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The study attempts to analyze the short-term effects of merger and acquisition bids of German acquirers on the stock prices of two involved companies. On the announcement day, a statistically significant average abnormal return of 11.5% is found for the target firms compared to an insignificant negative abnormal return of -0.28% for bidding firms, and the synergistic gain for involved firms is 5.72% on average. The strategy of specialization or diversification shows strong evidence that it has a large impact on the short-term stock returns with specialization triggering stronger abnormal returns than diversification bids for bidding firms and substantially smaller price reaction for target firms. The outcome also suggests that higher target cash-to-market-value ratio leads to significantly lower abnormal returns for target firms during the announcement period.
The Bachelor Thesis examines the effects of the integration of environmental, social and governmental (ESG) criteria in equity funds on performance compared to conventional equity funds. For this purpose, a quantitative analysis is carried out which includes a detailed examination of 769 equity funds. The equity funds are divided into two different groups - ESG equity funds and conventional equity funds - and are analyzed for various financial ratios. The goal of the study is to illustrate the financial performance differences between ESG-focused equity funds and conventional equity funds and thus provide a scientific contribution to the academic debate on sustainable investments. Initially, the thesis delves into the central concepts of ESG, the historical development of investment funds, theoretical frameworks, and existing studies. The following analysis provides an insight into the relationship between ESG criteria and the performance of equity funds. It not only draws on two different ESG rating systems, but also provides a geographical breakdown. Although the work as a whole helps to develop a deeper understanding of sustainable investment and highlights potential implications for investors and the financial sector, the results of the analysis show that more research is needed in this area.
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the fairly recent Basel III regulations, and to find out if they have impacts on the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, the theoretical impacts on financial institutions and on small and medium-sized enterprises would be analysed and compared to the real development. Basel III is an advancement to Basel I and II and contains stricter capital and liquidity requirement regulations for financial institutions, as well as a leverage ratio. The purpose is to create a financial sector, which would be more resistant against crises. Because the liquidity requirements and the leverage ratio are not, or only partly introduced yet, the thesis focuses more on the capital requirements. These requirements, demand banks to deposit a higher percentage of equity for each credit operation, depending on the risk. It is expected that financial institutions will face an excess need of capital to fulfil the requirements. On the one hand, banks could increase their equity, which hypothetically could lead to higher capital costs as well as an increase of credit costs. That would in turn result in worse credit terms for SMEs. On the other hand, banks could reduce their risk-weighted assets to lower the need for new capital. That could minimize the capacity of the credit business and lead to difficulties for SMEs in obtaining a loan. An empirical study, based on a theoretical simulation, came to the result that there will be a slight worsening of the credit terms and the credit supply for SMEs. Regarding to the question “if the new capital requirements are appropriate for SME-loans”, it shows that there is no increase of risk in that segment. Therefore, the capital requirements should be adjusted for these kind of loans. The theoretical impacts of the liquidity requirements and the leverage ratio are also expected to affect the loans for SMEs, which are the second important financing instrument. To compare and analyse the theoretical impacts to the real development, latest empirical studies were used to get a picture of the current situation. It shows that the group of financial institutions that are relevant for SME-loans have a moderate increase in their equity basis and almost no decrease of their risk-weighted assets. Theoretically, that should lead to worse credit terms and no change in the credit supply. While analysing the realised external funds made in recent years, it is affirmed that there is no decline in the credit supply. Regarding the increased capital basis, there is no worsening in the credit terms perceived in the reality. The favourable key interest rate could be the reason for that, because it compensates the increased capital cost. Hence, Basel III does not represents a threat to the mid-sized sector in average. However, it can be stated that, the smaller the enterprises are, the more difficult it is to get a loan and the worse the conditions are.
Background
The recent worldwide financial crisis that occurred in last quarters of 2007 up until mid 2009 was accompanied by the massive failure of many financial institutions and liquidity providers. Investment banks and other institutionalized financial investors were unsuccessful in producing any real returns for their clients. This drastic fail in all the other traditional investments led to the questioning of how well the hedge fund industry performed in this light based on their promise as absolute return producers regardless of the market environment. This paper seeks to analyse the performance of the Long/Short Equity Strategy in particular relative to the performance of the overall market.
Methods
Thorough examination and validation of numerous empirical studies which have already been carried out on the subject matter are brought to light through the analysis of available historical data of the returns posted by these funds during the crisis using generally accepted statistical funds’ assessment tools giving an adequate angel to the performance of Long-Short Equity hedge Funds especially at the heart of the financial crisis in the last quarters of 2007 to mid 2009.
Results
Equity Long/Short Hedge funds as every other strategy in they industry succeeded in 2008 in outperforming other traditional investment vehicles and the broad stock an bond markets although the failed in to produce the absolute returns promised to their investments. In 2009 they posted similar results to that of S&P 500 index with subsequent declines in 2010 and 2011 thus failing to period their returns where highly correlated with that of the overall market coined with negative skewness and high kutorsis.
Conclusion
Even though hedge funds succeeded in outperforming the market in the heart of the crisis, they failed to provides their investors with absolute returns and also the benefits which the provide in terms of diversification to reduce the exposure of their funds to market risk was limiting. The very high fees paid to them by investors was not justified by their performance.
Die vorliegende Arbeit gibt einen Überblick über die Herausforderungen, die der gegenwärtigen internationalen Steuerpolitik gegenüberstehen. Das Ziel war es, das GloBe Proposal der OECD/G20 und den darin enthaltenen Vorschlag einer globalen Mindeststeuer als Maßnahme gegen die Problematiken kritisch zu analysieren. Dazu wurden mögliche Problemfelder des Konzeptes dargelegt. Das Ergebnis aus der kritischen Analyse und Bewertung ist, dass die globale Mindeststeuer das Potenzial dazu hat, die Herausforderungen einzudämmen. Der Vorschlag stellt einen bedeutenden Schritt für weitere globale Zusammenarbeiten dar. Eine vollständige Abschaffung der Herausforderungen durch das GloBe Proposal ist jedoch nicht möglich. Für eine größere Effektivität der Maßnahme muss die Mindeststeuer höher angesetzt, an geltende Regulierungen angepasst und einheitlich von allen Staaten implementiert werden. Weitere Schwächen der Maßnahme müssen nach Einführung früh erkannt und beseitigt werden.
This paper analyses five different Cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Dogecoin and Litecoin, and studies their impact on traditional financial portfolios under different allocation strategies. The allocation strategies under consideration in this paper are the modern portfolio theory according to Markowitz, an extension of it such as the tangency portfolio, and the equally weighted portfolio. Further, this study explores the effect on the efficient frontier when Cryptocurrencies are added to the efficient portfolios. In addition to that, the paper aims to examine whether the mean – variance portfolio optimization according to Markowitz outperforms the naïve and tangency portfolio strategy. The portfolio performance is evaluated based on the Sharpe ratio. The quantitative analysis of this paper covers the time period from 2017 to 2022, in total five years. In accordance with the existing literature on portfolio optimization with Cryptocurrencies, the study reveals that besides some issues related with Cryptocurrencies such as cybercrime and a lack of regulations, Cryptocurrencies can be beneficial for portfolio diversification with traditional financial assets. Referring to the portfolio strategies, the study highlights that the optimal mean – variance portfolio and tangency portfolio do not differ significantly in terms of Sharpe ratio. However, both strategies outperform equally weighted portfolios.
The growth of Islamic banking is evident from its presence in over 60 countries and the establishment of Islamic branches by major conventional banks. Despite its small share in global financial assets, there is extensive literature examining the performance of Islamic banks. Some researchers claim that Islamic finance is imitating conventional banks and it has therefore become necessary to understand the business model of Islamic banks. This bachelor thesis reviews theoretical and empirical literature to identify differences between Islamic and conventional banks. The objective is to examine the stability of Islamic banking by comparing performance indicators on capitalization, stability, profitability and efficiency. The results indicate that competitive pressure leads Islamic banks to deviate from their principles which promote profit and loss sharing (PLS). The preference for PLS lies within the fact that profit is earned on actual performance. Deposits in Islamic banking may also be structured according to PLS and it is observed that Islamic banks distribute profits even if they earned a loss to prevent withdrawal. Although Islamic banks tend to be better capitalized and more profitable than conventional banks, the data on their stability and liquidity are inconclusive. Data gathered on efficiency indicate that Islamic banks are more profit efficient while conventional banks are more cost efficient. Islamic banks seem to spend more on remuneration and training which positively impacts managerial competence. The limitation of this paper is that the reviewed empirical studies are based on different sample sets. In addition, Islamic banks might not pursue the same practice everywhere as Shariah law is based on interpretation. This leads to differences in what is considered Shariah-compliant and therefore reduces the comparison’s reliability.
This thesis aims to investigate the presence of herding behaviour in the German DAX40 market during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Herding behaviour is a phenomenon in behavioural finance where investors ignore their own information and base their decisions on fellow market participants. This behaviour most often presents during times of high market volatility. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a critical effect on the German financial markets, making it an appropriate time period to detect herding behaviour among investors of the DAX40.To begin this investigation, a literature review is used to build a good understanding of the causes and effects of herding behaviour. The literature review also presents some of the most influential models which aim to explain herding behaviour in financial markets. This is followed by using the methodology of the Cross-sectional standard deviation (CSSD) and the cross-sectional absolute deviation (CSAD), two empirical models to detect herding in financial markets. For the investigation, daily stock data of the DAX40 performance index and the DAX40 companies was collected for two years surrounding the pandemic's beginning in March 2020. No significant evidence of herding was detected in the DAX40 market during the sampling period of the COVID-19 pandemic.