Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) were established in Europe in 2000 and have grown to a size of over 200 bn US$. Some issuers use a full replication strategy while others prefer a swap based approach. The ETF are dealt parallelly in the primary and in the secondary market, as new ETFs can be created...

Hedge Funds are often considered as a possibility for optimizing traditional portfolios due to their alternative risk factors and sources of return. But as the return distribution of hedge funds shows negative skewness and excess kurtosis, using portfolio optimization techniques, based on the...

The investment in commodities is starting to be more important during the last years. The paper describes the characteristics of financially important commodities. In many cases a passive investment in an index is most suitable. As the GSCI is found to be the most important, its underlying...

The paper examines the key drivers of gold investment. Since 2000 the gold price has risen drastically, making gold an interesting add-on to a portfolio. As gold futures have negative roll returns, gold pool accounts are characterized by high credit risk and physical possession of gold means...

In this paper, calendar seasonality patterns are examined from day-of-the-week effect across weekly patterns, monthly analysis and whole-year seasonal strategies such as Sell in May and Halloween effect. The analysis is done across six indices, DAX, MDAX, SDAX, Eurostoxx 50, Stoxx Europe Mid 200...