Short-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Indian Stock Market

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown announcements by governments have created uncertainty in business operations globally. For the first time, a health shock has impacted the stock markets forcefully. India, one of the major emerging markets, has witnessed a massive fall of around 40% in its major stock indices’ value. Therefore, we examined the short-term impact of the pandemic on the Indian stock market’s major index (NIFTY50) and its constituent sectors. For our analysis, we used three different models (constant return model, market model, and market-adjusted model) of event study methodology. Our results are heterogeneous and largely depend on the sectors. All the sectors were impacted temporarily, yet the financial sector faced the worst. Sectors like pharma, consumer goods, and IT had positive or limited impacts. We discuss the potential explanations for the same. These results may be useful for investors in safeguarding equity portfolios from unforeseen shocks and making better investment decisions to avoid large, unexpected losses.

Characteristics analysis of behavioural portfolio theory in the Markowitz portfolio theory framework

PurposeIn recent times, behavioural models for asset allocation have been getting more attention due to their probabilistic modelling for scenario consideration. Many investors are thinking about the trade-offs and benefits of using behavioural models over conventional mean-variance models. In this study, the authors compare asset allocations generated by the behavioural portfolio theory (BPT) developed by Shefrin and Statman (2000) against the Markowitz (1952) mean-variance theory (MVT).Design/methodology/approachThe data used have been culled from BRICS countries' major index constituents from 2009 to 2019. The authors consider a single period economy and generate future probable outcomes based on historical data in order to determine BPT optimal portfolios.FindingsThis study shows that a fair number of portfolios satisfy the first entry constraint of the BPT model. BPT optimal portfolio exhibits high risk and higher returns as compared to typical Markowitz optimal portfolio.Originality/valueThe BRICS countries' data were used because the dynamics of the emerging markets are significantly different from the developed markets, and many investors have been considering emerging markets as their new investment avenues.

The new gatekeepers of financial claims: States, passive markets, and the growing power of index providers

Since the financial crisis there has been a massive shift from actively managed funds to passive funds that merely replicate financial indexes. Instead of active investors influencing states through their investment decisions, in this new economic reality the locus of agency is shifting from investors towards index providers as they decide which companies and countries are included into key benchmark indexes. We argue that the major index providers (MSCI, S&P Dow Jones and FTSE Russell) exercise growing private authority as they steer capital via their indexes. Index providers have become crucial intermediaries in the relationship between states and investors. Through producing widely used indexes, index providers essentially provide a crucial infrastructure that enables the creation and trading of increasingly passively allocated financial claims. Through the infrastructural power they derive from this gatekeeper position, index providers are able to ‘standardise’ the issuers of capital claims and the countries in which these issuers reside through determining the criteria that corporations and states, especially emerging markets, have to fulfil to qualify for index membership – and consequently asset allocation. This chapter therefore investigates the relationship between states and index providers and the latter’s influence on issues of domestic financial regulation, investor access and international capital flows.

Prevalence of Asthma Symptoms in 13-14-year-old Adolescents in Karaj

Asthma is the most common chronic inflammatory respiratory disorder in children. This study was designed to assess the prevalence of asthma in 13-14-year-old adolescents in Karaj, Alborz province in Iran, using the international study of asthma and allergies in childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire. Totally 950 adolescents attending 40 schools located in 4 regions of Karaj city were enrolled in the survey. The Persian version of the ISAAC questionnaire was filled by 13-14-year-old students. Multi-stage clustered random sampling was used to divide the city of Karaj into four educational districts. Ever wheezing was reported in 22% of the individuals; 10.52% claimed to have wheeze in the last 12 months and 22.73% had during or after exercise. The experience of wheezing in the last 12 months was more prevalent among males (11.73% vs. 9.38%; p<0.05). However, having a history of asthma was higher among males (7.55% vs. 3.47%; p<0.05). History of hospitalization (60.8%), family history of asthma (49.4%), and history of food allergy (42.3%) were found to be the most frequent characteristics significantly associated with" ever wheezing" (p<0.05). The prevalence of wheezing in the last 12 months, as a major index of current asthma, was 10% which was close to the national average. However, nocturnal cough and exercise-induced wheezing were higher in Karaj compared to other cities of Iran; which could be related to the high level of air pollution in this industrial area.

Odd and Even Major Indices and One-Dimensional Characters for Classical Weyl Groups

We define and study odd and even analogues of the major index statistics for the classical Weyl groups. More precisely, we show that the generating functions of these statistics, twisted by the one-dimensional characters of the corresponding groups, always factor in an explicit way. In particular, we obtain odd and even analogues of Carlitz’s identity, of the Gessel–Simion Theorem, and a parabolic extension, and refinement, of a result of Wachs.

Problems and Prospects of Uli Art Idiom and the Igbo Heritage Crisis

In their various books on Igbo culture, Simon Ottenberg, Adiele Afigbo, P-J Ezeh, Herbert Cole and Chike Aniakor make references to ‘Igbo receptivity’, the ‘resurgence of Igbo arts’, and ‘Igbo cultural self-hate’, in an attempt to capture the wandering of Igbo cultural attitudes from one level of experience to another. While ‘receptivity’ and ‘resurgence’ are positive characterisations and paint a picture of resilience, ‘self-hate’ depicts a postcolonial nihilist tendency also at the heart of Igbo culture. If art is one major index for expressing and assessing the culture of a people, the Igbo uli art, arguably spanning three stages of historical-stylistic development, offers a basis on which Igbo culture and heritage can be appreciated and appraised in light of its receptivity, resurgence, as well as self-hate. Relying on the works of the uli women classicists, the Nsukka artists, and the outcomes of the Art Republic workshops, I argue that traditions never die in any finalistic sense, but rather degenerate and then regenerate new ideas, while nourishing and refreshing paradigms which extend the history and experience of the old.

Hospital and Patient Characteristics Regarding the Place of Death of Hospitalized Impending Death Patients: A Multilevel Analysis

Objectives: To explore the influence of hospital and patient characteristics on deaths at home among inpatients facing impending death. Method: In this historical cohort study, 95,626 inpatients facing impending death from 362 hospitals in 2011 were recruited. The dependent variable was the place of death. The independent variables were the characteristics of the hospitals and the patients. A two-level hierarchical generalized linear model was used. Results: In total, 41.06% of subjects died at home. The hospital characteristics contributed to 29.25% of the total variation of the place of death. Private hospitals (odds ratio [OR] = 1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00–1.75), patients >65 years old (OR = 1.48, 95% CI. = 1.42–1.54), married (OR = 3.15, 95% CI. = 2.93–3.40) or widowed (OR = 3.39, 95% CI. = 3.12–3.67), from near-poor households (OR = 5.16, 95% CI. = 4.57–5.84), having diabetes mellitus (OR = 1.79, 95% CI. = 1.65–1.94), and living in a subcounty (OR = 2.27, 95% CI. = 2.16–2.38) were all risk factors for a death at home. Conclusion: Both hospital and patient characteristics have an effect of deaths at home among inpatients facing impending death. The value of the inpatient mortality rate as a major index of hospital accreditation should be interpreted intrinsically with the rate of deaths at home.

Families of Major Index Distributions: Closed Forms and Unimodality

Closed forms for $f_{\lambda,i} (q) := \sum_{\tau \in SYT(\lambda) : des(\tau) = i} q^{maj(\tau)}$, the distribution of the major index over standard Young tableaux of given shapes and specified number of descents, are established for a large collection of $\lambda$ and $i$. Of particular interest is the family that gives a positive answer to a question of Sagan and collaborators. All formulas established in the paper are unimodal, most by a result of Kirillov and Reshetikhin. Many can be identified as specializations of Schur functions via the Jacobi-Trudi identities. If the number of arguments is sufficiently large, it is shown that any finite principal specialization of any Schur function $s_\lambda(1,q,q^2,\dots,q^{n-1})$ has a combinatorial realization as the distribution of the major index over a given set of tableaux.

Ethnic Differences in Nighttime Melatonin and Nighttime Blood Pressure: A Study in European Americans and African Americans

BACKGROUND Ethnic differences in nighttime blood pressure (BP) have long been documented with African Americans (AAs) having higher BP than European Americans (EAs). At present, lower nighttime melatonin, a key regulator of circadian rhythms, has been associated with higher nighttime BP levels in EAs. This study sought to test the hypothesis that AAs have lower nighttime melatonin secretion compared with EAs. We also determined if this ethnic difference in melatonin could partially explain the ethnic difference in nighttime BP. METHODS A total of 150 young adults (71 AA; 46% females; mean age: 27.7 years) enrolled in the Georgia Stress and Heart study provided an overnight urine sample for the measurement of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin, a major metabolite of melatonin. Urine melatonin excretion (UME) was calculated as the ratio between 6-sulfatoxymelatonin concentration and creatinine concentration. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory BP was assessed and nighttime systolic BP (SBP) was used as a major index of BP regulation. RESULTS After adjustment of age, sex, body mass index, and smoking, AAs had significantly lower UME (P = 0.002) and higher nighttime SBP than EAs (P = 0.036). Lower UME was significantly associated with higher nighttime SBP and this relationship did not depend on ethnicity. The ethnicity difference in nighttime SBP was significantly attenuated after adding UME into the model (P = 0.163). CONCLUSION This study is the first to document the ethnic difference in nighttime melatonin excretion, demonstrating that AAs have lower melatonin secretion compared with EAs. Furthermore, the ethnic difference in nighttime melatonin can partially account for the established ethnic difference in nighttime SBP.