The theoretical impact of the listing of syariah-approved stocks on stock price and trading volume.

The stock price and trading volume reactions of companies to single events, such as public announcements on mergers, dividend payments, or security issue announcements have been studied extensively. The impact of news about a continuing event such as the news on the inclusion in and exclusion of stocks from the KLSE Syariah Index that occurs twice yearly affects security prices and trading volume. This paper examines reasons that price and trading volume of Syariah-approved stocks might react to the inclusion-exclusion exercise. The selection criteria set by the Syariah Advisory Council of Securities Commission of Malaysia in updating the list of the Syariah-approved stocks is not based on the financial soundness alone. Views from Syariah perspective and from financial theories are discussed to support the behavior of the included and excluded stocks from the Kuala Lumpur Syariah Index

The price-volume relationship of the Malaysian stock index futures market

The objective of this study is to determine the relationship and the causality between the price index and trading volume for both the spot and the next month contracts in the Malaysian stock index futures market and how that relationship changes over time. The daily data of the stock index futures (FKLI) closing price and the daily data of the stock index futures (FKLI) trading volume from December 15, 1995 until December 31, 2003 are used in this study. The data are divided into four sub-periods, a learning period, a crisis period, a recovery period and a stable period, to analyze the variation in activity during the opening of the new market, the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, the recovery period after the financial crisis, and a stable period. The findings provide information to allow investors to use the price-volume relationship in both the spot-month and the next-month contracts to speculate or to hedge their portfolios

Helium Nova on a Very Massive White Dwarf -- A Light Curve Model of V445 Puppis (2000) Revised

V445 Pup (2000) is a unique object identified as a helium nova. Color indexes during the outburst are consistent with those of free-free emission. We present a free-free emission dominated light curve model of V445 Pup on the basis of the optically thick wind theory. Our light curve fitting shows that (1) the white dwarf (WD) mass is very massive (M_WD \gtrsim 1.35 M_\sun), and (2) a half of the accreted matter remains on the WD, both of which suggest that the increasing WD mass. Therefore, V445 Pup is a strong candidate of Type Ia supernova progenitor. The estimated distance to V445 Pup is now consistent with the recent observational suggestions, 3.5 < d < 6.5 kpc. A helium star companion is consistent with the brightness of m_v=14.5 mag just before the outburst, if it is a little bit evolved hot (\log T (K) \gtrsim 4.5) star with the mass of M_He \gtrsim 0.8 M_\sun. We then emphasize importance of observations in the near future quiescent phase after the thick circumstellar dust dissipates away, especially its color and magnitude to specify the nature of the companion star. We have also calculated helium ignition masses for helium shell flashes against various helium accretion rates and discussed the recurrence period of helium novae.Comment: 8 pages including 12 figures, to appear in Ap

Refusing to Endorse. A must Explanation for Pejoratives.

In her analysis of pejoratives, Eva Picardi rejects a too sharp separation between descriptive and expressive content. I reconstruct some of her arguments, endorsing Eva’s criticism of Williamson’s analysis of Dummett and developing a suggestion by Manuel Garcia Carpintero on a speech act analysis of pejoratives. Eva’s main concern is accounting for our instinctive refusal to endorse an assertion containing pejoratives because it suggests a picture of reality we do not share. Her stance might be further developed claiming that uses of pejoratives not only suggest, but also promote a wrong picture of reality. Our refusal to endorse implies rejecting not only a wrong picture of reality but also a call for participation to what that picture promotes

Pyramidal structure, firm capital structure exploitation and ultimate owners' dominance

In this paper we investigate how pyramid structure, separating cash flow rights and control rights, allows ultimate owners to control the company's resources for the creation of private benefits and to avoid punishment for such conduct. Empirical tests are conducted using three-stage least squares regression. The estimated results provide support for the hypotheses proposed that the separation of cash flow rights and control rights have led to the use of excess leverage among pyramidal companies to preserve ultimate owners' control. High levels of leverage, affect the firm's valuation negatively because of the potential for financial distress. Thus, our findings may provide one additional explanation for the severity of the decrease in corporate value among the pyramidal companies in Malaysia as pointed out in the studies of Claessens et al. (2002), Lins (2003), and Lemmon and Lins (2003). Secondly, the empirical evidence from this study provides insight into the forces that influence corporate valuation of firms in developed countries particularly those that have pyramidal structure

Top management characteristics and firm's international diversification activities: evidence from a developing nation

Recent trend shows that foreign investment has increased rapidly, and raises a question as to whether managerial characteristics impact international diversification, as claimed by the Uppsala internationalisation process theory. This paper investigates the relationship between top management team's characteristics and firm's Outward Foreign Direct Investment, that is, international diversification. This study focuses on 83 of the top 100 largest Malaysian multinational firms. The entropy measure is used as the proxy for level of international diversification. Age, international experience, educational level and functional background are proxies reflecting the management's cognitive abilities and competencies. The findings showed that age and functional background have significant positive influence on the level of international diversification. In addition, the results also suggested there is a reasonable support for upper echelons theory and Uppsala internationalisation process theory