Econometric models have often been used to explain and predict demand, production and price patterns of agricultural commodities. With computers generally available, estimation and application of these models is a simple matter. In spite of this, there has been nothing written, at least nothing that we are aware of, which details the use of such models as an aid to speculation in commodities futures. This brief note reports successful use of an econometric model and a time-sharing computer system for this purpose.

Passive exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are ideally suited to style-level feedback trading because of their high liquidity, ease of short selling, and pure play on investment styles. I find strong evidence of short-term style-momentum trading in ETFs. Institutional investors that use ETFs do not act as arbitrageurs by trading against style momentum. Institutions, especially less sophisticated ones, are themselves style-momentum traders. Moreover, recent style-level demand predicts style-level return reversals. These findings suggest that uninformed positive feedback trading by less sophisticated market participants can destabilize financial markets in the short run.

I test whether corporate governance is ineffective in emerging markets by estimating the link between CEO turnover and firm performance for over 1,200 firms in eight emerging markets.I find two main results.First, CEOs of emerging market firms are more likely to lose their jobs when their firm's performance is poor, suggesting that corporate governance is not ineffective in emerging markets.Second, for the subset of firms with a large domestic shareholder, there is no link between CEO turnover and firm performance.For this subset of emerging market firms, corporate governance appears to be ineffective.

W. V. Harlow, Ramesh K. S. Rao, Asset Pricing in a Generalized Mean-Lower Partial Moment Framework: Theory and Evidence, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), pp. 285-311

Gary S. Shea, Pitfalls in Smoothing Interest Rate Term Structure Data: Equilibrium Models and Spline Approximations, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Sep., 1984), pp. 253-269

Jonathan S. H. Kornbluth, Joseph D. Vinso, Capital Structure and the Financing of the Multinational Corporation: A Fractional Multiobjective Approach, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 147-178

William A. Schink, John S. Y. Chiu, A Simulation Study of Effects of Multicollinearity and Autocorrelation on Estimates of Parameters, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jun., 1966), pp. 36-67

Scott W. Barnhart, Robert McNown, Myles S. Wallace, Non-Informative Tests of the Unbiased Forward Exchange Rate, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 265-291

Frederick D. S. Choi, Teaching International Finance--An Accountant's Perspective, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 12, No. 4, Proceedings of the 1977 Western Finance Association Meeting (Nov., 1977), pp. 609-614

There have been many efforts in recent years to explain differences in the performance of commercial banks. Interest has centered on the extent to which changes in a selected group of indices of bank performance are related to the structure of banking markets and selected other factors thought to influence bank behavior. While various techniques have been used, the most common has been multiple linear regression. The measures of performance entered into the regression equations have included the price and quantity of bank services and bank profitability, while the explanatory variables have included, to name only a few, the one-, two-, or three-bank concentration ratio, the number of banks in the market, the existence of competition from nonbank financial institutions, bank costs, bank size, and proxies for the demand for banking services. Generalizations then have been made about the impact of market structure and other variables on bank performance, generalizations based upon the regression coefficients of the explanatory variables. The consensus appears to be that the demand for banking services and bank costs are significant determinants of the performance of individual commercial banks; market structure appears to be much less important. However, the conclusions are by no means unanimous.