Issue #1 (Volume 17 2020)

The impact of financial risks on share prices concerns investors, company executives and accounting standards developers. Investors need this information in delineating their equity valuation models while company executives need the information to make appropriate capital structure decisions. Accounting standards developers use this information in their policy to make accounting standards contemporary.
The authors examine the link between relative and absolute financial risks and share prices using a dynamic panel of non-financial listed companies on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange after dollarization. Equity investors incurred losses before dollarization, which prompted this investigation into the sphere of financial risks in order to explain share price movements so that investors can use it to minimize losses in the future. Absolute financial risk is measured by the total debt, while debt/equity ratio measures relative financial risk. Market capitalization as a proxy for equity and debt is measured by total liabilities. An average debt/equity ratio greater or equal to one qualifies a firm into the high-risk category while ratios below one imply low-risk firms. Results from two-step System Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) show negative and significant connection between relative risk and share prices across risk categories. The impact of absolute risk on share prices differs by risk category. Firm managers are advised to keep total liabilities below market capitalization in order to enjoy the benefits of low-risk categorization. Debt ratio is a reasonable indicator of value and investors can use it in equity valuation. Mandatory reporting of debt ratios should be considered by accounting standards developers.

Issuing bonds is one of the alternative ways for non-financial companies to get money from the public besides borrowing money from banks. Compared with getting money banks, obtaining money from the bond market is slightly economical because the companies are not essential to borne the intermediation cost anymore. As a consequence, the companies in the bond market will get the assessment from the appointed agency. Furthermore, the rating of bonds will determine their reputation.
Mentioning the literature review, the bond ratings are affected by the features of the supervisory board: size, independence, and audit committee. Therefore, this research intends to attain two goals. Firstly, it aims to prove and analyze the impact of the supervisory board size and independence, as well as the audit committee size on the company’s possibility to get a high bond rating with profitability as the control variable. Secondly, it intends to know the accuracy rate of grouping the company bond ratings through the classification matrix.
The population originates from the non-financial companies. The total samples are determined by the Slovin formula with a boundary of the fault of 10%. Based on this formula, the total samples are 36 companies. Furthermore, they are randomly grabbed from the population. The ordered probit regression model and the classification matrix are utilized to analyze the data.
Based on the data analysis, this research finds out that the supervisory board size and independence, the audit committee size, and profitability positively affect the bond ratings. It means that the number of the commissioner board and the members of the audit committee have to be added until achieving the maximum level to monitor the performance of the directors so that the company can reach a high bond rating. To sum up, board governance is effective in improving the company’s bond rating.

This paper examines momentum and contrarian effects in the Ukrainian stock market after one-day abnormal returns. To do this, UX futures data over the period 2010–2018 are used. The following hypotheses are tested: H1) hourly returns on overreaction days differ from hourly returns on normal days, H2) there are price patterns on overreaction days, and H3) to test these hypotheses, visual inspection and average analysis are used, as well as t-tests, cumulative abnormal returns, and trading simulation approaches. The results suggest that there are statistically significant differences between intraday dynamics during the usual days and the overreactions day. There is a strong momentum effect present on the day of overreaction: prices tend to change only in the direction of the overreaction during the whole day. The fact of the overreaction becomes clear after 13:00-14:00. This gives a lot of time to explore the momentum effect in the day of overreaction. On the day after the overreaction, prices tend to go in the opposite direction: contrarian pattern is detected, which is in line with the overreaction hypothesis. Based on detected price patterns, rules of trading and trading strategies for the Ukrainian stock market are developed. Momentum Strategy (based on price patterns on the day of overreaction) generates several successful trades; close to with 90%, and their number being is profitable (trading results differ from the random ones – confirmed by t-tests). Contrarian Strategy (based on price patterns on the day after the overreaction) demonstrates low efficiency, and results do not differ from random trading.

This study came to inspect a new approach to the government debt security assessment based on the systematization of indicators in terms of four directions: solvency, liquidity, domestic indebtedness, and external indebtedness. The proposed methodology considers the weaknesses, which negatively affect the level of government debt security.
It was established that in 2014−2016 the level of security at emerging markets was the worst. The main reason was insufficient solvency. Also, the obtained results showed that the general assessment of domestic indebtedness in recent years had a more dangerous level than the external one. In addition, it was revealed that similar problems with the level of debt burden are also presented in the EU countries since the value of the analyzed indicator – general government debt to GDP – exceeds 60%.
It is recommended to consider the experience of debt management reform of new members of the EU and, at the same time, post-socialist countries by other emerging economies.

The main purpose of this study is to introduce an integrated approach to the methodology of assessing the level of fiscal policy decentralization. It is proposed to evaluate the fiscal policy decentralization of the state according to three functional components: decentralization of the process of local budget revenues formation (includes five indicators); decentralization of local budget structure (includes six indicators); decentralization of intergovernmental budgetary relations (includes five indicators). The expediency of forming an integral indicator of the level of fiscal policy decentralization as the geometric mean of three sub-indexes formed by its main functional components is substantiated. It has been proved that the level of fiscal decentralization in Ukraine decreased at the end of 2017, compared to 2004, but was medium with acceptable risks of fiscal policy modernization. Instead, in 2014, the lowest numerical value of the decentralization level was recorded, which corresponded to the critical level of the integral indicator with significant obstacles to the modernization of fiscal policy. The results obtained confirm the feasibility of implementing the decentralization reform in Ukraine, which started in 2014, and demonstrate its effectiveness.

Several contributions in the literature argue that a significant in-sample risk reduction can be obtained by investing in a relatively small number of assets in an investment universe. Furthermore, selecting small portfolios seems to yield good out-of-sample performances in practice. This analysis provides further evidence that an appropriate preselection of the assets in a market can lead to an improvement in portfolio performance. For preselection, this paper investigates the effectiveness of a minimum variance approach and that of an innovative index (the new Altman Z-score) based on the creditworthiness of the companies. Different classes of portfolio models are examined on real-world data by applying both the minimum variance and the Z-score preselection methods. Preliminary results indicate that the new Altman Z-score preselection provides encouraging out-of-sample performances with respect to those obtained with the minimum variance approach.

The advent of globalization has spurred the level of foreign direct investment (FDI), which has increased the employment level and economic growth in countries around the world. This scenario has also been debated in the extant literature. It is on this backdrop that this study was inspired to examine the relationship between FDI and the level of employment in Nigeria. The article uses the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and the Johansen co-integration econometric approach on the data, which were sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) statistical bulletin. The investigation period covered thirty-two years (1985–2017). Also, the authors adopted the theory of absorptive capacity as the baseline for the model. Results obtained from the study showed that foreign direct investment is statistically significant and positively related to the employment level in Nigeria. These findings imply that a 1 unit increase in the inflow of foreign direct investment to the Nigerian economy is capable of increasing the level of employment by about 0.97 units. Therefore, based on findings, the study is concluded by recommendations that the Nigerian economy should become viable through effective trade policies and programs, which are capable of attracting foreign direct investment into the Nigerian economy for employment creation.

Acknowledgment(s)
The publication support received from Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation and Discovery (CUCRID) is appreciated

The fact that the accumulated investment potential (IP) of insurance companies (IC) does not have a significant impact on the processes of economic growth in Ukrainian practice actualizes the task of researching the practice of investing in the activities of domestic insurers. The purpose of the study is to find out, classify and highlight the main factors that influence the formation of the Ukrainian IC’ IP and give recommendations for overcoming a number of related difficulties. According to the results of investigation of the Ukrainian insurance industry development trends in 2011–2018, it was concluded that rates of their IP accumulation are insufficient. There is a decrease in the aggregate value of insurers’ investment assets and a reduction in the composition of investment attractive financial instruments. Low efficiency and simplification of investment strategies of IC are noted. The factors that exert a stimulating and inhibitory influence on the investment processes in the Ukrainian insurance market were identified. Ways and tools were proposed to strengthen the effect of incentive factors and eliminate or minimize the effect of the considered restrictive factors that can be used in the practice of state regulation of the insurance industry of the country. Considering the examined factors should allow the state regulators making more effective decisions to improve the investment activity of insurers and enhance its importance in the development of the national economy.

The problems that this study informed are rooted in the uncertainty surrounding the presence of calendar anomalies in the Nigerian stock market and the need to ascertain whether calendar anomaly is changing with time and market condition according to the adaptive market hypothesis. This study evaluates how calendar anomaly behaves over time in the Nigerian stock market through the day-of-the-week effect since the latest trend is to examine time-changing anomaly. The general All Share Index returns of the Nigerian Stock Exchange between 2000 and 2017 are used in the analysis. Secondary daily index returns data for the period are sourced from the NSE Fact Book. The major estimation techniques employed in the study are the mean equations of the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) and overlapping sub-period methodology. Moreover, returns are grouped into Up and Down periods depending on the periods that generate positive and negative returns, respectively. This study found out that Monday (MON), Tuesday (TUE), and Friday (FRI) effects are the only adaptive day-of-the-week effects. Thus, three (MON, TUE, FRI) day of the week effects found in the full sample are time-varying in subsample and are affected by market condition. On the whole, MON and Thursday (THUR) effects are found in Bull, while TUE and FRI are found in Bear. The investor must be careful to take time-variation into consideration; otherwise, they may incur a loss by thinking that the day-of-the-week effect is present every time.

In 2014, Indonesia was announced to be the host the 2018 XVIII Asian Games, the biggest sports event in Asia. This announcement is expected to positively impact the country’s economy and investors as there would be thousands of spectators from both the country and overseas. A direct impact of the event is that Indonesia would prepare the entire venue. This study examines whether the capital market participants react to the announcement. For this purpose it tests a total of 25 companies in the infrastructure, utility, and transportation sectors listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. A standard event study methodology is employed to examine the existence of abnormal returns around the event. The results show the abnormal returns on two days before and two days after the announcement. However, overall, there are no significant abnormal returns before and after the announcement. The study does not find a significant difference of abnormal returns before and after the announcement. Besides, there was no difference in trading volume activity before and after the announcement as the host of the XVIII Asian Games. In summary, the capital market participants do not consider the event to be a significant issue that determines their investment decision in the capital market.

The formation of an effective company’s financial architecture, which includes such basic elements as the capital structure, ownership structure, and the state of corporate governance, has a significant impact on maintaining a certain market position and ensuring stable profitability of activity. This research aims at determining the state of financial architecture, changing its trajectory, and its impact on company’s market position. Twenty-two (22) Ukrainian companies were selected for the study from the list of top 200 in terms of the largest volume of sales revenue received, and those that provided full financial statements for the period from 2007 till 2017. To determine the state of company’s financial architecture and the relevant market position, the authors used a cluster analysis using the method of the most remote neighbors. Algorithms of Kohonen’s self-organizing maps were applied. Harrington’s desirability function was used to determine the integral index. The selected sample demonstrated a high level of ownership concentration in almost all companies and showed that only a few individuals controlled a significant amount of assets, thereby confirming the oligarchic structure of the Ukrainian economy. As a result, seven cluster groups were obtained, reflecting the companies in terms of the quality of their financial architecture. Only five companies in the total sample were found to have high-quality financial architecture, i.e., capital structure and ownership structure are consistent and optimal and ensure that the company maintains a leading market position.

The dynamics of socio-economic processes requires the general government revenue to be adapted to changes in financial and economic conditions. The study aims to improve the scientific and methodological approach to general government revenue in the system of fiscal regulation. The impact of general government revenue on economic growth was estimated using a correlation-regression analysis and the multiplier effect concept. The authors found out that, in order to ensure the macroeconomic stability and accelerate the economic growth in conditions of transformational changes, it is reasonable to increase the share of direct taxes in the general government revenue structure, to implement the prudential and coherent fiscal policy with the strategic goals of the countries’ social and economic development. The authors substantiated that the increased share of direct taxes of the consolidated budget of Ukraine in GDP by one percent causes the real GDP to grow by 2.94 percent, whereas the increased share of the indirect taxes by one percent causes the real GDP to decrease by 0.45 percent; for 2014–2018, 28 percent of taxes are on average withdrawn per unit of GDP growth. The study results indicate that effective fiscal regulation is ensured only by the synergy of its fiscal, regulatory, and incentive functions, the reconciliation of fiscal sustainability and tax neutrality principles.

Acknowledgment
The article was prepared on the subject of the GDR: “The Financial and Budgetary Strategy for Economic Growth” (No. 0119U100577).

The article deals with evaluating the securities portfolios in the process of transition from the one-factor CAPM model to the Fama-French five-factor model (FF5F). It identifies the advantages of the latter and discusses the controversial issues regarding its use by portfolio investors in different countries, given the anomalies inherent in asset pricing. Besides, the peculiarities of the statistical stratification method used in the FF5F model to group stock portfolios are revealed, and attention is drawn to some of the debating points of the five-factor model. The proposals have been formulated, which offer broader avenues for taking advantage of the FF5F model and increase the validity of the portfolio analysis results. The article also gives recommendations on modifying the approaches to analyzing small-size portfolios versus big-size portfolios based on partial changes in RMW and CMA factors, threshold proportions, and the use of STARR for asymmetric portfolios. The study substantiates the use of these approaches in testing the Fama-French five-factor model with portfolios composed of blue chips.

This study aims to discover the factors that affect equity fund performance in companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) during 2015–2018. This research is quantitative. Past performance, stock selection skills, market timing abilities, fund size, fund age are independent variables, while fund performance is the dependent variable. The population in this study was 73 equity funds. A total of 21 equity funds were selected as the sample by the purposive sampling method. The analytical method used is panel data regression analysis using the EViews program. Hypotheses were tested using a t-test with a significance level of alpha 0.05. The results show that equity fund past performance, stock selection skill, market timing ability, fund size, fund age and IDX composite index simultaneously have a significant effect on equity fund performance. Stock selection skill and IDX composite index partially have a positive and significant effect on equity fund performance. However, past performance, market timing ability, fund size and fund age have no positive and significant effect on equity fund performance.

Acknowledgment
All authors would like to thank Universitas Putra Indonesia YPTK Padang and Yayasan Perguruan Tinggi Komputer for financial support. Any remaining errors are our own.

This study aims to examine the effect of several variables such as profitability, firm size, asset structure, and commodity price (coal) on the capital structure with the debt to equity ratio (DER) as a proxy in the coal mining companies listed on the Indonesian capital market (i.e., the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The different results of previous studies related to the effect of some independent variables such as the firm size, profitability, asset structure, and dividend policy, such as dividend payout ratio to the DER, yield the research gaps that require further research. Data in this research were taken from the official public listed company’s annual reports on the IDX website. By employing the multiple regression techniques, this study found that only profitability and asset structure significantly affect the capital structure (proxied by DER). The effect of profitability was negative, while the effect of asset structure was positive. Based on these results, the managers may start considering re-balancing the use of external funds if the profitability level increases. Further, they also need to maintain the company’s asset structure and balance its’ fixed assets so that the capital structure is well maintained. In general, the findings supported the pecking order theory.

This article analyzes whether the factors of the mechanism of high-frequency trading (HFT) or intraday trading affect the process of price reversal and continuation. The price reversal phenomenon is gaining importance rapidly due to the increasingly intensive use of IT/Fintech-based trading automation facilities on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. However, one knows little about how their trading affects volatility and liquidity pressures that cause price reversals. A new research approach uses the factors of market microstructure mechanism based on high-frequency data (HFD-intraday). The research method uses purposive random sampling, which classified price fractions into three groups, specifically low price, medium price, and high price, which are analyzed by logistic panel regression. The research variables used include price reversal (dependent), stock return, trading volume, transaction frequency, volume/frequency (V/F) proxy, volatility, and liquidity. According to low price model research findings, all variables show a significant effect on price reversal; for medium price model, all variables except liquidity show a significant effect on price reversal; and for high price model, all variables have a significant effect on price reversal, except trading volume and volatility. In conclusion, low price shares tend to have higher price reversal probability compared to continuity because they tend to be liquid, low institutional ownership, and minimal reporting/analysis and are controlled by HFTs (uninformed traders). Some variables are not significant because of the bounce effect around the bid-ask spread.

Acknowledgment
Many thanks to Armida S. Alisjahbana, Roy H. Sembel, Budiono, Rahardi S. Rahmanto, and the anonymous referee/reviewer for valuable inputs and feedback.

This study provides evidence about how stockholders control insiders using dividend policy to prevent overinvestment. This study observes the dividend yield, market risk, profitability, and growth opportunities of 155 public firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2017. The dividend yield data were split into quartiles and categorized into the following areas: 1) firms with the lowest dividend yields, 2) firms with lower dividend yields, 3) firms with higher dividend yields, and 4) firms with the highest dividend yields. This study conducts multinomial regression for testing the hypotheses. The results confirm that systematic risk has an insignificant relationship with dividend policy, and profitability has a significant relationship with dividend policy. Consistent with agency theory in supporting free cash flow theory, this study finds that the agency problem exists for firms with high dividend yields relative to firms with low dividend yields in the context of Indonesian public firms. The systematic risk has an insignificant relationship with dividend policy, of which the study sample is limited. The findings also imply that stockholders tend to control insiders in case of overinvestment. Besides, this study also finds that market risk as a systematic risk is insignificant both for firms with high and low dividend yields.

One-factor no-arbitrage term structure models where the instantaneous interest rate follows either the process proposed by Vasicek (1977) or by Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985), commonly known as CIR, are parsimonious and analytically tractable. Models based on the original CIR process have the important characteristic of allowing for a time-varying conditional interest rate volatility but are undefined in negative interest rate environments. A Shifted-CIR no-arbitrage term structure model, where the instantaneous interest rate is given by the sum of a constant lower bound and a non-negative CIR-like process, allows for negative yields and benefits from similar tractability of the original CIR model. Based on the U.S. and German yield curve data, the Vasicek and Shifted-CIR specifications, both considering constant and time-varying risk premia, are compared in terms of information criteria and forecasting ability. Information criteria prefer the Shifted-CIR specification to models based on the Vasicek process. It also provides similar or better in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting ability of future yield curve movements. Introducing a time variation of the interest rate risk premium in no-arbitrage one-factor term structure models is instead not recommended, as it provides worse information criteria and forecasting performance.

Municipal bonds are an option available to many cities to raise long-term financing to finance the infrastructure projects. This study aims to develop and find local measures of creditworthiness that are suitable and applicable for local government units in Palestine. Different variables are recognized to see the effect on the issuance of municipal bonds, macroeconomic variables measured by revenues and expenditures per capita, cost of capital, and unemployment rate. Municipal status variables have subgroup variables of municipality size, financial reporting quality, outstanding debt, and financial distress. Various financial ratios, comparative and cross-sectional analysis, horizontal and vertical analysis were used. These ratios and analysis have been used to determine the municipal status variable. The results of the study were limited to the largest 11 sample municipalities; each is the central local government unit at the governorates and was not generalized for all municipalities in Palestine. The study found that macroeconomic and municipality status affects the issuance of municipal revenue bonds. Based on the study results, municipal bonds are highly recommended. Also, instructions from the Ministry of Local Government need to be established and to enforce municipalities about the declaration date of publishing audited financial statements.

Money is a widely accepted commodity, which enables us to determine the economic value of purchased goods and services and make payments. The dynamic development of technology and social expectations has expanded the spectrum of available types of payment instruments, including e-money and cryptocurrencies. Among dematerialized means of payment, cryptocurrencies began to play an important role due to their independence from central financial institutions and a highly effective form of saving money. The paper aims to present legal authorization, referring to cryptocurrencies, in countries of the European Union and prove that bitcoin is a high-riskу financial instrument. The methodology of the study was based on the review of available legal acts and literature (regarding the nature and function of money) and Value at Risk (VaR) model on the example of risk assessment of cryptocurrencies with respect to investing in the selected currencies. The outcomes showed several discrepancies in the definition of cryptocurrencies. They indicated that bitcoin, as one of the best-known cryptocurrencies, does not fulfill the functions of money formulated in economic theory (in relation to e-money). Besides, cryptocurrencies have been shown to be high-risky instruments.

This paper contributes to clarifying the scientific debate on the impact of entrepreneurship development and wages increases on Nigeria’s macroeconomic development. The main purpose of this research is to estimate the impacts, problems, and consequences between wages growth and the growth of a long-term relationship between wages and investment. The article deals with the current state of Nigeria’s macroeconomic indicators. The methodological tools for the research are the ARDL and DOLS methods, which were used to study the relationships between the macroeconomic indicators. The research period is 1987–2019. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that the country operates under unstable and uncertain conditions, so it is difficult to achieve macroeconomic stability. Also, the article presents the results of the analysis, which has shown a positive and statistically significant effect of raising the minimum wages on economic growth both in the long and short term. The study results can be useful for state authorities, private sector, as well as for the researchers.

Acknowledgements
This research was prepared as a part of the Scientific Project “Modeling the Transfer of Eco-Innovations in the Enterprise-Region-State System: Impact on Ukraine’s Economic Growth and Security” (No. 0119U100364), that is financed by the state budget of Ukraine.

The main purpose of the current study is to examine the impact of Ramadan month on stock returns at the Palestine Exchange (PEX). The study sample consists of all Palestinian public shareholding companies listed in the PEX. The comparison period used in this study consists of 30 days before Ramadan month, 30 days after Ramadan month, and Ramadan month (30 days). This gives a total of 90 days in a year for ten years (2006–2016). The GJR-GARCH technique is used. The results of the study show that Ramadan month has a remarkable effect on the stock returns of the companies in the PEX. The results indicate a significant impact on earnings per share (EPS) in the PEX. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between the stock returns and the market value in Ramadan month. The profits are increased in the industrial and investment companies due to the high demands in Ramadan month. Therefore, the companies should work to keep a steady performance in the whole year. Besides, the capacity of industrial and investment companies should be increased to meet the high demand in Ramadan month. This study will help Palestinian investors to effectively time their trading. This study is considered one of the pioneering studies that discuss the impact of Ramadan month on the stock returns in the context of Palestine Stock Exchange.

Cash management plays an important role in the business operations. However, holding too much cash results in unnecessary expenses such as opportunity costs, management costs, and representation costs due to negative cash holdings. This study examines the sensitivity of cash flows to cash holdings. The paper uses regression methods for table data, including FEM, REM, GLS, and GMM regression, with a research dataset including non-financial companies listed on Vietnam’s stock market in the period 2008–2018. Empirical results show that cash flows are positively associated with cash holdings levels. At the same time, research has shown an asymmetry in cash flows sensitivity to cash holdings. The study also classified the companies with limited and no financial restrictions. In the Vietnamese context, compared to unrestricted companies, financially restricted companies have a lower cash flows sensitivity. The research results are the basis for enterprises to manage cash better and increase business efficiency in the future.

Due to the uniqueness of the services sector in terms of its characteristics and profitability, as well as the lack of studies on this sector, this study is considered to be the first to improve the knowledge of the key factors that play an important role in the profitability of the Jordanian services sector. This study investigates the effect of financial characteristics and capital structure on the profitability of all 46 services companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange over the period 2014–2018. This study applies fixed and random effects models to panel data variables, namely, size, tangible assets, growth, business risk, debt to equity ratio and debt to assets ratio as independent variables. At the same time, profitability was measured by operating profits (earnings before interest and tax divided by total assets), return on assets (ROA), and return on equity (ROE), which acted as the dependent variables. This study reveals the first evidence that the debt to assets ratio has a negative and significant impact on the profitability of services companies in Jordan. In line with the pecking order theory, this finding suggests that more profitable services companies tend to prioritize the use of retained earnings in financing business activities rather than in financing debt. This study shows that profitability is significantly and positively affected by size and business risk, while ROA is negatively affected by business risk. It also shows that tangible assets have a negative and significant effect on profitability, while growth has a positive and significant effect on operating profits.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the Korean and Chinese game industries, and more broadly, the Chinese stock market. Chinese firms are the most important partners and investors in the Korean game industry, which has emerged as a significant component of a thriving Korean economy. The paper examines the impact of growth in the Chinese game industry on the Korean market and the correlation and cointegration between the stock returns of nineteen Korean game companies, the Chinese stock market, and Chinese game companies. A portfolio constructed from Korean game companies listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ is analyzed. Variation in the Shanghai Composite Index is shown to significantly influence the performance of Korean game companies. Further, the Korean game industry is sensitive to changes in the stock price of leading Chinese game publishers. The Korean game industry returns more closely mirror the returns of the Chinese stock markets rather than the Korean markets, evidence of the influence of China. As growth and returns in the Korean game industry are closely related to the performance of the Chinese market, future performance is subject to political and economic changes in China.

Intangible assets play an important role in increasing the value of companies. The performance of companies increasingly depends on ideas, information, and professional services rather than tangible assets. The question of how to accurately measure intangible assets remains a challenge for many scientists. This study aims to measure intangible assets of 396 companies listed on Vietnam’s stock market between 2010 and 2014 using the panel data technique by Yamayuchi (2014). The estimation shows that intangible assets make up a large share of total assets of companies. In addition, construction, steel, building materials, mining, and food are sectors with high intangible assets in Vietnam. The study also finds a positive impact of intangible assets on improving company performance. The findings demonstrate the importance of investing in intangible assets, such as R&D, technology, advertising, and human resources, to increase the value of a company in the future.

There is an academic discussion about the value relevance of deferred tax, which aims to find out the effect of deferred tax on the investors’ decisions. In light of this discussion, the first question is about the impact of deferred tax on management practices to manipulate earnings, which is called earnings management, the second question is about the value relevance of earnings management, the third question is about the value relevance of deferred tax, and the fourth question is about the mediating effect of earnings management. The paper focuses on listed firms in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX), especially firms that were recorded in EGX 100, for six-year period (2013–2018) for 107 firms and 642 completed observations. The findings are as follows: management uses deferred tax to manipulate earnings, since an increase in deferred tax amounts increases earnings management practices; there is no value relevance of earnings management, which means earnings management practices do not affect the investors’ decisions; there is value relevance of deferred tax, which confirms that deferred tax is one of the determinants that affect the investors’ decisions; there is no value relevance of deferred tax through earnings management as a mediator variable since investors are not interested in earnings management practices to make their investment decisions. This paper investigates the relationship between deferred tax, earnings management, and value relevance in the Egyptian context.

In the current conditions of capital market liberalization, developing countries achieve a faster economic growth rate by actively attracting various types of foreign investment. The steady rise in the volume of foreign investment into the country could be achieved only due to its high investment potential.
Therefore, this study aims to develop the methodology for determining the dynamic changes in the country’s investment potential, and its relevant medium-term indicators identify the degree of informational technology influence on Ukraine’s investment potential. It is essential to define the position of Ukraine in the global context in terms of the level of information technologies as the catalyst for investment attractiveness.
The relevant indicators defining Ukraine’s investment potential were forecasted using the Brown-Meyer exponential smoothing model. To calculate the integral indicator of the investment potential, the Hurst exponent was applied. Kohonen self-organizing maps were used to group the countries according to their informational technology parameters.
Ukraine’s investment potential was found to decrease since 2019 and is equal to 0.6493 units in 2020 and 0.6407 units in 2021 due to the decline of the indicators describing the human capital, infrastructure, technological development, and socio-economic conditions. Technology has a significant influence on Ukraine’s investment potential. Its impact is rising each year from 1.70% to 5.17% and 13.04% between 2019 and 2021, respectively. According to the level of technology, Ukraine is in the group with Spain, Romania, and Poland since 2017.
The decreasing investment potential forecast and the positive influence of technology level on it bring the opportunity to form the priority areas for expansion of investment potential based on the adaptation of world instruments to implement the investment policy within national economic conditions.

The Saudi Arabia Stock Exchange (Tadawul) is one of the biggest emerging Stock Exchanges in the Middle East region. Therefore, this research aims to apply Fama and French (2015) 5-factor model on Tadawul, and compares it with the Fama and French 3-factor model and CAPM to check the applicability of the models in Tadawul and the identity of the factors that can affect stock returns. Furthermore, the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) regression has been implemented to examine the impact between the variables in the models. Empirically, the results show that Fama and French (2015) 5-factor model is the most consistent model in comparison to the other two models in terms of explaining the cross-section of average stock returns in Tadawul. However, it is not the best according to the intercepts results of all the regressions in 2x3, 2x2, or 2x2x2x2 sorts. Besides, Fama and French (2015) 5-factor model has the highest explanatory power in most of the portfolios based on the adjusted R2 regardless of the sort (2x3, 2x2, or 2x2x2x2). Finally, the results conclude that Fama and French (2015) 5-factor model can be an applicable model in Tadawul but only market and size can affect the stock returns, while the value, profitability, and investment cannot. Accordingly, the author recommends that, as a continuation of this research, further research can be done, which investigates a model with additional factors like momentum and illiquidity.