This paper investigates the influence of oil on corporate investments in the US. The inference is taken from a large sample which contains data on 15,411 companies over the period that extended from 1984 to 2017. It adds to the literature by showing that non-oil corporate investments in the US respond asymmetrically to oil price changes. In particular, when the oil price increases, the capital spending of companies suffers by more than it benefits from the declines in the price of oil. These results are important in assessing the impact of energy price fluctuations on the long-term investment decisions of US companies.

This paper finds that product market competition level (measured by Herfindahl Hirschman Index using Fama French 48 industries) affects the performance of zero-cost investment strategies based on gross probability. From 1973 to 2017, the positive returns from such strategy mainly comes from the most competitive industry quintile while a strong reversal exists the second most competitive quintile. The same strategy does not generate any statistically significant returns in concentrated industry quintiles. Out of 25 dependently sorted portfolios on product market competition level and gross profitability, the top performing portfolio comes from the least profitable firms in the second most competitive industry quintile, where 65% of firms are from pharmaceutical and oil industries.

Structural changes in capital market and information innovations have altered characteristics of debt sources, make them more or less favourable to firms. This could possibly lead to a shift in firms' reliance on debt sources. Using a unique data set of debt mix of 1,100 U.S. non-financial firms, I conduct data analysis to reveal changes in firms' preference for different debt sources over a decade from 2004 to 2014. I find that bank debt remains the most common source of borrowing, followed by public debt and finally private placement debt. In addition, over time, firms have become more reliant on bank and public debt while less reliant on private placement debt. This pattern is consistent across different industries.

Previous results on the relation between risk and investment are mixed, partly due to endogeneity. To allievate the effects of this bias, we adopt a generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel estimator to investigate the relation. We find that the puzzling positive sensitivity of investment (i.e. firm’s investment rate) to systematic risk as frequently documented in previous studies disappears. Further, we show that the more irreversible the firm’s investments are, the more valuable is the option to delay investment when risk is high, which supports the model with irreversible investment.

The paper studies the low risk anomaly in the Indian market using entire National Stock Exchange (NSE) as sample from January 2001 to June 2016. It provides evidence that low risk portfolio sorted for total risk, systematic risk as well as unsystematic risk individually for the large cap, mid cap, small cap and the entire NSE universe give higher returns to the investor as compared to high risk portfolio. The difference of returns from low risk portfolio versus high risk portfolio is positive as well as economically and statistically significant for all the risk measures. The results also prove that low risk portfolio investing strategy returns outperform the benchmark portfolio. Using either total volatility, idiosyncratic volatility or beta as a risk measure in stocks, the low risk portfolio gives higher returns even after controlling for the well-known size, value and momentum factors. The excess returns are the highest for low risk portfolio sorted for volatility of large cap stocks. Most of the low risk portfolios consists of growth and winner stocks. In conclusion, the low risk portfolio investment strategy is independent of size and gives positive excess returns as compared to high risk portfolio in the Indian stock market.

Gold has been a store of value for centuries and a safe haven for investors in the pastdecades. However, the increased investment in gold for speculative or hedging purposeshas changed the safe haven property. We demonstrate theoretically and empiricallythat investor behaviour has the potential to destroy the safe haven property of gold. Theresults suggest that an asset cannot be both an investment asset and an effective safehaven asset. This finding has important implications for financial stability since assets aremore likely to exhibit excess comovement and volatility in the absence of a safe haven.

We offer empirical evidence that stocks with low volatility earn higher risk-adjusted returns compared to high volatility stocks in the Indian stock market. The annualised excess returns for the low and high volatility decile portfolios amount to 11.40% and 1.30%, respectively, over the period January 2001 to June 2015. The difference of returns is statistically and economically significant for both low and high-risk stocks. Using risk measures of standard deviation and beta, the volatility effect remains after controlling for size, value and momentum. We uncover that the volatility effect is not statistically significant after controlling for beta effect. Our evidence for volatility effect is not dominated by small and illiquid stocks. Our results show that the low volatility portfolio outperforms benchmark portfolio not only in down market but also in up market conditions.

Recently in New Zealand a few star managers have had brilliant runs easily outperforming markets since inception. Why on earth would an investor not want to use these funds for their New Zealand share allocation? We have a lot of respect for what star performers have done. It’s not easy to produce exceptional performance. But for all their glory, the websites of the star performers provide us with the answer to the question… “Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.” When asked a question about a star investment manager we typically respond with a question of our own that goes something like this, “Would you believe that this is a very well-studied issue?”

Retirement is a time that is long anticipated by the working population, and arriveswith substantial expectations of what it will be like. A survey was undertaken to explorethe actual experiences of New Zealanders aged 65 and older. Key messages to emergewere: most respondents were satisfied with their life in retirement; the importance ofsaving for retirement; concerns around financial resources related in part to the fasterrate of increase of basic living costs relative to income; and, the risk of the unexpected.