Award winners
Research award 2018
Scientific work to explain yield anomalies honoured
For the second time IQAM Research, DekaBank’s Private Institute for Quantitative Capital Market Research, has awarded a research prize for innovative research in the field of capital markets as part of its research funding program.
1. Price
The first prize was awarded for the scientific work “Analyst Bias and Mispricing” by Gergana Jostova and Alexander Philipov from the George Washington University School of Business and Mark Grinblatt from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The researchers found that analyst distortions significantly affect the share prices of companies with earnings that are difficult to predict, resulting in lower returns. The authors examined well-known return factors such as value and momentum and concluded that the distortion in analysts’ assessments plays a significant role in the existence of these factors.
Background
Michael Rüdiger, CEO of DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale: “IQAM Research was founded to further deepen the transfer of knowledge between practice and academic research. This involves, for example, identifying factors that influence the price development of securities. This also includes current research projects such as the benefits of machine learning in portfolio management. The high number of submissions – also from foreign universities – shows how important such a platform is for both sides”. A total of 48 scientists from renowned universities in Germany and abroad, including Harvard Business School and Yale University, applied for the research prize.
The IQAM Research prize is awarded every two years. This year, the main topics were “Rule-based investment strategies”, “Big data and machine learning approaches for forecasting financial markets” and “Analysis of financial market anomalies and their dependence on the interest rate environment”. The winners were selected by an independent scientific advisory board of the institute following a pre-selection by Deka. In the evaluation, the jury took particular account of the relevance of the research question and a balanced combination of internationally recognised, high-quality theoretical and conceptual work and practical relevance. “The scientific work provides new findings for practice, which can also be incorporated in the new and further development of Deka investment solutions,” says Dr. Ulrich Neugebauer, founder and managing director of IQAM Research and managing director of Deka Investment.