Spanish American War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Spanish the Statesn War - Essay ExampleThe two interpretations made each side disapprove the rulings that failed to favor their parameter (Brinkley 56). This is despite the ruling bodies intention which is to correct history and ensure that there will be no similar instances in future or orphic enmity among the states involved. Court and revisionist interpretations have yielded to diverse and conflicting arguments regarding the Spanish American War, where America resulted in justifying its occasion (Nunez 50). The aspect of Cuban humiliation while at a lower place Spanish rule prompted unwilling America to be involved in the war. America argued that they were keenly watching the atrocities Spanish rulers were executing in Cuba devoid of considering the eudaimonia of the citizens. Initially, America was unwilling to intervene, but due to constant pleading by its neighbours (Cuba), it had no alternative. According to America, it did not intend to indulge in the war, but their invo lvement emanated from the sinking of Maine battleship. This did infuriate the Americans who, due to political influences, forced William McKinley to a revolt. The chance came at an opportune time when they were wishing Cuban freedom from the Spanish dominion, which resulted in the eruption of a severe war. America claimed that its intentions were sincere and meant best for the Cuban citizens (Hernandez 7). Additionally, court interpretation argued that besides Americas humanitarian involvement in the war, it also wanted to support Cuba in attaining independence. This was from the citizens early constant plea prior to engaging the Spanish resistance to avenge for the sinking of their battleship. America intended Cuba to cease from being a Spanish colony where, via its naval engagement, managed easily to defeat their opponents, thus making Cubans starting their journey to independence (Hernandez 11).

Social Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Social Psychology - Essay Examplethe study o f how behavior repayable to one sort of environmental event (larger distant or abstract rewards) may come to dominate behavior due to another sort (smaller immediate or particular rewards)(Rachlin,2000,p.25). self discipline is also a concept, which is closely related to self control. It is taming oneself, to live a certain way of life of life. This concept is mainly incorporated by the person in his life, when he wants to achieve a particular task.Mostly, self control is seen as an individual property and as a measure of self discipline. If a person lacks self control, it is seen as a failure of his character and personality. Self control is the capability of a person to motivate him to do the right thing. It can also be described as stopping ourselves form doing things that we see as bad for us. Self control constitutes a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Self discipline is another name for selfcontrol, without which the life of i ndividuals would lead to chaos. Every habit embed in the human mind is the result of continuous action .So by controlling a behavior he can form or rid of a habit. It can be very well said that, self control is the strong foundation for the building of character in a person.The academic degree to which an individual think he has control over the events happening to him, is termed as locus of control. Internal versus external control, often referred to as locus of control, refers to the degree to which persons anticipate that reinforcement or an outcome of the behavior is contingent on their own behavior or personal characteristics versus the degree to which person expect that the reinforcement or outcome is a function of chance, luck or fate, is under the control of powerful other, or is simply unpredictable(Scrimla,Grimaldi ,2002,p.381).People having high locus of control, have a better control on their behavior and desires. These people direct their life in their own designed path, with their own controlled actions and behavior.

Headlines have made board diversity one of the key issues in corporate Essay

Headlines discombobulate made board diversity one of the key issues in corporate g overnance today, analyse the composition of the board of - Essay ExampleThe move was prompted by the fact that although organizations sought to include women in non- administrator appointments, there were belittled or no improvements in having women in executive posts (Treanor 2013). accord to Neville and Treanor (2012), although the number of women in non-executive positions is on the rise, there is a stubbornly low number in senior management. Although some organizations have heeded to the call to have about 40% of the boardroom seats held by women, Norway which is ranked first has achieved about 35% non-executive directors later on the government ordered firms to include women through quotas. In the United States, there are only 20 of the 500 S&P leading companies beingness led by women chief executives. Despite leading in the high number of women executives, the United States is not governed b y quotas unlike European countries where board quotas have seen few female senior leaders and few chief executives. Joecks, Pull & Vetter (2012) highlight that despite the increase in the percentage of women in the workforce over years there is a lag in the presentation of women in boardrooms as female directors. In addition, Joecks, Pull & Vetter (2012) note that the presentation of women in boardrooms drop curtain behind in Europe owing to imposition of women quotas for countries like Norway, Netherlands, and France among others. The issue of inconsiderate female presentation in boardrooms is not just an issue without a cause. Joecks, Pull & Vetter (2012) reveal that fostering high female presentation in boardrooms is associated with either negative firm performance or positive performance. According to Treanor (2013), just about companies have either a male-dominated boards or are all-male boards. The move to seclude women has long been attributed to the fact that males have h ad the right skills and attributes which could not be found in their female counterparts (Howard, 2013). However, time has changed this rule owing to the fact that more women have taken up education and have the potential to take up executive roles in organizations and promote high performance. Howard argues that organizational management should not be treated as one-size-fits all and hence the need to consider diversity in the boardroom and more so gender diversity (2013). In addition, companies are needed to do away with governance regimes that do not meet the involve of the market, and changing times (Treanor 2013). Owing the seriousness of the issue, Treanor (2013), reveals that organizations are required to follow Lord Davies proposal in 2011 February which required that all companies to allocate 25% or a quarter of the boardroom seats to women. According to Joecks, Pull & Vetter (2012), the issues of women being underrepresented in boards is not only an issue in Germany but a lso internationally. According to Adams, Gray and Nowland (2013), the attainment of gender diversity in boardrooms has been a hard task especially where organizations have been left to voluntarily handle executive appointments. This is because, nearly organizations have always considered appointing male executives at the expense of women. In this regard, women have faced unfairness and inequality in such appointments thereby remaining disadvantaged. This meant that, female directors have had discrimination and no efforts had changed such culture in organizations. Recently, the issue of boardroom gender diversity is of great focus and has seen countries impose gender quotas with the draw of improving firm performance

The ambitions of Henry VIII in the years to 1526 Essay Example for Free

The ambitions of henry viii in the eld to 1526 EssayHow successful was Wolseys opposed policy in satisfying the ambitions of heat content cardinal in the years to 1526? (24 marks)The foreign policy of the 12 years following 1514 was Wolseys accounts have been written almost as if, during these years, atomic number 1 VIII only existed as a stamp and the decisions were do by Wolsey. It is apparent that Wolsey made most decisions on a day-to-day basis and occasionally took major initiatives without the great powers acknowledgement. enthalpy intervened decisively at quantify to redirect events at his pleasure. Wolsey has to look like he was implementing the Kings policies even if he was pursuing his confess ideas. Henry played a more(prenominal) significant role in the formation and conduct of Wolseys foreign policy than has traditionally been suggested.It was argued that the aim was perused in order to preserve some influence for England in foreign affairs, by ensuring that no one attained such dominance that he could arrange matters without taking into account the interests of other states, such as England. The claim was that Wolsey followed this policy by threatening to give his support to whichever side seemed likely to be worsted by the other. It was giveed that this policy was by and large successful in ensuring that Englands international status remained high. This is the orthodox interpreting, where the main idea is that Wolsey wanted to maintain the balance of power. thus far, J.J. Scarisbrick had serious doubt on the geniuses of Wolseys ambition to become Pope. He argued that Wolseys support of papal diplomatic initiatives was largely coincidental and happened because England and the papacy shared common interests from time to time. Scarisbrick established a new revisionist interpretation based on the existence of a main aim and a prefer method. The aim was the established and maintenance of peace. The method was a variant of the old balance of power interpretation. He established this by claiming that Wolsey sought to achieve an unstableness of power that he tried always to join the stronger side, so that it would create a sufficient imbalance for the other side to realise that fighting was pointless. He claimed that this policy has non been more apparent to observers because Wolsey was not very good at implementing it and habitually made mistakes, which he attempted to justify by sham that his aims and methods were other than they had been.Henry had a very aggressive policy on France, until he eventually decided on trying to become the peace clearr of Europe. Henry wanted to regain the lost territory in blue France so he could be seen as a Great War lord with visions of comply and glory, just overly to challenge Henry Vs title of the last great English warrior. The first sign of this aim being instal into place is the first French war from 1512-1514. However the first expedition on June 1512 was a di sastrous failure as Ferdinand of Aragon and Holy Roman emperor entirelyterfly Maximilian didnt hold up to their end of the deal for an allied invasion. This shows Henrys naivety in foreign policy and the other European powers were using him to benefit themselves whilst send him to his downfall. Wolsey gained his first experience of the duties and pitfalls involved in organising financing, transporting and feeding an army.Wolsey was blamed by m any(prenominal) for the shambles that developed after the army landed in France disrespect the fact that he was a junior member of the Royal Council. However, Henry did not blame Wolsey and the manner in which Wolsey had conducted himself in correspondence with Ferdinand of Aragon impressed Henry. despite this Henry personally lead an army of 25,000 across the channel and took Throuanne and Tournai in northern France and winning memorable battles such as the battle of the spurs. Wolsey was the Quarter-Master generally rather than the war m inister. When a French force was defeated near Throuanne, Wolseys reputation as a master organiser was enhanced.The Kings growing trust in Wolsey enabled English diplomacy to shape, the guiding principle of which was to ensure that England, the least important of the three great western monarchies, was not left isolated against a Valois-Hapsburg alliance. Wolsey was the one who very effectively organised the second attempt on besieging France and made the peace agreements between the deuce nations in 1514, so it could be argued that the foreign policy towards the French at the time was policys that of Wolsey not Henry. Also in later years in the second French war 1522-25 Henry was yet again let down by his allies Charles V and Duke of Bourbon, which shows he didnt learnt from preliminary experiences and is not very knowledgeable in foreign policy. Henrys policy in France benefited him slightly by collecting a pension from the French, but is failure as it shows he can be manipulated by other powers and lost huge amounts of money on war.On a financial level the wars with France did have some bonuses one being the pensions they would receive due to the peace treaties. During Henrys reign he managed to accumulate 730,379 in funds from the French besides this was in no comparison to the amount spent on the wars which was 3,545,765, so the pension was more of a consolation. D. MacCulloch quotes Henrys demand for his pension was much more constant which means he made sure he collected his money which shows hes a strong king.Wolsey was unable to prevent the emperor butterflys friends from persuading Henry VIII that England must take some military action against France. Francis chose to ignore the warnings hed been given. An English army was sent to France at short notice in August 1523. In the sixteenth century, military action proved to be much less decisive than its authors had expected. Wolseys and Henrys passing enthusiasm for armed intervention evaporated, and Wolsey was allowed to implement his original strategy of stalling Charles demands for action while he was attempted to negotiate a general peace with the French.But on February 1525, Charles secured the decisive victory that Wolsey had estimated to be so unlikely. In a battle that took place outside the walls of Pavia, in northern Italy, the unthinkable happened. Not only was the French army totally destroyed as an effective fighting force, but Francis I and most of his leading supporters were captured. This put Charles in an overwhelmingly dominant position and Henry VIII was not slow to seek advantage of the situation. He realised that here was a noble-minded luck to fulfil his intermittently held dream of securing the French crown for himself Francis was prepared to launch fresh attacks on Charles within a year of his release.Henry had hopes of instauration an attack on France while she was leaderless, but he was forced to abandon these when he was unable to raise the necessa ry finance. It shows that Wolsey was less enthusiastic about this, as shown by the lack of determination in making success of the Amicable Grant which was supposed to fund for this.However Wolsey was certainly not diligent in encouraging the formation of an anti-imperial alliance (the League of Cognac) in northern Italy in 1526, with which France could associate in her efforts to reserve the verdict of Pavia.A further aim of Henrys was to achieve everlasting honour and glory. He wanted to be remembered throughout the ages and to have a huge reputation in Europe and be among the great superpowers in Europe. He achieved historical remembrance quite easily from the many famous acts he passed however he did bathe in a huge amount of glory and honour when the field of cloth of gold was held. This was a spectacular array of games held in Calais 1520 between Henry and Francis, it was meant to be a diplomatic meeting however no agreements were made, yet it did make Henry look good.However h e failed on a lot of attempted invasions to France, but he overall succeeded in acquiring a degree of honour and glory in Europe. It seems that Henry and Francis viewed the occasion as no more than an opportunity to impress others of their wealth and international standing. The field of Cloth of Gold did nothing to advance the cause of general peace. If anything it created problems for Wolsey in convincing the rest of Europe that England was not taking sides in the already developing struggle for supremacy between Francis I and Charles V. Henry was most grateful to Wolsey for making it appear to the World that he was the equal of the two super power rulers of Europe.Henry also managed to achieve success by maintaining links with the Netherlands. England depended on the Antwerp cloth market heavily as cloth was England biggest trading material at the time. Henry tried to maintain this link throughout, by allying with Charles V whenever he went to war, as Charles was in control of the Netherlands at the time.As years passed, Henry began to portray the image of being the peacemaker of Europe. Under the guidance of Wolsey Henry began to use the treaty of London in his own favour to try and achieve a peaceful Europe. It could be argued that Henry only resorted to this as he couldnt achieve honour through war. However he undertook this role to try and make the country look good, cement his place at the top of the leader board in Europe and make England look bigger and more powerful than what it really was. He also used the treaty of London so he had alliance requests from Charles V and Francis I before the Hapsburg-Valois war, so he could choose which side would benefit him the most.In October 1518 the treaty was signed, with Wolsey being the organiser. England and France were the first signatories and within a few months, Spain and the Papacy also signed. It was a grandiose scheme intended to bind the 20 leading states of Europe to perpetual peace with one another( prenominal)(prenominal). The plan was for all those states with an active foreign policy not only to commit themselves to non-aggression, but to promise to make war on any ruler who went against the treaty, thus making it impossible for any state to benefit from attacking another. Wolsey delivered an oration in praise of peace that was much acclaimed. This wasnt actual topic that the Pope had organised it for, buy Wolsey changed it. This could be seen as Wolsey trying to get his own way and for his own gain, but it benefited himself, Henry and all of England.Historians have generally viewed this initiative as yet another example of Wolseys cynical self-interest. The public perception was that Wolsey was working to implement the Popes wishes because he was using the fact that he was acting as the Popes representative because he was Legatus a Latere. Others have maintained that he was merely seeking to satisfy his sense of his own importance by being seen to be the peacemaker (arbiter ) of Europe, and to be treated as such during the extensive public celebrations that accompanied the unveiling of the treaty. Many believe that he was abominable of sacrificing national interests for personal gain.A Hapsburg-Valois conflict began when Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. This situation presented Henry VIII and Wolsey with both continuous opportunities and frequent challenges. Given the strategic position that England enjoyed, being able either to disrupt Charless communications between Spain and Netherlands or to open a new mien in any attack on France, her favours were certain to be in great demand from the two major powers. Wolsey was called on to pay some of the scathe for his triumph of the Treaty of London. Francis I had been happy enough to receive his reward for agreeing to join the Cardinals grand design but he had no intention of being constrained by its terms on conditions. Francis was determined to strengthen his position in Northern Italy b y military action against Charles and his supporters.Charles called upon England another to come to his assistance to halt the aggressor. In August 1521, Wolsey travelled to Bruges in Netherlands in order to meet with Charles on the action to be taken. The agreement made with Charles was that an English army would invade France unless Francis agreed to make peace. The mere threat of English action would be sufficient to persuade France to make terms. Wolsey had experience of Francis possession that he must have realised that a threat was likely to be insufficient. He was more than satisfied with the honour that his meeting with Charles had brought him.Henry however failed in securing his dynasty. He married his daughter Mary off to Charles V. However it failed because Mary and Charles did not have children. But, in 1514 Louis XII of France became a widower. Wolsey seized the opportunity to tender a Valois-Tudor alliance to be sealed by the offer in marriage of Mary, sister of Henr y VII. With Henrys willing consent, the marriage went frontwards and the ensuring treaty gave Henry an annuity of 100,000 crowns and confirmed English possession of Tournai. The success of the negotiations had enabled Wolsey to cement his place as the Kings chief diplomat.Scarisbricks interpretation has not been replaced by an alternative straightforward explanation. This is because it has become more and more apparent that no coherent pattern ever existed in Wolseys snuggle to diplomacy. It is now widely accepted that there was no single guiding principle that directed his actions throughout his 15 years in power. At differing times he was motivated by selfish considerations, especially a desire to obtain more extensive or longer-lasting delegated powers from the Pope.The need to satisfy the expectations of Henry VIII to further what he considered to be national or papal interests and by an altruistic inclination to benefit mankind by creating an era of peace. It is impossible to distinguish if many or all of these motives were behind each decision he made. There is not enough evidence to judge the importance of these motives. So in conclusion, Wolseys foreign policy to a great extent, satisfied Henrys ambitions because Wolsey did exactly what Henry wanted even though he musical theme about himself a lot.

Pathological gambler Essay Example for Free

Pathological risk taker EssayThe dynamics of fun disarray and the risk takers personality profiles were asserted by Dr. Richard Rosenthal, a well known shimmer addiction expert and cited the three criteria in assessing a morbid gambler. These criteria are the individuals feeling of helplessness, guilt and depression, a well developed capacity for selfdeception and the actual exposure to gambling. The individuals physical and hereditary predispositions are also major causes that link gambling addiction to depression that may result to suicide.In terms of physical attributes, a gamblers brain contains a higher level of chemical known as norepinephrine than a normal individual, due to excreted stress and enthusiasm to win the game. Signs and Symptoms To determine the extent of gambling addiction, the American Psychological Association reported different diagnostic criteria (Lieberman, L. 2003). These include the individuals preoccupation with gambling, unmatched good example is a gambler who keeps on reliving his past gambling experiences and planning for his next gambling venture while thinking of shipway on how and where to get money as gambling capital.Tolerance is a gambling addiction criterion in which a gambler needs a greater amount of money to achieve his desired excitement in gambling. Being restless and irritable is a withdrawal symptom when a gambler attempts to cut down his desire to gamble. Escaping from the feeling of helplessness, depression and guilt is a gamblers escape from problems and to relieve his dysphoric mood. A classical port of pathological gamblers include frequent returns to gambling places in order to chase losses.Lying from family members and other people is a symptom that a gambler is concealment his over-involvement with gambling. Illegal acts like fraud, theft and forgery are signs that a gambler is searching for more finances for his gambling addiction. There is a possibility of risking some significant relationshi ps for a gambler to suffice his gambling addiction including his job, career or other growth opportunities (Eadington, W. 2002). There are bailout circumstances wherein a gambler would rely on other people to provide financial assistance for his desperate situation due to gambling.The repeated loss of control to stop gambling is another symptom that an individual is a pathological gambler. Phases of Gambling Addiction Gambling addiction has three shapes of progressive cycle such as triumphant phase, losing phase and the desperation phase. The pattern of gambling addictive behavior is a progressive and downward cycle that may unravel to depression and later on suicide attempt. The winning phase is the time that gamblers experience a series of wins and became optimistic that the streak will continue. The feeling of great excitement will lead the gambler to increase the amount of his bets.The losing phase is the pointedness that a gambler experiences losses and the time that he wil l reminisce his past wins and will kickoff gambling alone, think more on gambling and light borrowing money even with high interest to continue his gambling. The losing phase is the time that gamblers start lying to family and friends, the home life becomes unhappy and restless. Chasing the gamblers losses to win back their losses is a critical point on gambling addiction. Desperation is characterized by increase in the time spent to gamble, alienate family and friends with remorseful feelings.Gamblers may even resort to illegal acts to finance his gambling addiction. This is the period that a gambler experiences despondency, separation and divorce, get inclined to drug addiction, alcoholism and eventually suicidal tendencies. The third and final phase of gambling addiction is the hopelessness phase characterized by emotional breakdown and cannot think and see a way to be out of their gambling predicament. Most gamblers upon reaching the hopelessness phase or the bottom line of t heir gambling addiction will consider suicide as the only solution to their problem.

Peers Essay Example for Free

Peers EssayFor this essay, I researched how peers stinker sour the physical, cognitive, affable and personality development of their insipid friends. In addition to this, my research also include ways the parent-child relationships can have more or less influence on an adolescent. Peer pressure is a specific instance of social influence, which typically produces conformity to a particular way of acting or thinking, states Jeffrey Lashbrook, professor of Sociology at State University of New York College (Lashbrook, 2000, pg. 1).Even when just considering the time adolescents spend with their peers, it unfeignedly shouldnt be too surprising the impact and influence adolescent peers can have on one another. Cross-behavior analyses of five activitiesalcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, marihuana use, tobacco plug and the adolescents introduction to sex were analyzed in a longitudinal ingest conducted by The National Longitudinal con of Adolescent Health. The take apart found that adolescents were twice as likely to engage in a risk behavior if their friend engaged in it also. The study found that peer influence can be both beneficial and harmful.In the use of cigarettes and marijuana, there was only influence to initiate the behavior. However, for alcohol consumption, the study showed that there was equal influence to conform to friends who drank and to conform to friends who did not drink. Whereas with tobacco chewing, there was shown to be significantly more peer pressure to stop chewing than to begin chewing. This was used as evidence that teens also can protect their peers in risk activities. One of the results the study showed was, not too surprisingly, that best friends were more influential than close peers.The study concludes to say that peer influence is a real phenomenon that takes on varying roles across adolescent risk behavior (Maxwell, 2000, p. 1). This includes the physical, cognitive, social and personality development of the teen. As far as the ways parent-child relationships have more/less influence, I read some additional research in this specific area. In research conducted by Barnes, Hoffman, Welte, Farrell and Dintcheff, (Barnes, 2006), 6 sets of data were analyzed including interviews of 506 adolescents to determine how parental support and monitoring influenced adolescent behavior.The results of the study concluded that impressive parenting and adolescents avoidance of associations with delinquent peers proved to be important factors which correlate with the decrease of alcohol misuse, other substance use, and delinquency (Barnes, 2006). Some studies I read by dint of seem to reiterate that parents often wait for the right time to influence adolescents. However, in reading through the various research, it seems to indicate that those parents who remain open to conference with their children all along will have greater influence in their adolescents choices.For example, in an article I read titled, Parents Communication with Adolescents about Sexual Behavior A Missed Opportunity for Prevention, (Eisenberg, 2006), it stated that parents often wait to talk to their teens about sex at the time they know their adolescent is in a romantic relationship. However, the article examined how it is not parallel when the teen stated they had their first sexual experience and when the parent(s) states they conceptualise their teen will or has had his or her first sexual experience.In the various readings I have researched for this essay, I have seen this to be the case with most things in general. Often the parents believe the adolescent doesnt know or hasnt experienced various things when the teen states they have. The research I have read does indicate that peers can influence their adolescent peers in a variety of ways depending upon other factors. In the research I have also found that how a parent can influence their adolescent usually begins a long time before they are adolescents a nd can vary from person to person.

Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method Evaluation

Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method EvaluationFor many monetary market applications, including substitute(a) pricing and investment decisions, capriciousness apprehending is crucial. Therefore, the research of irritability forecast has been an active ara of study since the one-time(prenominal) years. In recent years, the emergence of many financial time serial methods for irritability forecasting has proved the importance of down the stairsstanding the nature of volatility in any financial instruments.Often, people will think price is use as an power of the fund market performance. Due to the non-stationary nature of price series of the melodic line market, almost researchers actually transformed series of price budge (return) or absolute price changes (absolute return) in their studies. There is a difference between the term return and the term volatility. The term volatility is utilize as a crude measure of the total risk of financial assets. Actually, vol atility is the standard deviation or the random variable of returns whereas return is me desire the changes of prices.An increasingly unremarkably adopted tool for the measurement of the risk exposure associated with a particular portfolio of assets cognize as Value at Risk (var) involves calculation of the expected losses that might solution from changes in the market prices of particular securities (Jorion, 2001 Bessis, 2002). Thus, the VaR of a particular portfolio is defined as the maximum loss on a portfolio occurring in spite of appearance a specified time and with a habituated (small) probability. Under this approach, the validity of a banks internally idealed VaR is backtested by comparing actual day by day trading gains or losses with the estimated VaR and noting the number of exceptions occurring, in the sense of days when the VaR estimate was insufficient to cover actual trading losses, with concerns course arising where such exceptions frequently occur, and that can result in a range of penalties for the financial institution concerned (Sa chthonics Cornett, 2003).A crucial parameter in the death penalty of parametric VaR calculation methods is an estimate of the volatility parameter that describes the asset or portfolio, or more accurately a forecast of that volatility where the simplifying speculation of constancy is relaxed and time-varying volatility is acknowledged. While it has long been recognized that returns volatility exhibits clustering, such that large (small) returns follow large (small) returns of random sign (Mandelbrot, 1963 Fama, 1965), it is only following the introduction of the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model (Engle, 1982 Bollerslev, 1986) that financial economists have modeled and forecast these temporal dependencies development econometric techniques, and a variety of adaptations of the basic GARCH framework ar now widely use in modeling time-varying volatility. In particu lar, the significance of asymmetric effects in stock index returns has been widely documented, such that candor return volatility increases by a greater amount following positive shocks, usually associated with the leverage effect, whereby a firms debt-to- truth ratio increases when equity comforts decline, and holders of that equity perceive future income streams of the firm as being more risky (Black, 1976 Christie, 1982). Such magnetic variation asymmetry has been successfully modeled and forecast in a variety of market contexts (Henry, 1998) apply the threshold-GARCH (TGARCH) model (Glosten et al., 1993), and the exponential function-GARCH (EGARCH) model (Nelson, 1991) in particular.Problem StatementWhile risk management practises in financial institutions often rely on unanalyzabler volatility forecasting approaches based on heuristics and moving average, smoothing or RiskMetrics techniques, symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models have alike recently begun to be considere d in the VaR context. However, the standard GARCH model and variants within that class of model impose rapid exponential decay in the effect of shocks on conditional version. In contrast, observational evidence has suggested that volatility tends to change slowly and that shocks take a considerable time to decay (Ding et al., 1993). The fractionally integrated-GARCH (FIGARCH) model (Baillie et al., 1996 Chung, 1999) has wind a popular means of capturing and forecasting such non-integrated but highly persistent long remembering dynamics in volatility in the recent empirical literature, as well as its exponential (FIEGARCH) variant (Bollerslev Mikkelsen, 1996) which parallels the EGARCH extension of the basic GARCH form, and therefore provides a generalization capable of capturing both the volatility asymmetry and long memory in volatility which be potential characteristics of emerging equity markets.Research ObjectivesThis paper therefore seeks to extend preliminary research c oncerned with the evaluation of alternative volatility forecasting methods under VaR modeling in the context of the Basle Committee criterion for determining the adequacy of the resulting VaR estimates in two ways. First, by broadening the class of GARCH models under consideration to include more recently proposed models such as the FIGARCH and FIEGARCH representations described above, which argon capable of accommodating potential fractional integration and the associated long memory characteristics of return volatility, as well as the more simplistic and computationally less intensive methods commonly used in financial institutions. Second, extending the scope of previous research through evaluative application of these methods to mundane index entropy of nine stock market indexes.Significance of this studyThe extensive research of volatility forecasting plays an important role for investment, financial risk management, security valuation, and also business decision-making proc ess. Without a proper forecasting tools and research on this field, many financial decision making process will be difficult and risky to be implemented. The positive contribution of volatility forecasting in the field of pay is no doubt a fact as it given many practitioners a mean of guidelines to estimate their management risk such as option pricing, hedging and estimating investment risk.Therefore, it is crucial to study on the performance of opposite approaches and methods of forecast model to determine the best suitable practical application for divers(prenominal) situation. The most common form of financial instrument is the stock market. The stock indices consist of a particular countrys most prominent stocks. Thus, in this study our forecast is to focus on forecasting the stock indices volatility of eight different stock indices that provide us the ability to test the forecast approaches.There are quite a number of forecast models since the recent years. However, the new concern is on the performance of these forecast model when incorporated with higher absolute frequence info with the agnise volatility method. There are still gap for researching the intra-day selective information effects on forecasting model which is comparative new as compared to casual data volatility forecasting. The significant role of this study also include whether intra-day data can really help at improving the performance of forecast model to estimate volatility for the stock index.Review of ChaptersIn this proposal, the report is mainly subdivided into three chapters. Chapter 1 is about the overview of this research which includes the background of the study, the research objective, fuss statement, and the significance of this study. Chapter 2 presents the literature review of volatility forecasting, GARCH models, exponentially smoothing and realized volatility.CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Volatility forecastingVolatility forecasts are produced by either market-ba sed or time-series methods. Market-based forecasting involves the calculation of implied volatility from current option prices by solving the Black and Scholes option pricing model for the volatility that results in a price equal to the market price. In this paper, our focus is on the development of a new time series method. These methods provide estimates of the conditional variance, 2t = var(rt It-1), of the record return, rt, at time t conditional on It 1, the information set of all observed returns up to time t 1. This can be viewed as the variance of an error (or residual) term, t, defined by t = rt E(rt It 1 ), where E(rt It 1 ) is a conditional mean term, which is often assumed to be zero or a constant. t is often referred to as the price shock? or news?.2.2 Overview of standard volatility forecast model2.2.1 GARCH modelGARCH models (Engle, 1982 Bollersle, 1986) are the most widely used statistical models for volatility. GARCH models express the conditional variance as a linear function of lagged shape error terms and lagged conditional variance terms. For example, the GARCH(1, 1) model is shown in the following expression2t = + 2t 1 + 2t 1,where , , and are parameters. The multiperiod variance forecast, , is calculated as the sum of the variance forecasts for each of the k periods making up the holding periodwhere is the one-step-ahead variance forecast. Empirical results for the GARCH(1, 1) model have shown that often (1 ). The model in which = (1 ) is term integrated GARCH (IGARCH) (Nelson, 1990). exponential function smoothing has the same grammatical construction as the IGARCH(1, 1) model with the additional restriction that = 0. The IGARCH(1, 1) multiperiod forecast is written asStock return volatility is often found to be greater following a negative return than a positive return of equal size. This leverage effect has promted the development of a number of GARCH models that allow for asymmetry. The first asymmetric formulati on was the exponential GARCH model of Nelson (1991). In this log formulation for volatility, the impact of lagged shape residuals is exponential, which may exaggerate the impact of large shocks. A simpler asymmetric model is the GJRGARCH model of Glosten et al. (1993). The GJRGARCH(1, 1) model is given by,where , , , and are parameters and I. is the indicator function. Typically, it is found that , which indicates the presence of the leverage effect. The assumption that the median of the distribution of t is zero implies that the expectation of the indicator function is 0.5, which enables the derivation of the following multiperiod forecast expressionGARCH parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood, which requires the assumption that the standardized errors, t / t, are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). Although a Gaussian assumption is common, the distribution is often fat tailed, which has prompted the use of the Student-t distribution (Bollerslev, 1987) and the generalized error distribution (Nelson, 1991).Stochastic volatility models provide an alternative statistical volatility modelling approach (Ghysels et al., 1996). However, estimation of these models has proved difficult and, consequently, they are not as widely used as GARCH models. Andersen et al. (2003) show how nonchalant transfigure rate volatility can be forecasted by fitting long-memory, or fractionally integrated, autoregressive and vector autoregressive models to the log realized day by day volatility constructed from half-hourly returns. Although results for this approach are impressive, such high frequency data are not available to many forecasters, so there is still great interest in methods apply to everyday data. A useful review of the volatility forecasting literature is provided by Poon and Granger (2003).2.2.2 Exponentially SmoothingExponentially heavy Moving Average (EWMA) is simple and well-known volatility forecast method. The method is based on the si mple average of past square residuals to estimate its variance forecasts. The EWMA allows the latest observations to have a stronger weighted impact on the volatility forecast of past data observations. The equivalence for the EWMA is shown and written as exponential smoothing in recursive form. The parameter is the smoothing parameter.The parThere is no proper guideline or statistic model for exponential smoothing. Generally, literature suggested using reduction in the sum of in-sample one-step-ahead estimation of errors (Taylor, 2004 cited from Gardner, 1985). In RiskMetrics (1996), volatility forecasting for exponential smoothing is recommended to use the following minimisationIn the above equation, 2t is the in-sample form error which acted as the proxy foractual variance whereby it is express to be not observable. By using 2t as a proxy forvariance, the actual squared residual, 2t, is said to be biased and noisy. In Andersenet al. (1998), the research showed the evaluation of variance forecasts using bring in volatility as a more accurate proxy. The next section would discuss more on the literature of realised volatility. The work of high frequency data for realised volatility in forecast evaluation can be applied in parameter estimation for exponential smoothing with the following minimisation expression.2.2.3 Realised volatilityThe recent researchs interest in using a comparative volatility estimator as an alternative has emerged a significant literatures on volatility models that incorporated high frequency data. One of the emerging theories for a comparative volatility estimator is the so called agnise Volatility. Realized volatility is referred as the volatility calculated using a short period time series or using higher frequency periods. In Andersen and Bollerslev (1998) showed that high frequency data can be used to compute daily realize volatility which showed a better true variance than the usual daily return variance. This concept is ad opted in Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold Labys (2003) to forecast the daily stock volatility which found that the additional intraday information are provide better result in forecasting low volume and up market day.The application of realized volatility has also been occupied by Taylor (2004) in parameters estimation for weekly volatility forecasting using realised volatility derived from daily data. An encouraging result were showed by using the smooth transition exponential smoothing method whereby the research used eight stock indices to compare the weekly volatility forecast of this method with other GARCH models (Taylor, 2004). The concept of realized volatility has been employed by many researchers in forecasting of many other financial assets such as foreign exchange rates, individual stocks, stock indices and etcetera.One of the primordial application of realized volatility concept has used spot exchange rates of Deutschemark-US dollar and Japanese Yen-US dollar to show th e superiority of using intraday data as realized volatility measure. The sum of squared five-minute high frequency returns incorporated in the forecasting model proved to outperform the daily squared returns as a volatility measure (Andersen et al., 1998). Another similar study done by Martens (2001) has adopted realized volatility in forecasting daily exchange rate volatility using intraday returns. The results showed that using highest available frequency of intraday returns leads to superior daily volatility forecast.Furthermore, realized volatility approach has also been blanket(a) to studies for risk and return trade-off using high frequency data. In Bali et al. (2005), the research provided strong positive correlation between risk and return for stock market using high frequency data. The usage of daily realized which incorporated valuable information from intraday returns produce more accurate measure of market risk. In addition to this study, Tzang et al. (2009) as applied the realized volatility approach as a proxy for market volatility rather than squared daily returns to assess the efficiency of various model based volatility forecast.Finally, the findings from a research done by Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold Labys (2001) shown that realized volatility in certain conditions is costless for measurement error and unbiased estimator for return volatility. The proven research has prompted many recent works in forecasting intra-day volatility to applied realized volatility for their studies. This can be observed in McMillan Garcia (2009), Fuertes et al. (2009), Frijns et al.(2008) and Martens (2001). Many researchers exploit the advantage of realised volatility as an unbiased estimators measure for intra-day data and also as a simplified way to incorporated additional information into other forecast models.McMillan et al. (2009) utilised realised volatility to capture intraday volatilities itself as fence to most researchers that uses realised volat ility for daily realised approach. The study showed Hyperbolic Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasity (HYGARCH) as the best forecast model of intra-day volatility.2.3 Forecast Models used in this studyThe forecast models that are presented in this study includeRandom Walk (RW)30 days Moving Average (MA30)Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) with =0.06 (RiskMetrics)Exponentially Smoothing with optimised (ES)Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic using daily data (IGARCH)Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (Riskmetrics) on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (EWMA-RV)Exponentially Smoothing with optimised on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (ES-RV)General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model with intraday data using realised volatility approach (INTRAGARCH)Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with intraday data using realised volatility approach (I GARCH)General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with daily realised volatility (RV-GARCH)CHAPTER 3 DATA AND METHODOLOGY3.1 Sample selection and description of the studyVarious comparative forecast models are used in order to value the performance of incorporating intraday data. This study used dataset from nine stock indices include Malaysia (FTSE-BMKLCI), Singapore (STI), Frankfurt-Germany (DAX30), Hong Kong (Hang Seng Index), London-United Kingdom (FTSE100), France (CAC40), Shanghai-China (SSE), Shenzhen-China (SZSE), and United States (SP 100). These series consisted of daily closing prices and also the intraday hourly cultivation price of their respective indices.The daily closing prices were retrieved using DataStream Advance 4.0? and also from Yahoo Finance (http//finance.yahoo.com). Whereas, the hourly intraday last prices of these stock indices were retrieved from Bloomberg Terminal from Bursa Malaysia. Each stock index has their respective trading hours last pr ice which produced a different number of observations for each series. The total number of trading hours within the day differed among different stock index.However, the sample period used in this study spanned approximately for 300 trading days, from 15 October 2009 to 15 March 2011. In order to simplify the study, the focus is based on a one-step-ahead volatility forecast. The first 200 trading days log returns were applied to estimate the parameters for various forecast models which is known as the in-sample forecast. The remaining 100 trading days log returns were used for post-sample evaluation. This study aimed to forecast volatility in daily log returns for various forecasting methods and used daily realised volatility as proxy for actual volatility. The next subsections presented the data description and the 10 forecast methods which will be considered in the study.3.2 Data Analysis3.2.1 Forecasting MethodsThis subsection describes the methodology to forecast the in-sample a nd out-sample performance of various forecast models. The forecast model includes Random Walk (RW), Moving Average, GARCH models, and Exponential smoothing techniques.3.2.1.1 Standard volatility forecast model using daily returnsThis project paper adopted the simple moving average of squared residuals from the recent past 30 daily observations which is labelled as MA30 and the Random Walk (RW) for the standard volatility forecast model as performance benchmark. The 30 day simple moving average is given byWhereby, 2 = (rt )2 shown in the previous section. The moving average is able to smooth out the short running fluctuations and strain on the long run trends or cycles through a series of averaging different subsets of datasets.On the other hand, the Random Walk (RW) is explained as the forecast result is equal to the actual value of the recent period. The actual value in this study used is the squared residual denoted as, 2t. The equation is as shown below?Tomorrows forecasted val ue = yesterday actual value ()3.2.1.2 GARCH models for hourly and daily returnsThere are many different GARCH models for forecasting volatility that can be included in this research. However, the consideration in this study is limited to 2 forecast GARCH models which are the GARCH and IGARCH for practicality. The GARCH models in this study have applied GARCH (1, 1) specifications. The three forecast model used were labelled as IGARCH, INTRA-IGARCH, and INTRA-GARCH models.The IGARCH model is estimated using daily residuals as daily data is easily obtained from the source mentioned above. The general IGARCH forecast model used is given by?? ?But, the parameter estimate generate by EVIEW 7 will be using the following expression? ? ?? ?However, the INTRA-IGARCH and INTRA-GARCH models used hourly residual data to estimate the forecast for daily realised volatility. The forecast for volatility of these models over an N-trading hours span period would be recognised as the forecast of daily volatility. The N trading hours span period is dependent on the trading hours of a specified stock index. In order to calculate the daily realised volatility, the equation is for N trading hours in a day for a particular stock index is given byWhere period i is the higher frequency of hourly data and the 2t, is the squared residual of the particular hour. For example, if KLCI index has a 7 trading hours per day, the realised daily volatility is calculated from the sum of squared residual of these 7 hours. Additionally, forecast models such as INTRA-IGARCHand INTRA-GARCH applied equation 3 to obtain the daily realised volatility by replacing the squared residual, 2t with values that is forecasted using these models.3.2.1.3 GARCH model using realised volatilityThe GARCH model can be estimated using daily realised volatility which isderived from the hourly squared residual with equation 3. In order to apply RV forGARCH forecast model, equation 3 has to be modified to be squared root t o be ableto obtain the parameter estimates that is needed using EVIEW 6. The equation is asfollowAs for this project paper, the GARCH model that used daily realised volatility asinput data is labelled as RV-GARCH.3.2.1.4 Exponential smoothing and EWMA methodsThe forecast model for exponential smoothing method has been implementedinto two approaches. The first is by using minimisation of equation 3 to optimise theparameter and it is labelled as ES for this project paper. The actual value (squaredresidual), 2t is obtained from the daily data. The second approach which is said to bethe better proxy variance forecast has applied equation 4 for the minimisation. Theforecast model for this exponential smoothing method is termed as ES-RV whichadopted daily realised volatility from hourly data.Apart from that, the study also considered the smoothing parameter as a fixed value of 0.06 as recommended by RiskMetrics (1996) for model using daily data and daily realised volatility data derived from hourly data. The forecast model is termed as EWMA and EWMA-RV respectively. By using equation 2 as shown previously, the EWMA used daily squared residual as 2t 1 parameter input while the EWMA-RV used the daily realised volatility as the 2t 1 parameter input.3.3 Research Design (Gantt Chart)JulAugSepOctNovDecJanFebMarLiterature ReviewMethodologyResearch proposalData collectionData analysisDiscussion and conclusion