Issue #2 (Volume 15 2018)

This paper provides ample empirical evidence, using US equity and bond indices, why daily stop-loss rules can be considered as viable performance enhancers. While a longer-term stop-loss rule can help investors to avoid market crashes by being out of the market, investors may obviously lose on the up-market days too. Furthermore, a shorter-term stop-loss rule may not miss the good market days by allowing investors to stay for a longer time in the market at the obvious expense of increased risk and higher drawdowns. This paper illustrates how daily stop-loss rules can significantly outperform the buy and hold equity and bond benchmarks, their equally weighted portfolio and the trend following strategy, simple moving average, which is driven from those asset classes – for both long and short positions. The results are robust to a variety of variations on the initial theme and it’s shown that performance enhancements can come from a variety of other sources related to a static stop-loss rule.

The financial situation of the Ukrainian pension system and the problems of its reforming play an important role in determining the general standard of living in the country. The institutional weaknesses in the financial management of the state pension system have led to an unbalanced budget of the Pension Fund of Ukraine and a low standard of living for pensioners. In order to identify the potential for building an effective system of pension insurance, it is necessary to study the modern aspects of financial provision of the Ukrainian pension system. The article defines the economic interrelations between the processes of forming the financial resources of the Pension Fund of Ukraine and the volume and structure of the gross domestic product. In view of this, the financial sustainability of the state pension system of Ukraine has been researched and the determinants of its stable functioning in the years 1999–2017 have been identified, which enables to influence the process of effective formation and use of pension resources and to identify the strategic directions of reforming the pension system.

This paper investigates competitiveness in the Ukrainian stock market during local crisis of 2013–2015. The following hypothesis is tested: crisis decreases competitiveness in the stock market. The analysis is carried out for the most liquid stocks in the Ukrainian Exchange (UX) over the period from 2010 to 2017 using both traditional measurements of market concentration (Hirschman Index, Lerner Index, Comprehensive Concentration Index, Entropy Index, Gini coefficient, etc.) and some alternative methods like regression analysis with dummy variables and Kruskal-Wallis test. The results suggest that the current degradation of the Ukrainian stock market is closely related with significant changes in the market concentration which are caused by the local crisis.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in income generation, job creation, poverty reduction and reducing income inequality of all countries, regardless of the level of development. Nevertheless, in developing countries, they are exposed to several challenges affecting their business operations and growth. Among others, access to external financing has been cited to be the most pressing challenge for SMEs in developing economies. The lack of accessibility has been indicated to result from the deficiencies observed from both financial institutions and SMEs. Further, it has been discovered that from the SMEs’ perspective, gender, among other entrepreneurial characteristics, has a role in accessing finance. This paper surveys a sample of 109 SMEs in the Democratic Republic of Congo not only to find what are the challenges faced in seeking finance, but also to investigate the extent to which gender impacts access to finance. The evidence gathered shows that finance is really constraining, there are more rejections than approvals of finance due to the lack of collateral, high interest rates and the inability of SMEs to develop attractive and bankable projects. With regards to gender, the findings were somehow assuring in the sense that when both women and men apply for external finance, they stand the same chances of accessing finance. Recommendations were established to all the actors. SMEs must put more effort into regulating their businesses in order to reduce their risks and build strong relationships with lenders. Financial institutions should not only reconsider the interest rates as they were perceived to be extremely high, but also train SMEs to be “more bankable”. Lastly, the Government should implement policies to support firms and render the business environment more appealing for both SMEs and financial institutions.

The article considers the relevant problems concerning the correlation between the development of priority economic sectors and sustainable economic growth in Ukraine. The assumption is made that development at the macroeconomic level can only be achieved when the positive dynamics of material production sectors is observed. The resource potential of Ukraine allows to distinguish two main sectors: agriculture and industry.
Many scholars have repeatedly considered ways of achieving positive economic dynamics at the level of the national economy. But despite the existing research on the problems of economic growth, its’ financial assessment and modelling, as well as the dominant factors of influence, remain unsolved. The aim of the article is to identify the factors of economic growth and assess their influence on the overall economic dynamics within two main material production sectors of Ukraine: industry and agriculture. In order to achieve this, the influence factor model of economic growth has been composed, where GDP growth was selected as a result indicator. The choice of influencing factors is substantiated by: quantity of goods and services sold, number of employees in the industry, investments, fixed assets value and the consumer price index. The most influential factors that significantly impact the overall economic dynamics have been revealed in the article.

The dependence structure between the main energy markets (such as crude oil, natural gas, and coal) and the main stock index plays a crucial role in the economy of a given country. As the dependence structure between these series is dramatically complex and it appears to change over time, time-varying dependence structure given by a class of dynamic copulas is taken into account.
To this end, each pair of time series returns with a dynamic t-Student copula is modelled, which takes as input the time-varying correlation. The correlation evolves with the DCC(1,1) equation developed by Engle.
The model is tested through a simulation by employing empirical data issued from the Italian Stock Market and the main connected energy markets. The author considers empirical distributions for each marginal series returns in order to focus on the dependence structure. The model’s parameters are estimated by maximization of the log-likelihood. Also evidence is found that the proposed model fits correctly, for each pair of series, the left tail dependence coefficient and it is then compared with a static copula dependence structure which clearly underperforms the number of joint extreme values at a given confidence level.

This study investigates the short-run and long-run impact of coups on Thailand’s financial markets. Using daily data from the stock and foreign exchange markets during the period 2005–2017, the study shows (1) both coups in 2006 and in 2014 exert short-run impact on Thailand’s stock and foreign exchange markets; (2) however, the direction and magnitude of impact are different and opposite in the two coups; and (3) in the long run, the coups exhibit minimal impact on the currency market, but induce better market performance (positive return and decrease in the return volatility) despite an increase in liquidity risk of the stock market. Against common beliefs about negative consequences of the coup d’états, this study suggests that the uncertainty surrounding coups can bring good investment opportunities for investors to earn abnormal profits. Moreover, in the long term, the coup can drive the country to better stability and development.

This investigation studies the impact of mutual fund herding on the returns achieved by contrarian strategy from 1990 to 2015 in the Chinese stock market. The relationship between the profit gained by the contrarian strategy and the macroeconomic environment is also examined. First, the returns of the contrarian strategy in China’s stock market are found to be significant. Second, most loser stocks with a high degree of mutual fund herding outperform loser stocks with a low degree of mutual fund herding, revealing that the profitability of an investment portfolio depends on the degree of mutual fund herding. Third, investors should buy loser stocks with a high degree of herding and sell winner stocks with a low degree of herding during a two-year formation period, over which zero-cost contrarian strategies yield the significantly highest return. Finally, the payoff of contrarian strategies is positively related to the herding effect and negatively related to macroeconomic variables.

Financial risk tolerance refers to the amount of risk a person is willing to take when making financial decisions. Previous researchers have found that demographic factors when used as independent variables to have an effect on the risk tolerance behavior of investors. Within this study, emphasis was given to gender and age within a sample of South African investors. Not much research on risk tolerance and demographics has been done in South Africa. Hence, an opportunity for further research within this field emerged. This study aimed to contribute towards the accurate risk profiling of South African investors based on their level of risk tolerance considering their gender and age. This study can be used as a future forecasting tool for investment companies to predict risk tolerance levels based on gender and age levels. Results from this study correspond to previous studies where male investors are more risk tolerant than female investors. A statistical difference was also found between male and female investors within the age categories of 35-49 years and investors older than 50 years. All age categories were found to be more risk tolerant for investors older than 50 years based on the binary regression.

The Working Capital Management (WCM) has an important role for the firm’s success or failure, because it directly affects the overall business health of the firm. This study examined the impact of WCM on profitability and shareholders’ wealth using 50 companies listed in different sectors on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) for the period from 2010 to 2015. This sample represents 47% of the selected sectors of CSE. The profitability of the company is measured using gross operating profit (GOP) and shareholders wealth measured by Tobin’s Q (TQ) ratio. The WCM is measured using five independent variables namely stock holding period (SHP), debtors’ collection period (DCP), creditors’ settlement period (CSP), cash conversion circle (CCC) and current assets ratio (CAR). Further, three additional variables such as firm size (SIZE), leverage (LEV) and earning yield (EY) are employed as controlling variables to capture the impact of other performance of the companies.
The data were analyzed using ordinary least square (OLS) and panel data regression models. These regression models reveal that there is a significant negative relationship between CCC and dependent variables (GOP & TQ). Further, this relationship has been confirmed by the major components of CCC such as SHP, DCP. Firm size also positively and significantly effects on the firm GOP while negatively effects on the TQ. Further, they revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between LEV and TQ. The study finds that the shareholders’ wealth and profitability can be increased through the efficiency of WCM.

The current stage of the socio-economic development of the Ukrainian economy is characterized by an imperfect economic base, low level of labor productivity, high resource intensity and energy consumption of production. It is the result of insufficient innovation and investment activity – a leading factor in the growth of competitiveness and a serious obstacle in the conditions of increasing openness of the economy, joining the country to the processes of globalization. This also applies to the development of the metallurgical industry, which is one of the basic branches of the national economy, since its production and export potential largely determine the stability of the economy and the filling of the budget of the country.
The article analyzes the influence of financial and administrative analysis on the managerial, financial and investment activity of the metallurgical industry, which enables to assess and determine the innovation and investment level of the metallurgical industry and to analyze the structure of world steel production.
It should be mentioned that although such parts of economic analysis as financial and administrative are deepening and complement each other, they should be considered separately, because it will allow to improve organizational, informational and methodological assurance, based on methodological approaches and considering practical needs.

The adjustment for the firm capital structure is unclear from perspectives of trade-off theory, pecking order theory, life cycle theory, market timing theory, and free cash flow theory, since many research findings contradict each other. Adjustments for the capital structure are complex, since the conditions for each firm are different. The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence of how firms adjust capital structure in relationship with maturity in context of trade-off, pecking order, free cash flow, and market timing theory. In terms of hypotheses testing, this study conducts logistic regression analysis with 138 Indonesian public firms as the sample in the observed period from 2010 to 2015. To distinguish the results, this study controls the sample by size and age based on the median. The study reports that preferences for the source of funds based on the cost of capital, internal conflict, and firm maturity indicate adjustments for the firm capital structure. Based on Indonesian firms, the form of capital structure in developing countries can refer to a single model or a combination of the trade-off model and pecking order model, as well as market timing.

The article analyzes concepts to determining the essence of the economic security management at an enterprise. The main features of identifying the effectiveness of economic security management at the enterprise are stipulated. The theoretical and methodological approach to determining the effectiveness of economic security management of the enterprise is proposed, which allows to identify the threats and predict their consequences, to provide internal balance in the enterprise activity and the compliance of its mission and strategic direction of the activity with its key interests. Moreover, it is proposed to use the matrix of comparing the level of the enterprise economic security (EES) and the total impact on the EES level in one of the scenarios (pessimistic, optimistic, and most probable), which allows to assess the effectiveness of the economic security management of the enterprises and provide recommendations to increase the latter, minimizing destructive effects of dominant threats in the context of certain functional components of the economic security.

Past studies have mostly investigated the significance of financial attributes in trade affairs of developed countries, while dismissing such importance among developing nations. As such, this study looked into the influence of financial leverage upon the growth of Jordanian firms. For that purpose, a sample of 91 firms from Jordan had been analyzed via panel data regression method for the period between 2006 and 2015. As a result, the findings portrayed the irrelevance between financial leverage and growth of assets, but a significantly positive correlation with the growth of sales and employment. On top of that, this study revealed that growth of sales and employment had been significantly and positively correlated with firm size. In short, this study dismissed the speculation the constraint Jordanian firms were in, but on the contrary, displayed the ability to gain external financing to ascertain successful progress.

Leveraged Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) (LETFs) are a recent and highly successful financial innovation; yet, investors and several studies criticized them for not performing as advertised, especially in the long term. Τhis paper discusses their unique characteristics and their path-dependent price dynamics, which may result in unexpected returns. Furthermore, the authors evaluate the performance of a large sample of European and American leveraged ETFs since each fund’s inception and show that they perform as intended for daily holding periods. Leveraged ETFs are also successful in delivering the promised performance over holding periods of up to one week, their performance starts to deviate when the holding period increases to one month. Empirical evidence suggests that bear (short) ETFs deviate from their target return more quickly than their bull (long) counterparts as the holding period lengthens. A possible explanation for this is that transaction costs, which are related to daily re-balancing activity, are higher for bear funds. When comparing the daily performance of European vs American funds, the authors find them both to be equally efficient in replicating their benchmarks, although European leveraged ETFs are much smaller in their Assets Under Management (AUM) compared to US LETFs.

This study investigates if the biggest players in major foreign currencies futures markets are affected by current and previous financial conditions. Using root mean squared errors (RMSE), normalized RMSE, and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, this study compares the impact of current, 1 and 2 week lags of financial conditions onto foreign currency futures players’ net positions. The financial conditions indices used are UFCI, STLFSI, NFCI and ANFCI with weekly data set from January 2007 till December 2018. The US dollar index futures is included as a benchmark, since the financial conditions are based on US data and the most actively traded foreign currencies are paired against the USD. While RMSE and NRMSE gave mixed results into how current, 1 week and 2 weeks lagged Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) values are related to speculators and hedgers’ net positions, lagged NFCI captured the highest correlation with both players’ net positions in Japanese Yen. 95% prediction levels encompassed the actual net positions held, including the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Forecasts were lower (higher) for hedgers (speculators) than actual net positions held during the same period. Comparatively, in the period 2016-2017, hedgers (speculators) net positions forecasts were higher (lower) than actual positions. The latter could be explained by FCIs not being affected during this period’s event, compared to net positions. While net positions data were stationary, excess kurtosis was present pointing to non-normal and autocorrelated series. This suggests the need to look into other components like non-reportable long or short positions in future analysis.

This study uses the “cost of carry” (CoC) measure to identify the motive for corporate cash holdings. Based on the historical, moving-average holdings of currency and liquid assets, the measure represents the net opportunity cost of corporate demand for money. This study finds that large manufacturing firms in the U.S. park their capital in short-term assets appealing to the agency motive for cash holdings. Because dividend-paying firms can choose to distribute their capital to equity shareholders when their investment opportunities are unfavorable, these firms might show a non-positive association between capital expenditure and the CoC measure, championing the transactions motive. Still, dividend-paying large firms exhibit an overall positive correlation, suggesting that they park their capital on the agency motive. A detailed literature review and discussions are followed.

This paper examines the long-term relationship between BRICS and US stock markets by employing the cointegration technique and Granger causality to investigate the cointegration and causality direction in the capital markets. The impulse response function it is also employed to evaluate the persistence of the shocks. In the analysis, daily spot stock index returns are used from 2010 till 2017. The main findings of the cointegration analysis indicate that the US and BRICS stock markets are cointegrated and at least one cointegration vector exists among them. The Granger causality test shows that unidirectional causality runs from the US market towards the Russian, South African and Indian stock markets, while there is a bidirectional causal relation between US and Brazil stock markets.

The most important motivating factor for enhancing innovation activity is lending as a stimulus for the development of a modern enterprise. The motivation of the Ukrainian enterprise, based on the need for innovative activity lending in ensuring the efficiency of its economic activity, was explored. The authors use different methods of research, for example, analysis and synthesis methods, method of scientific substantiation and comparison of the main indicators of the activity of the investigated enterprise, as well as correlation and regression analysis method. Here is also used the method of correlation and regression analysis to determine the effect of changes in the average annual cost of fixed assets and investments in their modernization on the motivation to increase revenue from the sale of products (goods, products, services), as well as to characterize the functional relationship between income from the sales of products and capital, expenses, investments. The results of the study indicate a close relationship between the indicators, thus there is a high dependence on the increase of the volume of income from the sale of products due to the need to attract financing in the form of lending to innovative products of the investigated enterprise.
Lending of innovative activity contributes to the increase of sales volumes and the emergence of its new products, and also serves as a form of strengthening the motivation of enterprise development. As a result of the research, the theoretical principles of using Ukrainian enterprise motivational space with lending involvement for the introduction of innovations have been substantiated.

Companies that can survive are companies that need to quickly change its strategy from a business based on labor towards knowledge-based business, so that the main characteristics of the company are changed towards a science-based company. This study examines the relationship of value added capital employed, value-added human capital, structural capital value added and financial performance. The method of this research is purposive sampling with a total of 34 samples analyzed by using Eviews version 9. The result stated that value added capital employed has no effect on return on asset, value added human capital has an effect on return on asset, structural capital value added has an effect on return on asset.

Financial performance is the fundamental aspect to test the performance of the companies. The performance of insurance sector, like any other service industry, is supposed to depend significantly on customers. When it comes to customers, it is an established fact that customer satisfaction would be an important element. Customer satisfaction primarily depends on the quality of service it gets. It can be safely hypothesized that better service quality would lead to higher satisfaction, which would ultimately lead to higher profits for the company. Studies on this relationship in the insurance sector for Saudi Arabia are missing. Hence, this study aims at studying both the profitability of companies and quality of service and tries to relate it to customer satisfaction. The results are quite surprising, as the study establishes that although the qualities of services are found wanting in many areas, companies are earning good profits. A probable reason could be the statutory nature of the services. Nevertheless, this study recommends improving the quality of services and differentiating services between age groups for further improvement.

The article deals with problems of economic and financial security ensuring both in companies and state. The Corruption Perceptions Index has been analyzed as one of the most important indicators in this sphere. The following research methods have been used: generalizing theoretical knowledge, comparison method, method of analysis and synthesis, statistical analysis, factual analysis. The authors give their own definitions to such concepts as “security”, “financial security of the enterprise”, “economic security of the enterprise”. There have been also systemized the threats to the economic security of the enterprise, as well as means of its strengthening. The rating of Ukraine according to the Corruption Perceptions Index has been identified. Also, the perspectives of future research have been defined.

The relevance of the article is due to the need of using non-traditional tools for capital raising and hedging financial risks in Ukrainian conditions that allow investors to protect themselves against possible losses during the entire life cycle of the investment project. The study is based on the National Bank of Ukraine statistical data, data of Ukrainian commercial banks, as well as on the authors’ calculations based on empirical and economic-statistical methods. According to international practices, hybrid financial instruments were classified and the special aspects of their use in Ukraine were studied to manage the risks of project financing. Specific features of using the structured bonds for financing investment projects are determined based on the synthetic securitization scheme. The experience of Ukrainian banks was analyzed and the necessity to use financial instruments such as guarantees and letters of credit in risk management of project financing was substantiated. It has been established that forward contracts, currency swaps and over-the-counter currency options are the most acceptable instruments for hedging foreign exchange risks of project financing. Further studies of the problem should include the need for legislative regulation of using hybrid financial instruments, as well as methodological and regulatory support for the risk management of project financing at all stages of the investment project implementation.

Research on corporate governance has been conducted extensively over the past few decades. However, the result of various studies failed to produce conclusive insight. This study is aimed at identifying, classifying, analyzing and interpreting previous research on corporate governance in Asia by using meta-analytical approach. By using the HOMA (Hedges-Olkin Meta-Analytical) procedures, the current study collected eighty articles from journals ranging from 1999 until 2017. Data were gathered from empirical scientific papers. Through rigorous research process, the current study found that most previous research on corporate governance in Asia observed the patterns of influence of various types of ownership structure and board characteristics on corporate performance. Ownership by family, government, and management tend to have a negative impact on performance, whilst institutional ownership and foreign ownership show positive effect on performance. The study reveals inconsistent result for frequency of board meetings, existence of family members on board, outside director, and board independence towards performance. Similar finding appeared for the relationship of performance to women on board and CEO duality. CGPI as the Corporate Governance Perception index and board size were found to have a positive consistency on performance. Apart from limitations of the study, the result suggests that there exists institutional and environmental specificity in the study of corporate governance in Asia that may be different from other context of study so that future researcher need to take a precaution of this matter.

This paper analyzes financial markets in four developing countries (Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia) using daily returns of their respective stock market indices from January 1, 2006 till December 31, 2016, timeframe which was rarely analyzed. Analysis was conducted by various statistical tests, more precisely serial correlation test, runs test, Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, unit root test, variance ratio test and test of January effect. Results suggest that all analyzed indices, except BelexLine (Serbia), confirm weak form of efficient market hypothesis, while the results on the index BelexLine are mixed and it can be concluded that it does not follow weak form of efficient market hypothesis. Given these results, it can be said that not only passive approach to portfolio management is more appropriate on all indices, except BelexLine, but also additional test and more complex models are necessary in order to confirm this conclusion.

The aim of the article was to find out the optimal capital structure of the companies in relation to their maximum performance. To reach this aim, the data of the companies operating in the field of heat industry of the Slovak Republic were used. As the first method, a correlation matrix was applied. It was found out that there is statistically significant relationship between capital structure indicators and performance of the companies. Due to the lack of data in time series, the authors were not able to apply multiple regression model to assess the impact of these indicators on performance. Therefore, a method of modelling was used to analyze the impact of the change in capital structure on performance. Modelling was based on the principle of a gradual change in the capital structure in favor of debt. By the increase in debt, it was confirmed that there was a change in the values of selected indicators. In the course of analysis, it was confirmed that the value of EVA equity increased with the rising indebtedness by which the proposition I of the modified MM theory was supported. The performance expressed by EVA entity indicator is at its minimum when the capital structure is 90:10 in favor of equity. By increasing the debt, EVA entity rises. Based on these results, it can be stated that the performance of selected companies increases when the share of debt also rises, even when taking into account the rising financial risks.

The objective of the research was to identify possible positive synergistic effect of concerns. Because of the advantages of the existence of consolidated financial statements, the focus is on the Czech consolidated groups.
Consolidated financial statements of 719 groups of accounting entities – concerns in the Czech Republic were studied, i.e., the statistical population consisted of 719 reporting units, which can be considered as the total population of all published consolidated financial statements. Following economic indicators were analyzed to discover the existence of positive synergistic effect: cash position ratio, return on equity, return on sales.
Based on the research, it the authors concluded that return on equity revealed dependency between change in the value of the indicator of the parent company and consolidated unit. Values of this indicator are interesting from the investment point of view. They confirm success of capital acquisitions.
Cash ratio monitoring revealed an inconsistent environment, unambiguous data correlation between the group data and the individual financial statements of the parent companies.
Return on sales indicator showed that consolidated groups had reached higher values of the indicator, i.e., lower total cost ratio than parent companies. Data correlation was found at the low level, i.e., the parent companies did not influence consolidated data.
Acquisition companies in the Czech Republic in the period 2008–2013 generated positive financial synergy. For financial indicator of return on equity, dependence between consolidated groups and parent companies was confirmed. Positive financial synergy was found out for all monitored financial indicators.

Financial Reynolds number works as a proxy for volatility in stock markets. This piece of work helps to identify the predictability and herd behavior embedded in the financial Reynolds number (time series) series for both CNX Nifty Regular and CNX Nifty High Frequency Trading domains. Hurst exponent and fractal dimension have been used to carry out this work. Results confirm conclusive evidence of predictability and herd behavior for both the indices. However, it has been observed that CNX Nifty High Frequency Trading domain (represented by its corresponding financial Reynolds number) is more predictable and has traces of significant herd behavior. The pattern of the predictability has been found to follow a quadratic equation.

The purpose of the article is to study and justify the need to use information technologies (IT), in particular financial, logistics provision and in the management of business processes. This will increase competitive advantages, improve the quality of logistics services and reduce the cost of their implementation. In accordance with the goal, such interrelated tasks are solved: peculiarities of development of integrated logistics providers are defined and studied; priority directions in the work of providers are determined; the foreign and Ukrainian experience of implementation of services in the field of logistics are analyzed; necessity of using virtual logistics providers in the market of transport and logistics services is substantiated. Scientific novelty of the conducted research consists in theoretical substantiation and experimental confirmation of methods and tools for development, management and organization of information support of logistics provider activity. The particular attention in the research is paid to modeling and designing of information support systems for innovative forms of logistics providers. Their activities are based on the automation of the implementation of logistics business processes, as well as capabilities of artificial intelligence when making managerial decisions in the field of logistics to improve the financial position of enterprises. The practical significance of the research is to develop an innovative virtual logistics provider in the market of logistics services and expand financial possibilities of using innovative logistics provider tools to improve processes of information support management for logistics operating activities.