Guy Kaplanski

VAR Risk Measures Versus Traditional Risk Measures: An Analysis and Survey

The article presents an analysis and survey regarding the validity of VaR risk measures in comparison to traditional risk measures. Individuals are assumed to either maximize their expected utility or possess a lexicographic utility function. The analysis is carried out for generally distributed functions and for the normal and lognormal distributions. The main conclusion is that although VaR is an inadequate measure within the expected utility framework, it is at least as good as other traditional risk measures. Moreover, it can be improved by modified versions such as the Accumulated-VaR (Mean-Shortfall) Assuming a lexicographic expected utility strengthens the argument for using AVaR as a legitimate risk measure especially in the case of a regulated firm.

Do Happy People Make Optimistic Investors

Do happy people predict future risk and return differently from unhappy people, or do individuals rely only on economic facts? We survey investors on their subjective sentiment-creating factors, return and risk expectations, and investment plans. We find that noneconomic factors systematically affect return and risk expectations, where the return effect is more profound. Investment plans are also affected by noneconomic factors. Sports results and general feelings significantly affect predictions. Sufferers from seasonal affective disorder have lower return expectations in the autumn than in other seasons, supporting the winter blues hypothesis.

The Holiday and Yom Kippur War Sentiment Effects: The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE)

Several empirical studies reveal that holidays generally create positive sentiment in the stock market, whereas negative events, such as wars or disasters, are accompanied by negative sentiment. However, what happens if a negative event occurs on a holiday? In such a case, we expect two conflicting sentiment effects, which may cancel one another out or, alternatively, one effect may dominate the other. The stock market in Israel provides a unique laboratory in which to test these two conflicting effects, as Israel faced a horrible war on the Yom Kippur holiday in 1973—a war whose influence is still strongly felt today. Indeed, we find two robust effects: A strong and significant positive holiday sentiment effect; and a negative war sentiment effect, which dominates the positive holiday effect. These results, which show how sentiment effects are created, are general and can easily be applied to other events and other markets when conflicting sentiment effects occur.

Portfolio Selection in a Two-Regime World

Standard mean-variance analysis is based on the assumption of normal return distributions. However, a growing body of literature suggests that the market oscillates between two different regimes – one with low volatility and the other with high volatility. In such a case, even if the return distributions are normal in both regimes, the overall distribution is not – it is a mixture of normals. Mean-variance analysis is inappropriate in this framework, and one must either assume a specific utility function or, alternatively, employ the more general and distribution-free Second degree Stochastic Dominance (SSD) criterion. This paper develops the SSD rule for the case of mixed normals: the SSDMN rule. This rule is a generalization the mean-variance rule. The cost of ignoring regimes and assuming normality when the distributions are actually mixed normal can be quite substantial – it is typically equivalent to an annual rate of return of 2–3 percent.

Sentiment, Irrationality and Market Efficiency: The Case of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Soccer games create sentiment, which affects stock prices. The World Cups before 2010 provided exploitable abnormal profit which was not exploited, presumably because it was unknown. Just before the 2010 World Cup, the exploitable effect has been discovered and widely cited by practitioners who even suggested recipe how to exploit it. Indeed, the information on the abnormal profit created in 2010 World Cup a price pattern which is different from those corresponding to the previous World Cups. Like other market anomalies, we expect that market efficiency will be restored and this new effect will vanish in the future.

Analysts and Sentiment: A Causality Study

We analyze the role that financial analysts play in the sentiment effect on stock prices. Causality analysis reveals that sentiment affects various aspects of analysts’ forecasts and recommendations. We show that experienced analysts are aware of sentiment, consciously incorporate it and have some control over its effect. As a result, the sentiment effect on analysts replicates the sentiment effect expected in stock prices and actual forecast errors are limited to certain cases. Analysts expedite the propagation of sentiment to stock prices and probably enhance the effect by influencing sophisticated investors, but they do not initiate or shape it. The new regulations, “Research Analysts and Research Reports” and “Communications with the Public”, imposed in 2002, have reduced over-optimism due to sentiment.

Trading breaks and asymmetric information: The option markets ☆

We find that weekend, holiday and overnight trading breaks generate excessive perceived risk in the option markets, presumably due to asymmetric information, which, in turn, encourages uninformed option traders to postpone trading. This perceived risk subsides after two days accompanied by an increase in the option trading volume and the underlying index’s actual price volatility. These results shed light on the informational role of index options and suggest that the theoretical models’ results regarding information processing and price discovery in the presence of private information are not limited to single stocks but also apply to the market as a whole.Asymmetric information models are tested using options implied volatility and volume of trade in eight international markets. We explore the relations between the trading break time duration, the quality of public information, the discretion of options liquidity traders to postpone their trades, and the interday and intraday implied volatility and volume of trade in options. Although asymmetric information is generally related to the underline asset, we find that it strongly affects the investment strategies adopted by the various options traders which, in turn, affect implied volatility and options’ volume of trade. The current analysis sheds new light on those strategies and their interrelations with the stock market. The introduction of futures on implied volatility in 2004 is also explored. JEL Classification Numbers: D82, G12, G14

Are Stock Prices Random Walks? New Evidence from Moving Averages

The distance between short- and long-run moving averages of prices (MAD) predicts future equity returns in the cross-section. Annualized value-weighted alphas from the accompanying hedge portfolios are around 9%, and the predictability goes beyond momentum, 52-week highs, profitability, and other prominent anomalies. MAD-based investment payoffs survive reasonable trading costs faced by institutions, and are stronger on the long side relative to the short counterpart.

Stock Return Predictability: New Evidence from Moving Averages of Prices and Firm Fundamentals

The distance between short- and long-run moving averages of prices (MAD) predicts future equity returns in the cross-section. Annualized value-weighted alphas from the accompanying hedge portfolios are around 9%, and the predictability goes beyond momentum, 52-week highs, profitability, and other prominent anomalies. MAD-based investment payoffs survive reasonable trading costs faced by institutions, and are stronger on the long side relative to the short counterpart.

The Predictability of Equity Returns from Past Returns: A New Moving Average-Based Perspective

The distance between short- and long-run moving averages of prices (MAD) predicts future equity returns in the cross-section. Annualized value-weighted alphas from the accompanying hedge portfolios are around 9%, and the predictability goes beyond momentum, 52-week highs, profitability, and other prominent anomalies. MAD-based investment payoffs survive reasonable trading costs faced by institutions, and are stronger on the long side relative to the short counterpart.