Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Altman’s Z-Score and Stock Performance Based on Airline Companies Listed in the United States

This research looks at any relevance between Altman’s Z-score and the stock market performance of airline companies in the United States(US).Nearly a thousand pieces of data on various aspects of operation and financial status from 81 airline companies in the US are available.Additionally,stock return is used as an indicator of firm stock performance in this paper.In order to satisfy the purpose of determining the relationship between Z-score and stock performance as well as what may be inferred from high stock returns with regard to Z-score,two different regression processes are carried out.The first regression tests the relationship between Z-score and stock return,while the second regression examines whether there is a difference in Z-scores between well-performing airline companies and poorly performing ones using dummy variables.The results reveal that there is a significant positive correlation between the Z-scores of US airline companies and their stock performance;besides,high stock returns potentially imply relatively high Z-scores and vice versa.Therefore,one of the crucial steps that US airline companies must make is to strengthen their balance sheets in order to draw investors to make investments in their businesses.

Performance of Islamic and conventional stock indices:empirical evidence from an emerging economy

Background:This study aims to investigate the extent to which the conditional volatilities of both Shari’ah compliant stock and conventional stock are related to those of interest rate and exchange rate in the emerging economy of Pakistan.Methods:We used KMI 30 and KSE 100 indices for Islamic and conventional stock for the period of July 2008 to November 2013.We employed Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic in the mean(GARCH-M)model.This framework relaxes constancy assumption of classical linear regression(CLRM)model and allows exchange rate and interest rate volatility to evolve over time.The GARCHM framework also reveals results about risk-return trade-off in the context of both Islamic and conventional stock indices.Results:The findings show positive and statistically significant effect of interest rate volatility on KSE-100,whereas KMI-30 remains unaffected by the same.Exchange rate volatility is found to be significant for both conventional and Islamic indices.The relationship of risk coefficient(γ)and stocks returns,as expected,is positive and statistically significant for both KMI-30 and KSE-100.This result is consistent with the theory of risk-return trade-off.The results of parametric t-test show significant difference between returns of both indices.This implies that Shari’ah compliant stock index(KMI-30)of Pakistan underperforms its conventional counterpart.Conclusion:By using different performance measures(Sharp ratio,Jensen alpha,Treynor ratio),this study also investigates the hypothesis that Islamic stock index has inferior performance compared with unscreened conventional counterparts due to availability of a smaller investment universe,increased monitoring costs,and limited diversification.

Stock Market Measures and Market Performance

Sri Lanka is considered a highly fluctuating economy in the South Asian region.Understanding the behavior of economics is of utmost important to obtain the maximum benefit.Stock market can be considered as one of the key influencers to the economy whereas the behavior of the stock market would highly define the behaviors of the economic system.It is required to identify the stock market measures and their contribution for the market development to recognize the influence of stock market.The immense importance of its actions on the market performance leads to find more about the stock market’s measures.This research contains the evidence of the study conducted to identify the stock markets development and behavior measures such as all share price index,market capitalization,dividend yield,price to earnings ratio and shares traded equity.All of these variables were used to obtain a model to describe and predict performance of stock market over the time.The secondary data from the CSE(Colombo Stock Exchange)is studied which the trend analysis was conducted for each series of data and results were used for the analysis.A statistical analysis was carried out to identify the measures of stock market depicts that all the measures of the stock market have influences on the stock market development except for the dividend yield,a useful fact in the process of decision making in many aspects.

Stocking density effects on growth and stress response of juvenile turbot(Scophthalmus maximus) reared in land-based recirculating aquaculture system

Stocking density is widely recognized as a critical factor in aquaculture and a potential source of long-term stress.The influence of stocking density on growth and stress response of juvenile turbot（Scophthalmus maximus, ~3–75g, initial to final weight） was examined in fish held under low（LD, ~0.21–5.31 kg/m^2, initial to final density）,medium（MD, ~0.42–10.81 kg/m^2） and high stocking density（HD, ~0.63–14.27 kg/m^2） for 120 days in a recirculating aquaculture system（RAS）. In this trial, the growth curve for weight of juvenile turbot in RAS, all fitted by the Schnute model. No significant difference was found in growth performance among the three densities until at the final sampling（Day 120）. The final weight and body weight increase（BWI） in the HD group were significantly lower than in other groups（P〈0.05, weight：（75.83±2.49） g,（75.39±2.08） g,（65.72±2.86） g and BWI：（2 436.12±28.10）%,（2 421.29±4.64）%,（2 097.88±20.99）% in LD, MD and HD groups, respectively）. Similarly, the specific growth rate（SGR）, feed conversion ratio（FCR） and coefficient of variation for weight（CV_w） were adversely affected by high stocking density（P〈0.05）. However, there was no difference in survival and Fulton＇s condition factor（K） of turbot among the different groups. Physiological analyses demonstrated a clear increase in the plasma cortisol level and an obvious decrease in growth hormone（GH） concentration in the HD group on Day120（P〈0.05）. There was no significant effect of stocking density on plasma glucose, Cl– and protein levels. All these findings would provide a reference for selecting the optimal stocking density of juvenile turbot in RAS.