Hamizun Ismail

The present value model and Thailand's current account balance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine whether current account imbalances – surpluses or deficits – are “excessive” and hence constitute a valid concern. The second objective is to assess the degree of capital mobility by comparing the variance of the current account derived from the intertemporal model with that of the actual current account. Design/methodology/approach – The paper addresses the issues by constructing the intertemporal model using annual data between 1960 and 2006. The authors applied the F-test, the Bartlett test and the Siegel-Tukey test to formally validate for equality of the variances of the optimal and actual consumption smoothing current accounts. Findings – Based on vector autoregressive model, it was found that the present value of future net output closely reflects the evolution of the current account series with a small (insignificant) deviation between the actual and the estimated consumption-smoothing current account. The results show that the hypothesis of full-consumption smoothing could not be rejected by the data for the full sample period, implying that the degree of capital mobility was quite high, even during the post-1997 period. The variance ratio of the actual current account to the optimal current account is not statistically greater than one. Therefore, it is concluded that there is no evidence to suggest inappropriate use of capital flows over the entire sample period under investigation. Originality/value – The authors relied on a more general framework, as suggested by Bergin and Sheffrin, which allows real interest rate to affect current account in order to provide a new perspective on Thailands current account balance.

Enhanced index tracking modelling in portfolio optimization

Enhanced index tracking is a popular form of passive fund management in stock market. It is a dual-objective optimization problem, a trade-off between maximizing the mean return and minimizing the risk. Enhanced index tracking aims to generate excess return over the return achieved by the index without purchasing all of the stocks that make up the index by establishing an optimal portfolio. The objective of this study is to determine the optimal portfolio composition and performance by using weighted model in enhanced index tracking. Weighted model focuses on the trade-off between the excess return and the risk. The results of this study show that the optimal portfolio for the weighted model is able to outperform the Malaysia market index which is Kuala Lumpur Composite Index because of higher mean return and lower risk without purchasing all the stocks in the market index.

Portfolio optimization in enhanced index tracking with goal programming approach

Enhanced index tracking is a popular form of passive fund management in stock market. Enhanced index tracking aims to generate excess return over the return achieved by the market index without purchasing all of the stocks that make up the index. This can be done by establishing an optimal portfolio to maximize the mean return and minimize the risk. The objective of this paper is to determine the portfolio composition and performance using goal programming approach in enhanced index tracking and comparing it to the market index. Goal programming is a branch of multi-objective optimization which can handle decision problems that involve two different goals in enhanced index tracking, a trade-off between maximizing the mean return and minimizing the risk. The results of this study show that the optimal portfolio with goal programming approach is able to outperform the Malaysia market index which is FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index because of higher mean return and lower risk without purchasi...

Portfolio optimization for index tracking modelling in Malaysia stock market

Index tracking is an investment strategy in portfolio management which aims to construct an optimal portfolio to generate similar mean return with the stock market index mean return without purchasing all of the stocks that make up the index. The objective of this paper is to construct an optimal portfolio using the optimization model which adopts regression approach in tracking the benchmark stock market index return. In this study, the data consists of weekly price of stocks in Malaysia market index which is FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index from January 2010 until December 2013. The results of this study show that the optimal portfolio is able to track FBMKLCI Index at minimum tracking error of 1.0027% with 0.0290% excess mean return over the mean return of FBMKLCI Index. The significance of this study is to construct the optimal portfolio using optimization model which adopts regression approach in tracking the stock market index without purchasing all index components.

Enhanced index tracking modeling in portfolio optimization with mixed-integer programming z approach

Enhanced index tracking is a popular form of portfolio management in stock market investment. Enhanced index tracking aims to construct an optimal portfolio to generate excess return over the return achieved by the stock market index without purchasing all of the stocks that make up the index. The objective of this paper is to construct an optimal portfolio using mixed-integer programming model which adopts regression approach in order to generate higher portfolio mean return than stock market index return. In this study, the data consists of 24 component stocks in Malaysia market index which is FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index from January 2010 until December 2012. The results of this study show that the optimal portfolio of mixed-integer programming model is able to generate higher mean return than FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index return with only selecting 30% out of the total stock market index components.

Modeling of gold production in Malaysia

This study was conducted to identify the main factors that contribute to the gold production and hence determine the factors that affect to the development of the mining industry in Malaysia. An econometric approach was used by performing the cointegration analysis among the factors to determine the existence of long term relationship between the gold prices, the number of gold mines, the number of workers in gold mines and the gold production. The study continued with the Granger analysis to determine the relationship between factors and gold production. Results have found that there are long term relationship between price, gold production and number of employees. Granger causality analysis shows that there is only one way relationship between the number of employees with gold production in Malaysia and the number of gold mines in Malaysia.

Budget Deficits and Current Account Balances

Over the past three decades, the twin deficits hypothesis (TDH) — that budget deficit has a direct effect on current account deficit — has been a topic of interest in the empirical literature (see, for example, Bahmani-Oskooee, 1995; Khalid & Guan, 1999; Mohammadi, 2004; Bagnai, 2006; Salvatore, 2006; Bartolini & Lahiri, 2006; Baharumshah & Lau, 2007; Ito, 2009; Daly & Siddiki, 2009). The causal link between public budget deficit and current account balance has been analyzed extensively in the recent literature, largely because of its implications for long-term economic progress. For small, open economies that depend heavily on foreign capital, an adverse change in foreign investors’ behavior may trigger a series of sharp and disorderly adjustments of external imbalances that, in turn, have serious consequences on the economy (see, for example, Milesi-Ferretti & Razin, 1998; Chinn & Prasad, 2003). In an influential paper, Rodrik (1999) warned: ‘Openness to capital inflows can be especially dangerous if appropriate controls, regulatory apparatus and macroeconomic frameworks are not in place.’ (p. 30).1 From a theoretical viewpoint, fiscal expansion could worsen the current account balance and the appreciation of the real exchange rate (Salvatore, 2006).2 These imbalances may hinder economic growth and undermine a nation’s wealth creation.