Via Econometric Reviews
By Steve Pincus
Abstract
The need to assess subtle, potentially exploitable changes in serial structure is paramount in the analysis of financial and econometric data. We demonstrate the utility of approximate entropy (ApEn), a model-independent measure of sequential irregularity, towards this goal, via several distinct applications, both empirical data and model-based. We also consider cross-ApEn, a related two-variable measure of asynchrony that provides a more robust and ubiquitous measure of bivariate correspondence than does correlation, and the resultant implications to diversification strategies. We provide analytic expressions for and statistical properties of ApEn, and compare ApEn to nonlinear (complexity) measures, correlation and spectral analyses, and other entropy measures.
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Via Businessweek
For the so-called summer doldrums, this week has shaped up as a significant one for investors, policy makers, and other watchers of economic data. From both sides of the Atlantic a number of key economic events are scheduled over the next four days. The most critical for the U.S. are two days of meetings by the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, which may signal further loosening to boost the U.S. recovery, and at the European Central Bank, which may clarify how it plans to save the euro zone. But plenty of other announcements crowd the economic calendar. By the coming weekend, we should know a lot more about the state of the world economy.
Tuesday, July 31
Personal income and outlays in the U.S. The consensus view of economists polled by Bloomberg News is a month-to-month gain of 0.4 percent. Higher income means higher consumption.
S&P Case-Shiller Index. This is one of the most important indexes of home sales, based on data from 20 cities. The consensus is the index will show a month-to-month gain of 0.5 percent, and a year-to-year contraction of 1.4 percent. Encouraging—but the index also shows just how deep the U.S. real estate hole remains.
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Via Accounting and Business Research
Holger Daske, Günther Gebhardt, and Stuart McLeay
Abstract
This paper provides evidence on the distribution of reported earnings relative to targets in the Member States of the European Union (EU). For a large sample of over 60,000 firm-years between 1986 and 2001, we find that more firms than expected (i) report small positive earnings, (ii) report small positive earnings changes and (iii) have zero or small positive forecast errors. These discontinuities are much more pronounced in the EU compared to the US, and the distributions of reported earnings and earnings changes are characterised by lower dispersion and more clustering around zero, consistent with higher income smoothing in Europe. Across the EU, we find that the avoidance of a loss or an earnings decrease is more common in those Member States which do not have a long history of accounting standard setting, and particularly in those which, until recently, were almost entirely law-based. The earnings distributions and earnings change distributions of UK firms resemble more those of their counterparts in the US. and differ from the rest of the EU. despite the various EU harmonisation efforts that have taken place.
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Via Reuters
A U.N. official criticized Canada on Wednesday for allowing some of its people to go hungry, but the government shrugged it off, saying there are more pressing food concerns in other countries.
“Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in 10 families with a child under six is unable to meet their daily food needs,” Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, said in a statement.
“These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy.”
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Via Yahoo Finance
Andina Acquisition Corporation (Nasdaq: ANDAU – News) (the “Company”) announced today that EarlyBirdCapital, Inc., the representative of the underwriters for the Company’s initial public offering of units which took place in March 2012, has notified the Company that separate trading of the ordinary shares and warrants underlying the units would commence on or about May 8, 2012. The ordinary shares and warrants will be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbols ANDA and ANDAW, respectively. Units not separated will continue to be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol ANDAU.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. The offering was made only by means of a prospectus, copies of which may be obtained by visiting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website at http://www.sec.gov. Alternatively, a copy of the prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from EarlyBirdCapital, Inc., 275 Madison Avenue, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10016, Attn: Aimee Bloch, 212-661-0200.
Andina Acquisition Corporation is a blank check company organized for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition or other similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities. The Company’s efforts to identify a prospective target business will not be limited to any particular industry or geographic region, although the Company intends to focus its search for target businesses in the Andean region of South America and in Central America, with a particular emphasis on Colombia.
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