Safe Investment Research Articles

The International Intervention in Africa “A Comparative Study”

The purpose of the paper is to explore the real interests behind the existence of both the People’s Republic of China and United States of America in Africa as in spite of the end of colonialism era -theoretically- in Africa, the international intervention still exists by other means than the old traditional one. Although the American war on terrorism since 2001 was an important tool for USA to increase its existence in the region; it paved the way for Chinese safe investment in the region and here come the main question of the study as: does the American war on terror led to increase or decrease in the Chinese existence in the region. To answer such question, the paper depends mainly upon the Role Theory ; to analyze the different roles played by USA and China in the region; also adapting the comparative approach to see the similarities and differences between both American and Chinese tools and real interests in the East African region mainly. It is also important to analyze the soft power of china in such region and know if the American war on terror was the only reason for such Chinese rise in Africa or there are other factors that led to such existence.

Adapting the supervisory relationship measure for general medical practice

BackgroundThe relationship between general practice (GP) supervisors and registrars is a critical component in effective training for the next generation of medical practitioners. Despite the importance of the relational aspect of clinical education, most evaluation has traditionally occurred from the perspective of the registrar only. As such, no validated tools exist to measure the quality of the supervisory relationship from the perspective of the supervisor. This paper presents an adaptation and validation of the clinical psychology supervisory relationship measure (Pearce et al, Br J Clin Psychol 52:249–68, 2013) for GP supervisors in an Australian context.MethodFollowing an Expert Group review and adaptation of the items, 338 GP supervisors completed the adapted tool.ResultsUsing principal components analysis and Procrustes confirmatory rotation, an optimal three-component model of supervisory relationship was identified, reflecting measures of Safe base (α = .96), Supervisor investment (α = .85), and Registrar professionalism (α = .94).ConclusionsThe general practice supervisory relationship measure (GP-SRM) demonstrated excellent model fit, high internal consistency, and was theoretically consistent with the original tool. Implications for clinical education and future research are presented.

Why Risk Managers?

Banks rely on risk managers to prevent their employees from making high risk low value investments. Why can't the CEOs directly incentivize their employees to choose the most profitable investment? I show that having a separate risk manager is more profitable for banks and is also socially efficient. This is because there is conflict between proving incentive to choose the most profitable investment and providing incentives to exert effort on those investments. Hence, if the tasks are split between a risk manager who approves the investments and a loan officer (or trader) who exerts effort, then both optimal investment choice and optimal effort can be achieved. I further examine some reasons for risk management failure wherein a CEO may ignore the risk manager when the latter is risk averse and suggests safe investments. As is usually the case before a financial crisis, my model predicts that the CEO is more likely to ignore the risk manager when the risky investments are yielding higher profits.

How News May Affect Markets' Complex Structure: The Case of Cambridge Analytica.

The claim of Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, that it was possible to influence voting behavior by using data mined from the social platform Facebook created a sudden fear in its users of being manipulated; consequently, even the market price of the social platform was shocked.We propose a case study analyzing the effect of this data scandal not only on Facebook stock price, but also on the whole stock market. To such a scope, we consider 15-minutes prices and returns of the set of the NASDAQ-100 components before and after the Cambridge Analytica case. We analyze correlations and Mutual Information among components finding that assets become more correlated and their Mutual Information grows higher. We also observe that correlation and Mutual Information are mutually increasing and seem to follow a master curve. Hence, the market appears more fragile after the Cambridge Analytica event. In fact, as it is well-known in finance, an increase in the average value of correlations augments the systemic risk (i.e., all the market can collapse as a whole) and decreases the possibility of allocating a safe investment portfolio.

Precious metals market in the new millennium

In the ever-changing investment environment it is not easy to find a relatively safe investment option. That is the reason why a large part of investors (respective both, the financial science as well as the financial practice) is increasingly concerned with the benefits and risks of investing into precious metals. The aim of this paper was to find out how the prices of gold, silver, platinum and palladium have been behaving in the last 15 years, from January 2001 to December 2015. The prices of selected precious metals, their cross-correlation and their volatility in the last millennium as well as the relation of precious metals prices to S&P 500 index values have been analyzed. The method of correlation analysis has been used as the main research method. Our findings showed that despite the fact that some of the precious metals seemed to be a good choice as a profitable investment none of them have been a good choice for investment diversification, neither with each other nor with the S&P 500 index that represented the stock market. The precious metals can be easily used as a form of financial investments. Unlike S&P 500 index or some other underlying assets the precious metals (especially gold) are financial instruments that are liquid in any part of the world.
 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
 Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Research and Education Center.
 Keywords: precious metals; S&P 500 index; price correlations; standard deviation; new millennium;

Financial health and management practices: a multi-year cross country analysis of PLCs

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between financial strength or condition and managerial practices in preparing financial statements of public limited companies. The objectives of this study are threefold – to measure the financial strength, to measure integrity index and to examine the relationship between management practices and financial strength.Design/methodology/approachFinancial ratios, Altman’s Z-Score, integrity index, ranking approach and chi-square test are used to achieve the objectives. A multi-year cross-country analysis is done by considering sample of seven Asian countries, namely, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and Japan.FindingsThe study catches the relationship between management practices and financial strength across sample countries. Management practices is one of the responsible factors for this relationship. They use discretionary power in preparing financial statements to control the trading results. The principles of accounting do not support the alteration of financial data to look the company better on paper. The cost of financial statement fraud is higher than other occupational fraud.Research limitations/implicationsThis study does not cover factors other than management practices and further study could be conducted to look for the other reasons that may also responsible for the deviations.Practical implicationsConflict of interest between shareholders and board of directors is not a new phenomenon. Auditing system is introduced to minimize this conflict of interest, but they failed to uphold their position in reality. Management also needs to prove their integrity in financial statements. Ethical consideration is the highest priority.Social implicationsStakeholders, especially regulators, professional bodies and academics, should concentrate on the issue on ‘how to reduce the manipulation in financial statements’ to create a safe investments avenue for the nation.Originality/valueThis study provides empirical evidences regarding the influence of management practices on financial statements and financial strength of listed companies across countries. The culture, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, etc., are different from country to country. The aim is to contribute empirical evidence about the relationship between management practices and financial health in different settings. This study is first of its kind.

Public Private Partnerships and Collaboration in the Health Sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Study

A public-private partnership (PPP) is defined as a collaboration between the public and private sectors in the financing, delivery and development of public goods and services. This phenomenon has been adopted globally by many as a new economic paradigm. This study identifies challenges and other hindrances in promoting PPPs, identifies the concrete contribution of PPP initiatives in improving healthcare service delivery and determines the level of participation of the private sector in healthcare delivery systems under PPP initiatives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 participants, including 4 government hospital directors, 5 private hospital directors and 4 health personnel. Participants were interviewed face to face, and the interviews were audio-recorded. The participants were purposefully selected based on their knowledge and familiarity with the implementation of PPP schemes. The evidence showed that the most important benefits of adopting a PPP are the quality of service, the speed at which low-cost healthcare service delivery is made accessible and the diversification of risks between the two sectors so that neither the private sector nor the public sector bears the entire risk alone. The results also revealed that PPPs will lead to increased efficiency and accuracy with respect to the design and implementation of infrastructural projects as well as the financing, execution, maintenance and development of the healthcare sector—the implementation of which makes high-quality services available to end users. Risk sharing is of great importance for the healthcare sector in that it helps hospitals to avoid closure and failure, distributes financial flows in an ideal way, and reduces the pressure on hospitals to work in a safe investment environment. This aim can be achieved through increasing the partnerships between public and private sectors.

Stock price estimation using ensemble Kalman Filter square root method

Shares are securities as the possession or equity evidence of an individual or corporation over an enterprise, especially public companies whose activity is stock trading. Investment in stocks trading is most likely to be the option of investors as stocks trading offers attractive profits. In determining a choice of safe investment in the stocks, the investors require a way of assessing the stock prices to buy so as to help optimize their profits. An effective method of analysis which will reduce the risk the investors may bear is by predicting or estimating the stock price. Estimation is carried out as a problem sometimes can be solved by using previous information or data related or relevant to the problem. The contribution of this paper is that the estimates of stock prices in high, low, and close categorycan be utilized as investors’ consideration for decision making in investment. In this paper, stock price estimation was made by using the Ensemble Kalman Filter Square Root method (EnKF-SR) and Ensemble Kalman Filter method (EnKF). The simulation results showed that the resulted estimation by applying EnKF method was more accurate than that by the EnKF-SR, with an estimation error of about 0.2 % by EnKF and an estimation error of 2.6 % by EnKF-SR.

Introduction: maximising revenues, minimising political costs – challenges in the history of public finance of the early modern period

Taxation is accepted as a fact of modern life, despite recurring political conflict over the nature and direction of fiscal policies. Most financiers regard obligations issued by the state as a safe investment option. Neither taxation nor state obligations were taken for granted during much of the history of public finance, however, at least not before the early 1800s. The ‘tax state’ developed in fits and starts, driven by the exigencies of warfare, which provided the main rationale for raising state income. Although wartime fiscal innovations eventually facilitated the rise of an efficient military state, the options available for implementing such improvements and preferences for specific fiscal or financial instruments varied greatly across early modern states. Focusing on the ‘long’ eighteenth century, this introduction presents a framework for assessing these differences and introduces the other articles in this special issue.

Determinants of Engagement in Islamic Bank System: Basis for Future Marketing Approximations

This study intends to investigate the determinants of engagement in Islamic Banking system on the basis for future marketing approximations. This research collects data for quantitative study by providing the closed ended questionnaires to 200individual customers of banking from Muscat, Oman. The collected data is to be evaluated by using SPSS. This study concludes that among client characteristics age has strongest relation with engagement with 0.990, other than that marketing strategies, economic benefits and safe investment also have strong relationship. Gender, education, religion, income, occupation and nationality have weak relation. Education has weakest relation. Number of branches, availability of CDM, ATM, word ‘Islam’ and skilled and trained staff has moderate relation. Organisational and client characteristics have 50.9% influences on the adoption of Islamic banking. There is a correlation between engagement and future marketing. The degree of influence of adoption over patronization is 19.7%

Perception of House Price Risk and Homeownership

This paper analyzes the importance of household perceptions of house price risk in explaining homeownership choice. While a majority of US households (71%) believes that housing is a safe investment, renters are much more likely to perceive housing as risky. Risk perceptions vary across demographic groups, but significant differences persist after controlling for observables, such as income, savings, or location. Current housing decisions and future intentions to buy versus rent are strongly correlated with perceptions of house price risk. Households' exposure to housing risk due to financial constraints, expected mobility or labor income risk affect the decision to buy versus rent but do not mitigate the impact of risk perceptions on housing choices. Finally, we show that all households update their beliefs about the riskiness of housing in response to past (local) house price changes, but renters are much slower to update than owners. Since renters' decisions to buy are especially sensitive to their perception of house price risk, it might explain their delayed entry into home ownership during a house price run-up and even prolong the housing cycle.

Bullion futures effect on spot prices in India

Traditionally, investment in gold and silver had been considered as a safer investment, however in the recent year, investments in these bullion assets increases with the increase in risk factors. The price, return and the volatility factors quite often decides the investment in any asset. The risk of any investment asset is quantified by its volatility. High volatility risks can be effectively managed by exchange-traded derivatives and the bullion futures contracts are available in various sizes to cater to the needs of different stakeholders dealing with bullions. The study seeks to determine the role of volatility in determining the bullion prices for which the daily spot and futures prices of all available gold and silver contracts were collected from multi-commodity exchange (MCX) over a period of past ten years from 2006 to 2015. Volatility measures the errors made while modelling returns which can be captured by applying tools such as autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH). The analysis shows that previous day's return information influences today's return volatility in all sizes of contracts for both gold and silver. Thus, the study concludes that though commodity spot prices gets information from futures price there was no much influence of volatility information in between them.

Bullion futures effect on spot prices in India

Traditionally, investment in gold and silver had been considered as a safer investment, however in the recent year, investments in these bullion assets increases with the increase in risk factors. The price, return and the volatility factors quite often decides the investment in any asset. The risk of any investment asset is quantified by its volatility. High volatility risks can be effectively managed by exchange-traded derivatives and the bullion futures contracts are available in various sizes to cater to the needs of different stakeholders dealing with bullions. The study seeks to determine the role of volatility in determining the bullion prices for which the daily spot and futures prices of all available gold and silver contracts were collected from multi-commodity exchange (MCX) over a period of past ten years from 2006 to 2015. Volatility measures the errors made while modelling returns which can be captured by applying tools such as autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH). The analysis shows that previous day's return information influences today's return volatility in all sizes of contracts for both gold and silver. Thus, the study concludes that though commodity spot prices gets information from futures price there was no much influence of volatility information in between them.

A STUDY ON GOLD AS A SAFER INVESTMENT ALTERNATIVE AMONG SMALL AND MEDIUM INVESTORS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO KOZHIKODE DISTRICT

Among the various precious metals “Gold” is the most popular as an investment. Why it is so? The answer is it is a mainstream asset as it is not only an effective diversifier but also gives a competitive return when compared to major financial assets. The present study analyses ‘Gold as a safer investment alternative’ by examining its risk and return in terms of other investment alternatives like stock and bond. The risk and return analysis of an asset class is better studied with its volatility measurement. The present study uses daily prices of gold, stock Nifty 5o, and India Government Bond. To measure the volatility of time series, Generalized autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity GARCH(1,1) process is used the results shows that risk in terms of volatility of gold prices is 0.970124(<1) which showed less when compared to stock(is 0.956541(<1) and bond(1.003183(>1) risk. This study also analyses various demographical factors that influence on the decision to invest in gold and as well as in selecting a particular kind of gold investment. The chi-square test was applied and the results showed that all the variables under study except education qualification (‘p’ value 0.8308) dictated investors decision in selecting gold as an investment opportunity.

Real Estate Business Management at a Glance Future Prospects and Realization

Real estate business has been a unique source of safe investments all over the world where supply and demand are synchronizing in a homogeneous formula leading for successive actions of business development. In Egypt, visualizing the increasing number of population with escalating growth rates and urbanization rapid development all had created a kind of massive demand on real estate products with particular emphasis on housing opportunities over the past four decades. This phenomena still elaborates on the crucial importance and vitality of the real estate business, and is expected to sustain such a kind of business for the coming eras. Yet, establishing and running a successful real estate business is dependent upon realistic and careful market assessment tools and processes, where hedging a consolidated position in the market would be needed. The research paper aims at highlighting and synthesizing the primary market forces that would be of value towards establishing and running a sustainable real estate business, and further to improve the product mix over time and region. Particular focus is given towards the unique case of Egyptian real estate business while constructive analysis and guidance would be revealed from reality so as to build a thematic model for real estate business development. This practical research paper explores the real estate business prospects and realization in terms of: 1) demand and supply chain factors and realistic figures of the Egyptian market, 2) driving and restraining forces that could have impacts on the development of business, 3) market performance and indicators, 4) target segment identification and determination as well as 5) valuation of inputs versus outcome products and 6) setting a position on the real estate market and 7) further on elaborating a market share for the said business management, and lastly 8) the correlated factors of property management and sustainability of real estate quality and products.

Individual differences in time perspectives and risky financial choices

Preferences for risks have been a subject of interest to both economists and psychologists. This has given rise to many findings about the role of psychological factors in influencing risky choices. The presented studies focused on the role of Time Perspectives (TPs) in explaining people's risky financial choices. The main goal was to examine the relationship between people's TPs (chronic and induced) and their propensity to invest and undertake investment risks. Three studies on Polish national representative samples (N1=1093; N2=1081, N3=1563) and one on a sample of Polish adults (N4=246) were conducted. The results showed that chronic Future and Present Hedonistic TPs are the most important in the context of risky financial choices. Higher Future TP is related to a propensity to invest and make safe investment choices. Higher Present Hedonistic TP is related to a low propensity to invest and risky investment. Moreover, induced Future and Present Hedonistic TPs lead to similar patterns of results to those obtained in studies on chronic TPs.

Analysis of the impact of the sectoral distribution of investment in the economic imbalance in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for the period (2006-2016)

The investment leads to capital accumulation and keeps the continuity of economic growth and development process, so it has to be to maintain the appropriate levels of investment by taking all necessary measures so such a favorable and safe investment environment to reassure investors about the future of their investments, and from this perspective, this research deals with the impact of investing in changing the economic structure of the Iraqi Kurdistan region stand on the sectoral distribution of investment and its impact on the contribution of economic sectors in the composition of GDP and in the Employment . And then measure the impact of investment in the imbalance of the structure of the Iraqi Kurdistan region's economy during the period (2006-2016).

Financial Risk Propensity, Business Cycles and Perceived Risk Exposure

AbstractWe analyse whether individual financial risk propensity changes over time with background financial conditions, as well as personal and subjective portfolio risk exposure. We elicit risk propensity from six different self‐assessed facets collected in a long panel data set from the DNB Household Survey, annually covering the period 1995–2015. Risk propensity is generally higher during periods of economic growth and lower during periods of recession, but is untrended when elicited, using questions referring to safe investments. Our risk propensity measure is also higher following positive stock market returns or subjectively large risk exposure in own past investments.

Causal relationship of stock performance and macroeconomic variables: Empirical evidences from Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC)

The rise of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the global investment market is still too mysterious to investors. This paper attempts to investigate the causal relationship among quarterly returns of BRIC’s stock market indices using a set of pre-examined macroeconomic variables such as, economic growth (GDP), risk free rates (the U.S. t-bill rates), exchange rates against USD, international oil prices and inflation in order to understand the leading factor of BRIC’s stock market returns. This paper covers the sample period from 1996:Q4 to 2013:Q1. The error correction model and Granger causality approach were applied to investigate the relationship among the variables. The results indicate that none of the explanatory variables Granger cause stock market performance in China and India. In homogenous, there is Granger causality from BRIC’s stock market performance to the risk free rates and international oil prices. This finding implies that BRIC has strong market impact or purchasing power to influence the key raw input of an economy, as well as the largest risk free investment instrument in the world. Generally, the Fed model, international trading effect and portfolio balance model are inapplicable to BRIC. The safest investment guidance for investors is to follow the changes in oil prices to forecast the movement in stock performance in Brazil. This is because there is an actual sign (from the error correction model) and significant pairwise Granger causality between stock market returns and oil prices in Brazil. Key words : stock market performance, macroeconomic variables, granger causality, risk free rates; unit root tests, cointegration tests

Significance of image building towards consumers’ preference in branded and non branded jewellery

Indian market is over-the-top with varied designs and offerings. Indians are very traditional. Customers are now want worth for money as gold rates are heading north and Gold was just a safe investment for small-town people. Their perception towards gold has changed from panoramic preference to genuine, trendy and designer jewellery. This is evident in their offerings, collection and merchandising campaigns. The study of consumer behavior is concerned not only with what consumers buy, but also with what they buy it, when, from where and how they buy it and how often they buy it. It is concerned with learning the specific meanings that products hold for consumers. Consumer research takes place at every phase of the consumption process; before the purchase, during the purchase and after purchases. It attempts to understand the buyer decision processes/buyer decision-making process, both individually and in groups. It studies the characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people's wants and tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general. The study of consumer behavior is the study of how individuals make decision to spend their available resources on consumption-related items. The model that has been used to achieve the objective of this study was to find whether there is a relationship between customer preference towards branded and non-branded jewellery with the help of primary data and standardized questionnaire. The statistical tool used in the study was Multiple Linear Regression model and Structured Equation Model. This study used descriptive research design, convenience sampling and the sample size is 224. The primary purpose or studying as part of a marketing curriculum is to understand why and how consumers make their purchase decisions. These insights enable marketer to create the brand image using various integrated marketing communication. The results show that the branded jewellery showroom place lots of efforts towards image building and preference of the consumers delineates towards the latter.