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The purpose of this paper is to provide theory for some popular models and strategies used by practitioners in constructing optimal portfolios. King (2007), for example, advocated adding a diversification term to mean-variance problems to create better portfolios and provided clear empirical evidence that this is beneficial.

The authors provide an analytical framework to help us understand different portfolio construction practices that may incorporate diversification and conviction strategies; this allows us to connect our analysis to ideas in psychophysics and behavioural finance. The critical psychological ideas are cognitive dissonance and entropy; the economics are based on expected utility theory. The empirical section uses the theory outlined and provides the basis for constructing such portfolios.

The model presented allows the incorporation of different strategies within a mean-variance framework, ranging from diversification and conviction strategies to more ESG-oriented ones. The empirical analysis provides a practical application.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this model is the first to bridge the gap between portfolio optimisation and the psychological ideas mentioned in a coherent analytical framework.

Suggests that the use of the geometric mean as a measure of average return on investment presents problems for estimating the variance as a measure of risk. Notes that the use of a measure based on the arithmetic mean seems an uncomfortable compromise. Shows that measures based on the geometric mean are also systematically biased in the case of log normal returns. Concludes that this can have major consequences for investment decision‐making and portfolio selection.

Investors often have much of their portfolios invested in equities that are exposed to interest rate risk. Hedging underlying exposures are not easy; whereas fixed income investors have duration to immunize bond portfolios from small fluctuations in interest rates. US equity duration estimates from dividend discount models result in long durations – often in excess of 50 years. Based on the UK data, we develop an alternative approach to generate equity duration as a by-product of asset pricing. Our analysis suggests that the equity premium puzzle may comprise an important element in reconciling this approach to equity duration, with traditional DDM alternatives.

In a fundamental sense, creation of value is the purpose of a firm. Values – measured by profits, cash flows, stock prices, or some strategic objectives – are the ultimate reasons why a firm exists. The ongoing and ever-expanding discussion of globalization, whether based on trade flows or financial flows, draws attention to the value of multinational enterprise. Existing empirical work on the impact of multinational firms, however, is inconclusive. Some observers point to the valuation discount with international operations due to the costs of agency and control and the difficulty of coordinating complex organizations and cultures. Others emphasize the value of a multinational network and the operational efficiency of a multinational enterprise (MNE). Thus, issues related to value creation are important and lively areas of business and finance. In fact, value creation is now at the frontier between the functional areas of finance and strategy. In international finance, the topic also interacts with economics in the areas of strategic trade policy and exchange rate behavior, as well as business strategy, as it relates to the management of an MNE. The role of government policy is also part of the debate, because the importance of public policy and the behavior of policymakers are elevated when finance and business become international, as evidenced by consistent attention to political risk.

When you make effective use of a personal computer, that use is likely to change over time in ways that may not be apparent. A look back as little as six months or a year earlier may reveal some surprises. Those surprises may tell you something about your own priorities, conscious or unconscious. The author introduces his new column environment and what those changes may mean. He also discusses the column itself, and why Common Sense Personal Computing is no more. The author also discusses some changes in the periodical literature of personal computing, introducing a major new magazine. Finally, the author begins an ongoing discussion of items from the periodical literature with some of the hot topics from June‐August 1988.

“Interactive multimedia” was Last Year's Big Thing—so say the financial wizards, and they may be right. That particular flavor of convergence theory made no more sense than any of the others, and this year's hype is for The Almighty Web. Meanwhile, as with the World Wide Web, multimedia does have growing uses for many library and personal computer uses—and the author, ever at the rear of the pack, has dealt with some low‐level multimedia problems and promises. You won't learn a thing about production here, but there are some useful notes on what seems to work and where it might be going. Finally, the usual notes cover the PC and Macintosh literature received during April through June 1995.

This paper aims to investigate the potential challenges that governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean are likely to face combating crimes facilitated by the dark Web.

The “lived experience” methodology guided by a contextual systematic literature review was used to ground the investigation of the research phenomena in the researchers’ collective experiences working in, living in and engaging in research with governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

The two major findings emerging from the analysis are that jurisdictional and technical challenges are producing major hindrances to the creation of an efficient and authoritative legislative framework and the building of the capacity of governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean to confront the technicalities that affect systematic efforts to manage problems created by the dark Web.

The findings indicate the urgency that authorities in the Caribbean region must place on reevaluating their administrative, legislative and investment priorities to emphasize cyber-risk management strategies that will enable their seamless and wholesome integration into this digital world.

The research aids in developing and extending theory and praxis related to the problematization of the dark Web for governments by situating the experiences of Small Island Developing States into the ongoing discourse.

This paper examines the cyclical regularities of macroeconomic, financial and property market aggregates in relation to the property stock price cycle in the UK. The Hodrick Prescott filter is employed to fit a long‐term trend to the raw data, and to derive the short‐term cycles of each series. It is found that the cycles of consumer expenditure, total consumption per capita, the dividend yield and the long‐term bond yield are moderately correlated, and mainly coincident, with the property price cycle. There is also evidence that the nominal and real Treasury Bill rates and the interest rate spread lead this cycle by one or two quarters, and therefore that these series can be considered leading indicators of property stock prices. This study recommends that macroeconomic and financial variables can provide useful information to explain and potentially to forecast movements of property‐backed stock returns in the UK.

This paper aims to examine the relationships among two distinct yet interconnected forms of value orientations, namely, terminal and instrumental values, brand consciousness and behavioral intentions. This study validated the conceptual model for branded fashion apparel consumption in an emerging market, e.g. India.

The research design followed a two-step approach to test the measurement and structural models for partial least squares structural equation modeling with SmartPLS (v.3.0) as recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988).

The results illustrated that both the instrumental and terminal values influence brand consciousness and, consequently, brand consciousness had an impact on behavioral intentions for fashion apparel consumption. Instrumental values had a greater influence on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions than terminal values. Brand consciousness mediated the relationship between instrumental/terminal values and behavioral intentions.

This study defined two value orientations (i.e. instrumental versus terminal) using cross-sectional data from an emerging market. Future studies may examine the research findings’ generalizability using diverse data sets (longitudinal and cross-sectional) and evaluate the value orientation and customers’ favorable behavioral intentions for luxury fashion consumption.

This study provides insights into luxury marketers and practitioners to understand the contribution of instrumental and terminal values on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions for luxury fashion apparel. The findings would assist in developing marketing strategies for an emerging market, i.e. India.

With the rapid proliferation of materialism, the Indian market has witnessed the dawn of a new era of luxury fashion acceptance. The research offers evidence that in emerging markets such as India, consumers exhibit value orientation toward luxury brands while holding a sense of fashion involvement in their consumption behavior.

This study is a pioneering attempt to understand the relationships between the value orientation, namely, instrumental and terminal values and their underlying influence on brand consciousness and behavioral intentions toward fashion apparel. Rokeach’s (1973) two-dimensional value dichotomy was adapted to understand luxury apparel consumption in an emerging market context, specifically India.