Skilled in Securities, Investment Advisory, Mutual Funds, Trading, and Structured Finance. Strong education professional with a Ph.D. focused on Financial Economics from the University of New Orleans. Professional Experience Summary: Over six years of progressive work experience in the Tehran stock exchange as a Mutual Fund Manager, Broker, and Investment Analyst. Applied appropriate principles of valuation for major financial assets and securities and engaged in research to evaluate if investment and financial policies maximized firm value.Teaching Summary: Applies stock market experience to class lessons so students learn how to analyze companies and make optimal decisions by completing real-world projects. Achieved high-quality certifications relevant to teaching improvement including Financial and Investment Analysis based on CFA, Bloomberg Market Concept, Financial Modeling Using Excel, Risk Management and Modeling, Future Contracts License, Technical Analyst in Financial Markets and Principles of Stocks Market.Research Summary: I have published eight papers in peer-reviewed journals and have several manuscripts in process. Actively participated in ten conferences as a committee member, session chair, discussant, and presenter. During the MBA program published two college mathematics textbooks for entrance examinations into Iranian universities.
International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Nov 11, 2019
Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommenda... more Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommendations taking as a sample the countries of the MENA region during the period between 2004 and 2015. The choice of these countries can be explained by the fact that their population is predominantly of a Muslim faith (The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, 2015). Design/methodology/approach The authors used univariate and multivariate regression models to highlight the existence of the Ramadan effect on the optimism of analysts. They have found that pre-holiday optimism is significantly lower than post-holiday optimism. Findings This paper also documented the effect of analysts’ experience and information uncertainty on the analysts’ optimism level that allowed us to infer that low experience enhances optimism, while environment with low information uncertainty tends to decrease the level of optimism. Originality/value Previous research on this topic has investigated the effect of months of the year, turns of the month and days-of-the-week on the behavior of stock exchanges. Another strand of the literature also analyzed the effect of holidays on the latter. However, this is the first attempt to investigate this effect on analysts’ recommendations optimism when the holiday period is related to Islam.
Purpose Extending on the resource-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) hypothesis, this paper ... more Purpose Extending on the resource-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) hypothesis, this paper aims to uncover the potential relationship between financial and non-financial channels and inward FDI before and after the global financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 561 year-country observations on 33 developed and developing countries during 2001 and 2017. This study investigates several determinants such as inflation, gross domestic product growth, exchange rate, trade openness, financial openness, Sharpe ratio and country market capitalization, using ordinary least squares, fixed effects and system generalized method of moments. Findings The results indicate a negative relationship between inflation and financial openness with FDI inflow while market capitalization and exchange rate were positively connected to FDI inflow. All three financial channels of FDI inflow: financial market size, financial openness and Sharpe ratio significantly influenced FDI ...
Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are exchange-traded products similar to exchange-traded funds that t... more Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are exchange-traded products similar to exchange-traded funds that track performances of some market indices. ETNs are traded throughout the trading hours on organized exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange. In this article, the author studies a sample of ETNs issued by Barclays Bank PLC that tracks commodity futures indices. Using daily data spanning over the past 10 years up to 2018, the author investigates the relationship between premiums and returns for a sample of ETNs issued. Within a panel vector autoregression framework, the author tested several hypotheses to uncover the link between premiums and returns. The hypotheses focus on noise trading and return predictability and their impact on the informational efficiency in the ETN markets. TOPICS: Exchange-traded funds and applications, commodities, futures and forward contracts, performance measurement Key Findings ▪ There are noise traders in the ETN market. These uninformed traders surge market volume and liquidity but diminish the ability of the market to respond to new information. ▪ ETN premiums consistently and significantly predict future premiums. The results recommend that premiums might reflect some unique information about future ETN returns. ▪ The ETN market is not efficient, and tracking premiums might help investors to predict future ETN returns.
Purpose The existence of the weekend effect has been reported from the 1950s to 1970s in the US s... more Purpose The existence of the weekend effect has been reported from the 1950s to 1970s in the US stock markets. Recently, Robins and Smith (2016, Critical Finance Review, 5: 417-424) have argued that the weekend effect has disappeared after 1975. Using data on the market portfolio, they document existence of structural break before 1975 and absence of any weekend effects after that date. The purpose of this study is to contribute some new empirical evidences on the weekend effect for the industry-style portfolios in the US stock market using data over 90 years. Design/methodology/approach The authors re-examine persistence or reversal of the weekend effect in the industry portfolios consisting of The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), The American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations exchange (NASDAQ) stocks using daily returns from 1926 to 2017. Our results confirm varying dates for structural breaks across industrial portfolios....
Abstract Cultural dimensions have a significant impact on capital structure decisions, particular... more Abstract Cultural dimensions have a significant impact on capital structure decisions, particularly in Islamic economies where unique personal, social and ethical values are closely integrated with culture. This study considers the relationship between four Hofstede cultural dimensions to explain their connection with the capital structure decisions of Shariah-compliant firms. Using a panel of 342 Shariah complaint companies from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the period 2013 to 2017, this study investigates the influence of cultural dimensions on short-term, long-term and total leverage in the presence of several firm- and country-specific variables. On average, Saudi Arabian firms witnessed comparatively higher percentages of all three debt classifications considered. Typically, determinants of debt do not otherwise differ significantly across the three countries. Firms also carefully consider asset structure and growth opportunities when raising debt capital. On the other hand, when tested alongside cultural dimensions, Islamic firms from countries with (a) higher power distance scores, (b) higher levels of individualism, (c) higher masculinity scores and (d) lower degrees of uncertainty avoidance exhibit a preference for long-term debt. This finding diverges from the existing literature on non-Islamic firms. Agency theory and pecking order theory predominate in explaining our findings.
This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ... more This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself.
In this paper we investigate the dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodit... more In this paper we investigate the dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodity returns for G7 countries from January, 2000 to October, 2014. The commodity futures include Brent, crude, gold, silver, wheat, corn and soybean futures, BCOM and CRB which are two aggregate commodity price indices. The results illustrate the lowest dynamic conditional correlations belong to the portfolios that include gold, wheat and corn futures for all the Equity indices. In addition, the correlations between the gold/equity pairs are negative during the financial crisis. This fact indicates the benefit of hedging stock portfolios with gold futures whenever we have stress in the financial markets. The findings from hedging effectiveness suggest that there are diversification advantages for all the commodity/stock portfolios than only stock portfolios. Finally, including CRB, BCOM and gold future to stock portfolios provides the optimal hedging effectiveness ratios. These findings can be helpful in developing new commodity indices.
This paper examines the effect of international and domestic factors on the sovereign bond spread... more This paper examines the effect of international and domestic factors on the sovereign bond spreads for 22 developed countries in North America, Europe and Pacific Rim regions. First, for all the regions the impact of global factors on the sovereign bond spreads is more intense than regional factors. Second, the findings confirm that for the bond spreads of each region over its domestic government bonds, the countries’ local fundamentals are better determinants of the spreads compared to the spread over US government bonds as a safe haven. Third, the influence of worldwide factors in the Eurozone compared to other regions bond spreads is less. Fourth, the relationship of the market sentiment and the investor risk aversion with the sovereign bond spreads of all regions is positive. Equity market volatility plays significant role in yield speads in international bond markets.
International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management
Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommenda... more Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommendations taking as a sample the countries of the MENA region during the period between 2004 and 2015. The choice of these countries can be explained by the fact that their population is predominantly of a Muslim faith (The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, 2015). Design/methodology/approach The authors used univariate and multivariate regression models to highlight the existence of the Ramadan effect on the optimism of analysts. They have found that pre-holiday optimism is significantly lower than post-holiday optimism. Findings This paper also documented the effect of analysts’ experience and information uncertainty on the analysts’ optimism level that allowed us to infer that low experience enhances optimism, while environment with low information uncertainty tends to decrease the level of optimism. Originality/value Previous research on this topic has i...
International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Nov 11, 2019
Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommenda... more Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommendations taking as a sample the countries of the MENA region during the period between 2004 and 2015. The choice of these countries can be explained by the fact that their population is predominantly of a Muslim faith (The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, 2015). Design/methodology/approach The authors used univariate and multivariate regression models to highlight the existence of the Ramadan effect on the optimism of analysts. They have found that pre-holiday optimism is significantly lower than post-holiday optimism. Findings This paper also documented the effect of analysts’ experience and information uncertainty on the analysts’ optimism level that allowed us to infer that low experience enhances optimism, while environment with low information uncertainty tends to decrease the level of optimism. Originality/value Previous research on this topic has investigated the effect of months of the year, turns of the month and days-of-the-week on the behavior of stock exchanges. Another strand of the literature also analyzed the effect of holidays on the latter. However, this is the first attempt to investigate this effect on analysts’ recommendations optimism when the holiday period is related to Islam.
Purpose Extending on the resource-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) hypothesis, this paper ... more Purpose Extending on the resource-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) hypothesis, this paper aims to uncover the potential relationship between financial and non-financial channels and inward FDI before and after the global financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 561 year-country observations on 33 developed and developing countries during 2001 and 2017. This study investigates several determinants such as inflation, gross domestic product growth, exchange rate, trade openness, financial openness, Sharpe ratio and country market capitalization, using ordinary least squares, fixed effects and system generalized method of moments. Findings The results indicate a negative relationship between inflation and financial openness with FDI inflow while market capitalization and exchange rate were positively connected to FDI inflow. All three financial channels of FDI inflow: financial market size, financial openness and Sharpe ratio significantly influenced FDI ...
Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are exchange-traded products similar to exchange-traded funds that t... more Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are exchange-traded products similar to exchange-traded funds that track performances of some market indices. ETNs are traded throughout the trading hours on organized exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange. In this article, the author studies a sample of ETNs issued by Barclays Bank PLC that tracks commodity futures indices. Using daily data spanning over the past 10 years up to 2018, the author investigates the relationship between premiums and returns for a sample of ETNs issued. Within a panel vector autoregression framework, the author tested several hypotheses to uncover the link between premiums and returns. The hypotheses focus on noise trading and return predictability and their impact on the informational efficiency in the ETN markets. TOPICS: Exchange-traded funds and applications, commodities, futures and forward contracts, performance measurement Key Findings ▪ There are noise traders in the ETN market. These uninformed traders surge market volume and liquidity but diminish the ability of the market to respond to new information. ▪ ETN premiums consistently and significantly predict future premiums. The results recommend that premiums might reflect some unique information about future ETN returns. ▪ The ETN market is not efficient, and tracking premiums might help investors to predict future ETN returns.
Purpose The existence of the weekend effect has been reported from the 1950s to 1970s in the US s... more Purpose The existence of the weekend effect has been reported from the 1950s to 1970s in the US stock markets. Recently, Robins and Smith (2016, Critical Finance Review, 5: 417-424) have argued that the weekend effect has disappeared after 1975. Using data on the market portfolio, they document existence of structural break before 1975 and absence of any weekend effects after that date. The purpose of this study is to contribute some new empirical evidences on the weekend effect for the industry-style portfolios in the US stock market using data over 90 years. Design/methodology/approach The authors re-examine persistence or reversal of the weekend effect in the industry portfolios consisting of The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), The American Stock Exchange (AMEX) and The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations exchange (NASDAQ) stocks using daily returns from 1926 to 2017. Our results confirm varying dates for structural breaks across industrial portfolios....
Abstract Cultural dimensions have a significant impact on capital structure decisions, particular... more Abstract Cultural dimensions have a significant impact on capital structure decisions, particularly in Islamic economies where unique personal, social and ethical values are closely integrated with culture. This study considers the relationship between four Hofstede cultural dimensions to explain their connection with the capital structure decisions of Shariah-compliant firms. Using a panel of 342 Shariah complaint companies from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the period 2013 to 2017, this study investigates the influence of cultural dimensions on short-term, long-term and total leverage in the presence of several firm- and country-specific variables. On average, Saudi Arabian firms witnessed comparatively higher percentages of all three debt classifications considered. Typically, determinants of debt do not otherwise differ significantly across the three countries. Firms also carefully consider asset structure and growth opportunities when raising debt capital. On the other hand, when tested alongside cultural dimensions, Islamic firms from countries with (a) higher power distance scores, (b) higher levels of individualism, (c) higher masculinity scores and (d) lower degrees of uncertainty avoidance exhibit a preference for long-term debt. This finding diverges from the existing literature on non-Islamic firms. Agency theory and pecking order theory predominate in explaining our findings.
This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ... more This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself.
In this paper we investigate the dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodit... more In this paper we investigate the dynamic conditional correlations between the equity and commodity returns for G7 countries from January, 2000 to October, 2014. The commodity futures include Brent, crude, gold, silver, wheat, corn and soybean futures, BCOM and CRB which are two aggregate commodity price indices. The results illustrate the lowest dynamic conditional correlations belong to the portfolios that include gold, wheat and corn futures for all the Equity indices. In addition, the correlations between the gold/equity pairs are negative during the financial crisis. This fact indicates the benefit of hedging stock portfolios with gold futures whenever we have stress in the financial markets. The findings from hedging effectiveness suggest that there are diversification advantages for all the commodity/stock portfolios than only stock portfolios. Finally, including CRB, BCOM and gold future to stock portfolios provides the optimal hedging effectiveness ratios. These findings can be helpful in developing new commodity indices.
This paper examines the effect of international and domestic factors on the sovereign bond spread... more This paper examines the effect of international and domestic factors on the sovereign bond spreads for 22 developed countries in North America, Europe and Pacific Rim regions. First, for all the regions the impact of global factors on the sovereign bond spreads is more intense than regional factors. Second, the findings confirm that for the bond spreads of each region over its domestic government bonds, the countries’ local fundamentals are better determinants of the spreads compared to the spread over US government bonds as a safe haven. Third, the influence of worldwide factors in the Eurozone compared to other regions bond spreads is less. Fourth, the relationship of the market sentiment and the investor risk aversion with the sovereign bond spreads of all regions is positive. Equity market volatility plays significant role in yield speads in international bond markets.
International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management
Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommenda... more Purpose This paper aims to document the impact of Ramadan on the optimism of analysts’ recommendations taking as a sample the countries of the MENA region during the period between 2004 and 2015. The choice of these countries can be explained by the fact that their population is predominantly of a Muslim faith (The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, 2015). Design/methodology/approach The authors used univariate and multivariate regression models to highlight the existence of the Ramadan effect on the optimism of analysts. They have found that pre-holiday optimism is significantly lower than post-holiday optimism. Findings This paper also documented the effect of analysts’ experience and information uncertainty on the analysts’ optimism level that allowed us to infer that low experience enhances optimism, while environment with low information uncertainty tends to decrease the level of optimism. Originality/value Previous research on this topic has i...
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