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Risk and returns for private equity and venture capital funds

The early success of some well-known private equity and venture capital funds has led to their rapid growth. According to research from Narasimhan Jegadeesh, the Dean’s Distinguished Chair in Finance, Roman Kraussl (U of Luxembourg), and Joshua M. Pollet (U of Illinois), investors should carefully evaluate the future risk and return potential of this asset class and avoid investing primarily because of past successes. Some private equity indices compiled by the industry suggest that these funds offer bigger returns than the public equity market, but prior academic studies offer mixed evidence on performance. Jegadeesh and his coauthors devised a new approach to determine the actual risk and returns by using market prices of funds that primarily invest in unlisted PE and VC funds listed on several European stock exchanges. This approach has a distinct advantage because it uses publicly available market prices rather than self-reported data, which were previously used in other academic studies. Their findings indicate that unlisted PE and VC funds as an asset class are unlikely to yield extraordinary returns as suggested by some self-reported data. They may even yield about the same return as the stock market but are illiquid. Source:

Increased trading activity and declining returns

Improved trading technologies are changing the markets, facilitating the boom in algorithmic trading and the growth of hedge funds. Liquidity and trading volume continue to hit record levels. In a research study, Tarun Chordia, R. Howard Dobbs Professor of Finance, and coauthors Avanidhar Subrahmanyam (UCLA) and Tong Qing (Singapore Management U) analyzed whether or not increased liquidity and the trading activity of hedge funds has had an impact on financial market anomalies. Anomalies are return patterns that are inconsistent with the basic risk-return paradigm of finance. Increased arbitrage is a possible factor in attenuating the impact of anomalies, including momentum, reversals, accruals, etc. To find the link, Chordia and his coauthors studied proxies for arbitrage trading, including “the impact of the decline in the tick size due to decimalization and the impact of hedge fund assets under management, short interest, and share turnover.” The researchers referenced a wide sampling of equity market anomalies for more than three decades to show that increased liquidity and hedge fund trading activity did ultimately result in the decrease of the “economic and statistical significance of these anomalies.” Source:

Dell Regains Top Share in the Canadian PC Commercial Market

There’s good news today for Dell Canada. The computer company based in Round Rock, Texas posted the strongest year-on-year growth out of all the major companies in Canada - growing 11.9% and buoyed by strong performances in the public sector segments. These numbers are impressive as shipments of traditional PCs in the first quarter of 2018 totalled 1.25 million units into the Canadian Market. Though the worldwide numbers show a flat (0.0%) year-on-year growth in the first quarter, the expectations exceeded the earlier forecast of a 1.5% decline in PC sales. The Canadian market was a bright light growing 4.2% annually. But it wasn’t all good news in Canada, out of the top five leading companies that also include HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Apple. It was Apple that lost its shine finishing last with a year-on-year decline in shipments of 5.8%. So, what does this mean for the industry? Are PC’s coming back against the popular tide of tablets and other competing units? What is Dell doing right to lead the way? And what’s next for developers as they look to the next generation of products. There’s a lot to more to this topic – and that’s where an expert from the International Data Corporation (IDC) can help. Tim Brunt is the Program Manager for IDC's Canadian Quarterly PC Tracker program. He is an expert in analyzing current market trends, business planning, business and consumer buyer behavior. Tim is available to speak with media, simply click on his icon to arrange an interview. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/canadian-traditional-pc-market-grew-42-yoy-q1-2018-tim-brunt/

Nanotechnology is huge - is it the way of the future?

Earlier this week, the International Nanotechnology and Conference took place in Tokyo, Japan. Thousands of researchers, scientists and academics attended from around the world to discuss advances in the field, applications and how nanotechnology is transforming and shaping our world for the future. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering. It's the stuff once only seen in movies and books. Science fiction is now reality. But what will it mean for the public, for academics and for business? The benefits seem extraordinary, but what are the cautions or consequences? Like stem cells, there was much ethical, moral and scientific concerns about their use. Today, science and how we approach the human body has been radically changed because of that research. Will nanotechnology transform the scientific world in the same way? As well, what are the economic benefits? Will we one day just see nanotechnology as an everyday occurrence in our regular lives? There are a lot of questions and this is where Missouri State University's experts can help. We have two experts who can speak to media regarding this very interesting field of research: Dr. Adam Wanekaya's research focuses on the fabrication, modification, characterization and application of nanoscale materials. He also works on integrating these materials into functional devices with specific applications in chemical sensing, biomedical sensing and remediation of heavy metals and other toxins from the environment. Dr. Robert Mayanovic works on investigating the physical and chemical properties of primarily nanophase materials in extreme environments. Both professors will be able to explain the field of nanotechnology and how it is shaping the future of technology, healthcare and the world we live in. Simply click on either of their icons to arrange an interview. Source:

Time will tell whether President-elect Donald Trump's economic policies will help or hurt the U.S.

President-elect Donald Trump's economic plan, such as it is, is very unspecific and lacking in details—especially in how it will be implemented or what aspects take priority. It looks like his biggest priority will be tax reform. Generally speaking, lowering marginal tax rates are a good thing and can lead to higher economic growth—but it remains to be seen if the increased taxes from the higher growth would balance out the amount of taxes cut. Simplification of the tax code will also be very helpful, but there are very few specifics as to how Trump would accomplish this. In short, his proposal for higher spending on infrastructure, which is definitely needed, with tax cuts would boost growth in the short term but also increase the size of the deficit and prices ( inflation). Although the nation’s infrastructure is in need of repair, voters have to remember that it has taken many decades to get all of this infrastructure into place—it can’t be repaired in just a matter of a few years. Source: