX spreads are integrated in the financial market, and their issuers have not made excess returns. The second essay explores the specifications of jumps for modeling stock price dynamics and cross-sectional option prices. We exploit a long sample of about 16 years of S&P500 returns and option prices for model estimation. We explicitly impose the time-series consistency when jointly fitting the return and option series. We specify a separate jump intensity process which affords a distinct source of uncertainty and persistence level from the volatility process. Our overall conclusion is that simultaneous jumps in return and volatility are helpful in fitting the return, volatility and jump intensity time series, while time-varying jump intensities improve the cross-section fit of the option prices. In the formulation with time-varying jump intensity, both the mean jump size and standard deviation of jump size premia are strengthened. Our MCMC approach to estimate the models is appropriate, because it has been found to be powerful by other authors, and it is suitable for dealing with jumps. To the best of our knowledge, our study provides the the most comprehensive application of the MCMC technique to option pricing in affine jump-diffusion models. DOI: 10.5353/th_b4819935 Subjects: Capital assets pricing model

Download or read book Factor Models on Explaining Firm s Returns in a Credit Risk Context written by Stefan Heini and published by . This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1, University of Leicester (School of Management), language: English, abstract: Scientists use factor models to try to understand the relationship between risk and asset returns and to make estimations of the likely development of the returns in the future (Sharpe 2001, p.1). Today, two of the most renowned factor models to estimate expected returns of an asset or a firm are the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), introduced by Treynor (1962), Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965) and Mossin (1966), and the three-factor model of Fama and French of 1992 (Bartholdy and Peare 2004, p.408). While the CAPM claims the existence of a positive linear relationship between the volatility/risk (market beta) and expected returns (Bali and Cakici 2004, p.57), Fama and French state that their three-factor model (3FM) has an improved performance in estimating returns as - so they claim - size and book-to-market equity have significant predictive power, too (Fama and French 1992, p.427).

Download or read book Three Essays in International Finance written by Byong-Ju Lee and published by Stanford University. This book was released on 2011 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis consists of three essays on international finance. The first essay is "Exchange rates and Fundamentals". A new open interest rate parity condition that takes account of economic fundamentals is developed from stochastic discount factors (SDFs) of two countries. Through this parity condition, business cycles or fundamentals are linked to exchange rates. Key empirical findings from this parity condition are as follows. First, this model beats the random walk hypothesis: economic fundamentals explain exchange rate movements for high interest rate currencies. Exchange rates of low interest rate currencies act like a random walk because they are less correlated with fundamentals owing to their low risk. For example, U.S. business cycles explain the direction of changes in exchange rates against the dollar. The same thing is true for Japan. Second, this model resolves the forward premium puzzle: the forward premium puzzle is not a general characteristic as regarded in previous studies. It happens when the risk awareness of investors is low, during economic expansions and for low risk currencies. The second essay is "Carry Trade and Global Financial Instability". Carry trade, an opportunistic investment strategy that takes advantage of interest rate differential across countries, is identified the cause of the large-scale depreciations of peripheral currencies in the later half of 2008. A simultaneous equations model, which is derived from a conceptual partial equilibrium model for a local foreign exchange market, is estimated from a cross-sectional sample. The results suggest that the larger appreciation of the yen than the dollar was brought about by a lack of the local supply of the yen rather than a more severe crunch of yen credits. The third essay is "The Economic Origin of Letters of Credit". This essay discusses the economic origin of letters of credit, an instrument widely used in international trade. A game theoretical analysis shows that letters of credit improve efficiency in trade settlements, increasing returns in trade. A few notable facts on letters of credit are discussed. First, the new institution is adopted by merchant banks to maximize their profits and in the process, an improvement in efficiency of international transactions is obtained. Second, the organization established by the legacy institution, bills of exchange, played a critical role in adopting the new institution. Third, the legal enforcement is not essential in this economic institution. Finally, two drivers are identified that improve efficiency of transactions: concentration and projection.

Download or read book Asset Pricing with L vy Jump Processes written by Chayawat Ornthanalai and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing written by Irina Pimenova and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, I revisit two problems in empirical asset pricing. In Chapter 1, I propose a methodology to evaluate the validity of linear asset pricing factor models under short sale restrictions using a regression-based test. The test is based on the revised null hypothesis that intercepts obtained from regressing excess returns of test assets on factor returns, usually referred to as alphas, are non-positive. I show that under short sale restrictions a much larger set of models is supported by the data than without restrictions. In particular, the Fama-French five-factor model augmented with the momentum factor is rejected less often than other models. In Chapter 2, I investigate patterns of equity premium predictability in international capital markets and explore the robustness of common predictive variables. In particular, I focus on predictive regressions with multiple predictors: dividend-price ratio, four interest rate variables, and inflation. To obtain precise estimates, two estimation methods are employed. First, I consider all capital markets jointly as a system of regressions. Second, I take into account uncertainty about which potential predictors forecast excess returns by employing spike-and-slab prior. My results suggest evidence in favor of predictability is weak both in- and out-of-sample and limited to a few countries. The strong predictability observed on the U.S. market is rather exceptional. In addition, my analysis shows that considering model uncertainty is essential as it leads to a statistically significant increase of investors' welfare both in- and out-of-sample. On the other hand, the welfare increase associated with considering capital markets jointly is relatively modest. However, it leads to reconsider the relative importance of predictive variables because the variables that are statistically significant predictors in the country-specific regressions are insignificant when the capital markets are studied jointly. In particular, my results suggest that the in-sample evidence in favor of the interest rate variables, that are believed to be among the most robust predictors by the literature, is spurious and is mostly driven by ignoring the cross-country information. Conversely, the dividend-price ratio emerges as the only robust predictor of future stock returns.

Download or read book Essays on Applications of the Factor Model written by Xiaolin Sun and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estimating the volatilities and correlations of asset returns plays an important role in portfolio and risk management. As of late, interest in the estimation of the covariance matrix of large dimensional portfolios has increased. Estimating large dimensional covariance poses a challenge in that the cross-sectional dimension is often similar to or bigger than the number of observations available. Simple estimators are often poorly conditioned with some small eigenvalues, and so are unsuitable for many real world applications, including portfolio optimization and tracking error minimization. The first chapter introduces our two large dimensional covariance matrix estimators. We estimate the large dimensional realized covariance matrix by using the methods of asymptotic principal components analysis based factor modeling and singular value decomposition. In the second chapter, we show though simulation that our proposed estimators are closer to the true covariance matrix than the current popular shrinkage estimator. We also simulate conducting the out sample portfolio performance tests and find that the portfolios constructed based on our proposed estimators have lower risk than portfolios constructed using the shrinkage matrix. Using S&P 500 stocks from 1926 to 2011, we back test our proposed covariance matrix. In addition, the portfolios constructed based on our proposed estimators exhibit lower risk than portfolios constructed using the shrinkage matrix. The third chapter proposes a new volatility index--a cross-sectional volatility index of residuals using factor model. The cross-sectional volatility index moves closely with the VIX for the S&P 500 stock universe. It is a non-parametric, model-free volatility index, which could be estimated at any frequency for any region, sector, and style of world equity market and also does not depend on any option pricing. We provide some interpretation of the cross-sectional volatility index of residuals as a proxy for aggregate economic uncertainty, and show a high correlation between the VIX index and the corresponding cross-sectional volatility index of residuals based on the S&P 500 universe. Our results show that the portfolio hedged based on the cross-sectional volatility index of residuals has a much higher Sharpe ratio than the portfolio without hedge. Overall, these findings suggest that the cross-sectional volatility index of residuals is intimately related to other volatility measures where and when such measures are available, and that it can be used as a reliable proxy for volatility when such measures are not available.

Download or read book Essays on Asset Pricing Models written by Yan Li and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation contains three chapters. Chapter one proposes a nonparametric method to evaluate the performance of a conditional factor model in explaining the cross section of stock returns. There are two tests: one is based on the individual pricing error of a conditional model and the other is based on the average pricing error. Empirical results show that for valueweighted portfolios, the conditional CAPM explains none of the asset-pricing anomalies, while the conditional Fama-French three-factor model is able to account for the size effect, and it also helps to explain the value effect and the momentum effect. From a statistical point of view, a conditional model always beats a conditional one because it is closer to the true data-generating process. Chapter two proposes a general equilibrium model to study the implications of prospect theory for individual trading, security prices and trading volume. Its main finding is that different components of prospect theory make different predictions. The concavity/convexity of the value function drives a disposition effect, which in turn leads to momentum in the cross-section of stock returns and a positive correlation between returns and volumes. On the other hand, loss aversion predicts exactly the opposite, namely a reversed disposition effect and reversal in the cross-section of stock returns, as well as a negative correlation between returns and volumes. In a calibrated economy, when prospect theory preference parameters are set at the values estimated by the previous studies, our model can generate price momentum of up to 7% on an annual basis. Chapter three studies the role of aggregate dividend volatility in asset prices. In the model, narrow-framing investors are loss averse over fluctuations in the value of their financial wealth. Persistent dividend volatility indicates persistent fluctuation in their financial wealth and makes stocks undesirable. It helps to explain the salient feature of the stock market including the high mean, excess volatility, and predictability of stock returns while maintaining a low and stable risk-free rate. Consistent with the data, stock returns have a low correlation with consumption growth, and Sharpe ratios are time-varying.

Download or read book Empirical Asset Pricing written by Wayne Ferson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the theory and methods of empirical asset pricing, integrating classical foundations with recent developments. This book offers a comprehensive advanced introduction to asset pricing, the study of models for the prices and returns of various securities. The focus is empirical, emphasizing how the models relate to the data. The book offers a uniquely integrated treatment, combining classical foundations with more recent developments in the literature and relating some of the material to applications in investment management. It covers the theory of empirical asset pricing, the main empirical methods, and a range of applied topics. The book introduces the theory of empirical asset pricing through three main paradigms: mean variance analysis, stochastic discount factors, and beta pricing models. It describes empirical methods, beginning with the generalized method of moments (GMM) and viewing other methods as special cases of GMM; offers a comprehensive review of fund performance evaluation; and presents selected applied topics, including a substantial chapter on predictability in asset markets that covers predicting the level of returns, volatility and higher moments, and predicting cross-sectional differences in returns. Other chapters cover production-based asset pricing, long-run risk models, the Campbell-Shiller approximation, the debate on covariance versus characteristics, and the relation of volatility to the cross-section of stock returns. An extensive reference section captures the current state of the field. The book is intended for use by graduate students in finance and economics; it can also serve as a reference for professionals.

Download or read book Essays in Equilibrium Asset Pricing written by Jacob Boudoukh and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing written by Xiang Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis consists of three essays on empirical asset pricing around three themes: evaluating linear factor asset pricing models by comparing their misspecified measures, understanding the long-run risk on consumption-leisure to investigate their pricing performances on cross-sectional returns, and evaluating conditional asset pricing models by using the methodology of dynamic cross-sectional regressions. The first chapter is ̀̀Comparing Asset Pricing Models: What does the Hansen-Jagannathan Distance Tell Us?''. It compares the relative performance of some important linear asset pricing models based on the Hansen-Jagannathan (HJ) distance using data over a long sample period from 1952-2011 based on U.S. market. The main results are as follows: first, among return-based linear models, the Fama-French (1993) five-factor model performs best in terms of the normalized pricing errors, compared with the other candidates. On the other hand, the macro-factor model of Chen, Roll, and Ross (1986) five-factor is not able to explain industry portfolios: its performance is even worse than that of the classical CAPM. Second, the Yogo (2006) non-durable and durable consumption model is the least misspecified, among consumption-based asset pricing models, in capturing the spread in industry and size portfolios. Third, the Lettau and Ludvigson (2002) scaled consumption-based CAPM (C-CAPM) model obtains the smallest normalized pricing errors pricing gross and excess returns on size portfolios, respectively, while Santos and Veronesi (2006) scaled C-CAPM model does better in explain the return spread on portfolios of U.S. government bonds. The second chapter (̀̀Leisure, Consumption and Long Run Risk: An Empirical Evaluation'') uses a long-run risk model with non-separable leisure and consumption, and studies its ability to price equity returns on a variety of portfolios of U.S. stocks using data from 1948-2011. It builds on early work by Eichenbaum et al. (1988) that explores the empirical properties of intertemporal asset pricing models where the representative agent has utility over consumption and leisure. Here we use the framework in Uhlig (2007) that allows for a stochastic discount factor with news about long-run growth in consumption and leisure. To evaluate our long-run model, we assess its performance relative to standard asset pricing models in explaining the cross-section of returns across size, industry and value-growth portfolios. We find that the long-run consumption-leisure model cannot be rejected by the J-statistic and it does better than the standard C-CAPM, the Yogo durable consumption and Fama-French three-factor models. We also rank the normalized pricing errors using the HJ distance: our model has a smaller HJ distance than other candidate models. Our paper is the first, as far as we are aware, to use leisure data with adjusted working hours as a measure of leisure i.e., defined as the difference between a fixed time endowment and the observable hours spent on working, home production, schooling, communication, and personal care (Yang (2010)). The third essay: ̀̀Empirical Evaluation of Conditional Asset Pricing Models: An Economic Perspective'' uses dynamic Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regressions and tests the performance of several important conditional asset pricing models when allowing for time-varying price of risk. It compares the performance of conditional asset pricing models, in terms of their ability to explain the cross-section of returns across momentum, industry, value-growth and government bond portfolios. We use the new methodology introduced by Adrian et al. (2012). Our main results are as follows: first we find that the Lettau and Ludvigson (2001) conditional model does better than other models in explaining the cross-section of momentum and value-growth portfolios. Second we find that the Piazessi et al. (2007) consumption model does better than others in pricing the cross-section of industry portfolios. Finally, we find that in the case of the cross-section of risk premia on U.S. government bond portfolios the conditional model in Santos and Veronesi (2006) outperforms other candidate models. Overall, however, the Lettau and Ludvigson (2001) model does better than other candidate models. Our main contributions here is using a recently developed method of dynamic Fama-MacBeth regressions to evaluate the performance of leading conditional CAPM (C-CAPM) models in a common set of test assets over the time period from 1951-2012.

Download or read book Two Essays on Time series Patterns in Security Returns written by David Kenji Heike and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Factor Models of Asset Returns written by Gregory Connor and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Factor models of security returns decompose the random return on each of a cross-section of assets into pervasive components, affecting almost all assets, and a diversifiable component. We describe four alternative approaches to factor models of asset returns. We also discuss issues related to estimating factor models and testing for the appropriate number of factors.

Download or read book Essays in Nonlinear Time Series Econometrics written by Niels Haldrup and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection concerns nonlinear economic relations that involve time. It is divided into four broad themes that all reflect the work and methodology of Professor Timo Teräsvirta, one of the leading scholars in the field of nonlinear time series econometrics. The themes are: Testing for linearity and functional form, specification testing and estimation of nonlinear time series models in the form of smooth transition models, model selection and econometric methodology, and finally applications within the area of financial econometrics. All these research fields include contributions that represent state of the art in econometrics such as testing for neglected nonlinearity in neural network models, time-varying GARCH and smooth transition models, STAR models and common factors in volatility modeling, semi-automatic general to specific model selection for nonlinear dynamic models, high-dimensional data analysis for parametric and semi-parametric regression models with dependent data, commodity price modeling, financial analysts earnings forecasts based on asymmetric loss function, local Gaussian correlation and dependence for asymmetric return dependence, and the use of bootstrap aggregation to improve forecast accuracy. Each chapter represents original scholarly work, and reflects the intellectual impact that Timo Teräsvirta has had and will continue to have, on the profession.

Download or read book Essays in Corporate Finance and International Asset Pricing written by Xiangdong Mao and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: