David Schröder

The Implied Equity Risk Premium - An Evaluation of Empirical Methods

A new approach of estimating a forward-looking equity risk premium (ERP) is to calculate an implied risk premium using present value (PV) formulas. This paper compares implied risk premia obtained from different PV models and evaluates them by analyzing their underlying firm-specific cost-of-capital estimates. It is shown that specific versions of dividend discount models (DDM) and residual income models (RIM) lead to similar ERP estimates. However, cross-sectional regression tests of individual firm risk suggest that there are qualitative differences between both approaches. Expected firm risk obtained from the DDM is more in line with standard asset pricing models and performs better in predicting future stock returns than estimates from the RIM.

Investment under ambiguity with the best and worst in mind

Recent literature on optimal investment has stressed the difference between the impact of risk and the impact of ambiguity—also called Knightian uncertainty—on investors’ decisions. In this paper, we show that a decision maker’s attitude towards ambiguity is similarly crucial for investment decisions. We capture the investor’s individual ambiguity attitude by applying α-MEU preferences to a standard investment problem. We show that the presence of ambiguity often leads to an increase in the subjective project value, and entrepreneurs are more eager to invest. Thereby, our investment model helps to explain differences in investment behavior in situations which are objectively identical.

Implied cost of capital investment strategies: evidence from international stock markets

Investors can generate excess returns by implementing trading strategies based on publicly available equity analyst forecasts. This paper captures the information provided by analysts by the implied cost of capital (ICC), the internal rate of return that equates a firm’s share price to the present value of analysts’ earnings forecasts. We find that U.S. stocks with a high ICC outperform low ICC stocks on average by 6.0 % per year. This spread is significant when controlling the investment returns for their risk exposure as proxied by standard pricing models. Further analysis across the world’s largest equity markets validates these results. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Hedge Fund Transparency: Where Do We Stand?

Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are reluctant to provide detailed information on their investment portfolios. Since hedge funds may use niche investment strategies in narrow market segments, fund managers portend that thorough disclosure of their portfolio holdings—which are important to assessing future returns—would crowd out their trades, thus decreasing opportunities to generate outsized returns. However, incomplete disclosure can have some undesirable side effects. It might encourage hedge fund managers to take positions that are riskier than provided for by the manager’s mandate. Investors even risk fraudulent behavior, since the action of hedge fund management may be detected only when a fund has failed.This article presents the results of a comprehensive survey of hedge fund managers and investors on current hedge fund reporting practices. The authors find that the quality of hedge fund reporting is considered an important investment criterion. In analyzing the spectrum of opinions, the authors identify critical points of conflict between investors and managers.They find that investors are especially dissatisfied with the quality of information on liquidity and operational risk exposure. The survey also reveals that inappropriate performance measures are prevalent.

Asset Allocation in Private Wealth Management: Theory Versus Practice

This study analyzes the responses to a representative survey of wealth advisors on private wealth management practices, and compares the advisors’ views to academic research in household finance. This study demonstrates that many wealth managers do not apply novel insights proposed by financial economists when advising their clients. Many practitioners focus on managing only the market risk exposure of their clients’ portfolios. Although financial research has stressed the importance of incorporating human capital, planned future expenditures and the investment time horizon into the investor’s asset allocation, these aspects are neglected by most practitioners.

Industry Effects in Firm and Segment Profitability Forecasting

Academics and practitioners have long recognized the importance of a firm’s industry membership in explaining its financial performance. Yet, contrary to conventional wisdom, recent research shows that industry-specific profitability forecasting models are not better than economy-wide models. The objective of this paper is to further explore this result and to provide insights into when and why industry-specific profitability forecasting models are useful. We show that industry-specific forecasts are significantly more accurate in predicting profitability for single-segment firms and, to some extent, for business segments. For multiple-segment firms, the aggregation of segment-level data for external reporting of firm-level financials obliterates the industry effects of their segments.

Private Bankers on Private Banking: Financial Risks and Asset/Liability Management

The authors analyze private bankers’ views on the raison d’être of their profession, their clients’ main financial risks, and the professionals’ opinions on introducing asset liability management (ALM) to private banking. Although practitioners agree on the importance of tailored solutions for their clients’ primary risks such as unexpected inflation, they are not satisfied by the current risk management tools at hand to advise their clients, nor by the overall risk management service provided. Against this backdrop, this survey shows that ALM is considered to be a promising concept to strengthen advisory quality in private banking.

Measuring Ambiguity Preferences: A New Ambiguity Preference Module

Ambiguity preferences are important to explain human decision-making in many areas in economics and finance. To measure individual ambiguity preferences, the experimental economics literature advocates using incentivized laboratory experiments. Yet, laboratory experiments are costly, time-consuming and require substantial administrative effort. This study develops an experimentally validated ambiguity preference survey module that can reliably measure ambiguity preferences when carrying out laboratory experiments is impractical. This toolkit may have wide applications, including end-of-session lab questionnaires, large scale surveys and financial client assessments.

Industry Effects on Firm and Segment Profitability Forecasting: Do Aggregation and Diversity Matter?

Academics and practitioners have long recognized the importance of a firm’s industry membership in explaining its financial performance. Yet, contrary to conventional wisdom, recent research shows that industry-specific profitability forecasting models are not better than economy-wide models. The objective of this paper is to further explore this result and to provide insights into when and why industry-specific profitability forecasting models are useful. We show that industry-specific forecasts are significantly more accurate in predicting profitability for single-segment firms and, to some extent, for business segments. For multiple-segment firms, the aggregation of segment-level data for external reporting of firm-level financials obliterates the industry effects of their segments.

Analyzing Banks: Management and Investor Perspective

This paper proposes a new framework to analyze both the profitability and stock returns of banks by decomposing a bank’s return on equity (ROE) in its components. The decomposition follows a simple model of a bank, and is directly related to specific management decisions. We validate the decomposition by predicting future profitability and stock returns for a global data set of banks covering 26 years. The empirical analysis shows that there are remarkable differences in the economic significance across the various ROE components to predict future profitability and stock returns of banks. These differences have important implications for management, regulators, and investors.