Haiwei Chen, James Estes and William Pratt
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how healthcare funds differ from healthcare exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in terms of delivering positive alpha, beta, and hedging…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how healthcare funds differ from healthcare exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in terms of delivering positive alpha, beta, and hedging against a market downturn risk. The authors consider which vehicle is more effective in providing diversification within the healthcare sector and to what extent can investors gain by diverting a portion of their holdings in the S&P 500 index fund into either a value-weighted healthcare fund portfolio or ETFs.
Design/methodology/approach
Pooled and individual regressions are employed to estimate single and four-factor models of 132 healthcare mutual funds and 43 healthcare ETFs over the past four decades. The authors performed additional regressions to test the performance of mutual funds and ETFs relative to market volatility, market downturns, and policy influence.
Findings
The authors find that both healthcare funds and ETFs provide significantly positive average alpha and hedge against a market downturn risk. Holding an all-stock portfolio such as the S&P 500 index fund can be improved by simply adding a value-weighted healthcare portfolio, resulting in both a higher return and a lower standard deviation. However, returns for these funds and ETFs perform poorly in a very volatile market. ETF returns increased with the passing of the Obamacare. Healthcare sector funds and ETFs declined with the recent criticism from Donald Trump since he became the apparent GOP nominee in July of 2016.
Originality/value
Extending the literature in both sample size and scope of issues, this paper provides investors and financial advisors with practical guidance for achieving higher portfolio return while lowering standard deviation. Additionally, this study documents policy influence on the returns of healthcare mutual funds and healthcare ETFs.
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Matt Brigida and William R. Pratt
This paper aims to investigate the quickness, and test the accuracy, of liquidity taking high-frequency traders (HFT). This gives us important insights into a class of market…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the quickness, and test the accuracy, of liquidity taking high-frequency traders (HFT). This gives us important insights into a class of market participant who has come to be very influential in present markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use the weekly natural gas (NG) storage report for the test because the information contained in the release often has a large effect on prices. Moreover, the NG market is heavily traded and liquid, and prone to high volatility. These factors make trading in this market attractive to HFT. The authors test for the profitability of those who trade in the first milliseconds after the report’s release; and for information leakage prior to the report.
Findings
The authors find those who trade within the first 50 ms accurately incorporate the information contained in the storage report into prices, and earn the majority of profits. In fact, HFT profits are decreasing in the time it takes them to trade after the announcement (measured to 200 ms). Further tests find no evidence of informed trading prior to the release of the report, and so the HFT reaction to the report incorporates the information contained therein into prices.
Originality/value
This is one of the few analyzes of the profitability of liquidity-taking HFT, and the only analysis that uses millisecond NG data. The data used is the exchanges original FIX/FAST messages.
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The materials included in this column were selected on the basis of an item by item review of all government publications received at a major depository library. Emphasis is…
Abstract
The materials included in this column were selected on the basis of an item by item review of all government publications received at a major depository library. Emphasis is placed on tools of a reference format, although much else that the Federal government publishes is otherwise of high referral value. Publications not in a reference format, in the strictest sense, are included when their potential value dictates; brief entries for “how to” items and informative pamphlets are also given if deemed potentially useful, particularly for school and public libraries and wherever the identification of vertical file materials is the responsibility of the public service librarian.
Steven H. Appelbaum, Normand St‐Pierre and William Glavas
Presents an overview of strategic organizational change (SOC) and its managerial impact on leadership, learning, motivation and productivity. Theoretical and empirical data…
Abstract
Presents an overview of strategic organizational change (SOC) and its managerial impact on leadership, learning, motivation and productivity. Theoretical and empirical data presented are: the sources and determinants of strategic organizational change; the management implications of SOC; organizational leadership within the context of SOC; learning aspects of SOC; the impact of SOC on organizational and individual productivity; a model that explains the relationships between SOC, leadership, learning, motivation and productivity. Depicts strategic organizational change as an integrative process with all organizational elements such as human resources, systems and technologies being considered for successful change to occur. The proposed model for strategic organizational change is an attempt to link the software and hardware components of organizations. In view of the pressures being expected from the external environment and the critical vision of organizations, research suggests that top management needs to establish a flexible and adaptive infrastructure that should lead contemporary and complex organizations to optimum levels of performance. The largest barrier to “change” is not changes to technologies and work processes but changes involving people.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a case study about how academic librarians can contribute to the interdisciplinary research endeavors of professors and students…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a case study about how academic librarians can contribute to the interdisciplinary research endeavors of professors and students, especially doctoral candidates, through an intellectualized approach to collection development.
Design/methodology/approach
In the wake of protest movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, colleges and universities have begun to develop courses about these events, and it is anticipated that there will be much research conducted about their respective histories. Academic librarians can participate in those research efforts by developing interdisciplinary collections about protest movements and by referring researchers to those collections.
Findings
Through a case‐study approach, this paper provides a narrative bibliography about Southern Agrarianism that can help professors and students interested in the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movements to see their research endeavors from a new interdisciplinary perspective.
Originality/value
The value of this paper lies in presenting a concrete example of the way in which academic librarians can become active research partners through the work of building collections and recommending sources in areas that professors and students may not have previously considered.
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The purpose of this paper is to measure the size of New Zealand’s co-operative sector, in terms of its direct contribution to output and employment as well as its indirect impact…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to measure the size of New Zealand’s co-operative sector, in terms of its direct contribution to output and employment as well as its indirect impact. This adds to the construction of a rigorous representation of the global co-operative economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings here are based on data derived largely from surveying the co-operative sector in 2012. A value added approach is used to estimate the co-ops sector’s contribution to New Zealand’s GNP.
Findings
The author estimates suggest that the cooperative sector is much larger, even in its direct impact on the economy, than the prior estimates indicate.
Research limitations/implications
Assumptions were made on the size contribution of missing firms and the value added contribution of co-ops. These assumptions need to be interrogated and improved upon, albeit the assumptions are designed to generate lower bound size estimates.
Practical implications
The methodology adopted in this paper can be used to develop more rigorous estimates of the size of the co-op sector globally.
Social implications
The results empirically challenge the worldview of conventional economics that co-ops are not economically sustainable, where co-ops offer a more equitable and democratic mode for production and development.
Originality/value
This paper presents revised, relatively robust, and methodologically transparent estimates of the size of New Zealand’s co-operative sector. These estimates suggest a much larger sector than previously thought. The methodology developed here can contribute to developing more robust estimates of the size of the co-op sector globally.
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Ree Jordan, Terrance W. Fitzsimmons and Victor J. Callan
Workplace mavericks are often labeled as non-conformists. They are perceived to be the employees who disregard organizational policies and procedures, and who invite huge risks in…
Abstract
Workplace mavericks are often labeled as non-conformists. They are perceived to be the employees who disregard organizational policies and procedures, and who invite huge risks in the pursuit of goals that sit outside what the organization dictates as the core business or practice. While this may be accurate to a degree, it is not the complete story. Guided by recent conceptualizations of non-conformity and positive deviance, this qualitative study interviewed 27 observers of mavericks (observer-types) in the workplace, and 28 interviews with mavericks (maverick-types). Results highlight that while maverick individuals do challenge organizational norms, they do so for the benefit of others, including the organization. Additionally, they are not wildcard non-conformists as they do in fact conform. However, they are conforming positively to higher level hyper-norms or organizational goals, and therefore operate in what could be termed as bounded non-conformity. Understanding the form that this bounded non-conformity takes is key for organizations to mitigate perceptions of the risk posed by maverick individuals, while maximizing the rewards that maverick employees can offer to organizations, especially for informing ideas and plans around more radical change and innovation. In this way, organizations can benefit from the numerous and unique contributions of mavericks in the workplace, such as innovative, unorthodox, and out-of-the-box thinking, while at the same time still ensuring the effective governance and risk management of the organization.