Different theoretical and numerical methods for calculating the fair-value of a variance swap give rise to systematic biases that are most pronounced during volatile periods. For instance, differences of 10-20 percentage points would have been observed on fair-value index variance swap rates...

Credit spreads can be derived from the prices of securities traded in different markets. In this paper we investigate the price discovery process in single-name credit spreads obtained from bonds, credit default swaps, equities and equity options. Using a vector error correction model (VECM) of...

We design average portfolio insurance (API) strategies with an investment floor and a buffer that is a power of a geometric average of the underlying asset price. We prove that API strategies are optimal for investors with hyperbolic absolute risk aversion who become progressively more risk...

Annuities are perceived as being illiquid financial instruments, and this has limited their attractiveness to consumers and inclusion in financial models. However, short positions in annuities can be replicated using life insurance and debt, permitting long positions in annuities to be offset,...

This study presents and empirically tests a simple framework that examines the effects of market liquidity (the ease with which stocks are traded) and funding liquidity (the ease with which market participants can obtain funding) on stock market bubbles. Three key findings emerge from this...

In late 2005, a number of German open ended funds suffered significant withdrawals by unit holders. The crisis was precipitated by a long term bear market in German property investment and the fact that these funds offered short term liquidity to unit holders but had low levels of liquidity in...

This paper investigates the extent to which clients were able to influence performance measurement appraisals during the downturn in commercial property markets that began in the UK during the second half of 2007. The sharp change in market sentiment produced speculation that different client...

While style analysis has been studied extensively in equity markets, applications of this valuable tool for measuring and benchmarking performance and risk in a real estate context are still relatively new. Most previous real estate studies on this topic have identified three investment...

The article analyses the impact of trading costs on the profitability of momentum strategies in the UK and concludes that losers are more expensive to trade than winners. The observed asymmetry in the costs of trading winners and losers crucially relates to the high cost of selling loser stocks...

Even in the simple case that two price processes follow correlated geometric Brownian motions with constant volatility no analytic formula for the price of a standard European spread option has been derived, except when the strike is zero in which case the option becomes an exchange option. This...