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Journal of Mathematical Finance
Vol.09 No.03(2019), Article ID:94454,20 pages
The Impact of Stock Names on the Expected Stock Return
—A Study Based on the Behavior Finance
Shuo Song, Rui Li*
Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).
Received: May 5, 2019; Accepted: August 17, 2019; Published: August 20, 2019
Every investor in the market has access to the stock names, making it the most popular information. However, this piece of information is often ignored by people and considered insignificant in the decision process. In fact, it is almost always the stock names that give investors the first impression of a stock, and thus psychologically speaking, should in turn impact the decision process. In this paper, we score the (Chinese) stock names according to the meaning and the efficiency of passing information, so that we can work out a quantitative analysis of the stock names. Theoretically we derive the relationship between the stock name scores and the expected stock returns. Practically we build up an imaginary market-neutral portfolio and analyze its return by historical data. From both the theoretical and the practical aspects we discuss the two hypotheses—the liking theory and the information theory, and we show that in the Chinese stock market, the liking theory dominates, which is opposite to the result from the US stock market.
Behavioral Finance, Emerging Market, Stock Returns, Irrational Investors, Arbitrageurs
1. Introduction
In the framework of traditional microeconomics and finance, investors are assumed to be rational decision makers, whose activities are directed by public information and the profit/risk calculated from mathematical models. The famous efficient market hypothesis is an example of such stock evaluation models. In recent years, as the concept of behavioral finance being accepted, the irrational behavior of investors starts to be taken seriously. Robert C. Shiller's [1] (2000) research shows the collective impact from a large number of irrational investors on the US stock market, and proposes that the irrational investors' behavior caused multiple violent stock market fluctuations. Allen M. Poteshman and Vitaly Serbin [2] (2003) distinguish the rational and irrational investment activities. They study the stock future market in the United States and identify many irrational investment decisions and discuss the pricing mechanism. In J. Bradford De Long's [3] (1990) research paper, the behavior of noise traders is described, and they discuss the situation when the market participants are just the irrational investors and arbitragers who make strategies against those irrational investors.
When considering the stock names, it is very interesting to think about whether or not rational investors should take it as a meaningful input when making decisions. In the paper of van den Assem [4] (2018), the impact of stock names on the expected stock returns is discussed in detail. Two models—the "liking" theory and the "information" theory—competing with each other are examined according to the US stock market data, and the conclusion supports the so-called "information" theory, which indicates that stock names contain useful information and the use of stock names comes from rational and sophisticated investors rather than irrational and noise traders.
In our research, we want to re-examine the two theories by the data of the Chinese stock market. The reason is that we see two important differences between the Chinese and the US stock market. First, the proportion of individual investors (relative to institutional investors) is much larger in China than that in the US. Second, the arbitrageurs' activity is limited by the Chinese stock market rules, especially from the short side. Moreover, compared to the English letters, the Chinese characters of the Chinese stock names can potentially pass more information or indication to investors. All these factors make it a meaning job to check the Chinese stock market, which is a good representative of all emerging markets.
Before expanding our discussion, we present an example that shows the stock names in Chinese making impact on the stock price. In 2016, the trading day following the US presidential election, two stocks in China behaved specially. "Chuan-Da-Zhi-Sheng" (002253), which pronounced like "trump win" in Chinese raised in price and hit the up-limit. Meanwhile, another stock "Xi-Yi-Gu-Fen" (002265), which pronounced like "Aunt Hillary", plunged and hit the down-limit. While the two stocks have no financial connection to either president candidate, we can only track the reason to the stock names and the imagination of investors.
The research about Chinese stock names is not a popular topic and need further exploration. Some relevant papers are L. Liu [5] (2004), Y. Liu [6] (2008), G. Li [7] (2011), and Z. Chen [8] (2011). The similarity of these papers is that researchers think mainly about the correlation between stock names and the actual returns, and there is little theoretical discussion about how this correlation is built up.
In our paper, we apply the method of van den Assem [4] (2018) to the reality of the Chinese stock market, and analyze how the stock names affect the expected stock returns. The results show that the Chinese stock market data support the liking theory, which indicates that the stock names play a purely psychological role in the decision process of investors, and that the noise traders dominates in the Chinese stock market. This result is opposite to the result from the US stock market, and in the following sections we will discuss the reasons in detail.
This paper shows its novelty by setting up a new rating system for stock names so that we can quantify the goodness of each stock name. Then the use of an imaginary market-neutral portfolio gives the readers a clear view of the effect by the stock names.
2. Models and Hypothesis
2.1. Scoring of Stock Names in Chinese
To quantify our problem, we need to score the stock names. For each stock, we assume the basic score to be zero, and we set up three conditions for one bonus point each. So every stock name can have a score ranging from 0 to 3.
Condition 1: the stock name accurately describes the main business of the company.
Condition 2: the stock name contains a territory name.
Condition 3: the stock name implies some good implications.
Among these three conditions, the first one considers the effectiveness of information transfer. If the stock name shows the main business of the company accurately, it helps investors learn the background of the company quickly, which can contribute in the decision process. The second one focus on the territory of a stock and company, which we believe could attract the attention of some investors, especially individual investors. Notably speaking, the word "China" is also considered a territory description and affects potential investors. Relative discussion can be found in Y. Qiao's [9] (2012) paper. This also makes sense when we see that no stock name contains both "China" and another territory name, so there is no stock gaining two bonus points by this condition. The third condition comes from the psychological aspect, saying that some investors may have faith in good-meaning words and rely partially on the good luck. L. Zhang [10] (2016) studies this effect in the paper and proves that such investors do exist. Some examples of good-meaning Chinese characters are "fu" (happiness), "tai" (safety), and "jin" (gold). For this reason, the management of some companies may purposely add these good words into the stock names to attract investors.
The full list of stock name scoreboard is shown in Appendix III.
2.2. The Theories of Stock Pricing
About the mechanism of how stock names impact on stock price, we think and compare the two theories. The first one is called the "liking" theory, which is discussed in multiple papers (Alter, Adam L., and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, [11] 2006; Alter, A.L. & Oppenheimer, [12] 2008; Adam L. Alter, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, [13] 2009). The core idea is that ordinary investors like the stock names and thus have the preference of buying the corresponding stocks without deep research, which causes an overpricing of stocks and low long-term returns. The second theory is called the "information" theory, which is discussed in a paper in 2013 [14] (T. Clifton Green and Russell Jame, 2013). This theory chooses the aspect that a good stock name indicates good operation skills of the management, and thus the long-term growth of the company is promising. However, this piece of information can only be captured by those sophisticated investors, while ordinary investors tend to overlook it due to lack of research. Then the corresponding stocks have both good fundamental data and "low-key" position, generating good returns.
The two theories reach completely opposite conclusions. There is already a paper [4] (van den Assem et al., 2018) that uses the data from the US stock market to check both theories and conclude that the "information" theory matches the reality. In our paper, however, we want to examine the two theories with the Chinese stock market data, as it is a representative of the emerging market and varies from the US market in many important aspects.
Now we briefly go through the mathematical model mentioned in Assem's paper [4] (van den Assem et al., 2018). Consider an economic process that a company is operating one and only one risky project with a one-time income f at the end of the project. Assuming there are only two types of investors in the market who can invest in this company. One is the arbitrageurs, who are sophisticated and rational investors and make investment decisions based on the analysis of the company's fundamental data. The other is ordinary investors, or sometimes called noise traders, who are affected heavily by their personal preference and emotion and do not have a good understanding of the public information. These are irrational investors. We assume the proportion of noise trader in the market is λ.
Using the method proposed by Hong and Sraer [15] (2013), the investors make decisions by maximizing the following function.
In this function, is the volume the investor i trades (either long or short) stock j. is the price of stock j, is the subjective estimation of the stock value by the investor i, and is the trading cost. Here we assume the discount rate is zero, which does not affect our discussion. The investor's index can be either i = A (arbitrageur) or i = N (noise trader), and the sub index j can be either j = H (high-score stock names) or j = L (low score).
Taking the first-order derivative and we get the equation to calculate the equilibrium price as shown in Equation (1).
Now we discuss the liking theory and the information theory respectively.
In the liking theory, there is no correlation between the stock names and the companies' operation, but a "good" (or high-score) stock name can attract many irrational investors. Those noise traders believe that a high-score stock name means a higher project income , and a low-score stock name means a lower project income . This variation of income is purely the subjective judgment of the investors without any rational foundation, so the real project income is still f, which the rational investors (arbitrageurs) know correctly.
Recall that the proportion of irrational investors is λ. Then for a high-score stock name, the stock value estimation is . Similarly for a low-score stock, the value estimation is . Assuming the stock number outstanding is q, and using Formula (1) we can get Formula (2) and (3)
In Formula (2) we get the difference in balance price between high-score stocks and low-score stocks, and we can see that under the assumption of the liking theory the balance price of high-score stocks are higher than that of the low-score stocks, and the difference is proportional to the number of noise traders.
In Formula (3) we get the difference in the expected stock return, obviously the expected return of the high-score stocks is lower as they are overpriced. The difference in returns is also proportional to the number of noise trades.
Generally speaking, the irrational demand from the noise traders push up the trading price of the high-score stocks, while the real value of the companies do not change. In turn it leads to a lower expected stock return.
Under the assumption of information theory, the stock name reflects the ability of the company's management, because a good manager would deliberately select a good stock name to attract the attention of investors. This piece of information can only be revealed by those sophisticated investors, who have detailed and deep research about the company. Those investors (arbitrageurs) realize that companies with good names could have high income from the operating project because of the good management. We label the higher income as , where . On the other hand, the noise traders do not recognize the information and still treat all the stocks equally. Assuming the companies with good stock names (and thus good management) has a proportion of π, then average price of all the stocks in the market is , which is also the subjective value estimation for noise traders. Meanwhile, the arbitrageurs correctly estimate the value of good-name stocks to be , and that of other stocks to be f. Again we assume the proportion of noise traders is λ. Then investors' (arbitrageurs and noise traders together) subjective evaluation of a good-name stock is , and that of other stocks is .
Now we can use Formula (1) to get the balance price and the expected return of stocks with either high-score names or low-score names.
In Formula (4), we see that the balance price of high-score stocks is higher than that of low-score stocks, similarly to the conclusion of the liking theory. However, from Formula (5) we find that the expected stock return for high-score stocks is now also higher than that of the low-score stocks. This is because that in the information theory, the companies with good stock names indeed have a better future income ( ). The difference in returns is proportional to the number of noise traders.
As a summary of this section and as a direction of our data analysis, we write three hypotheses here for verification.
Hypothesis 1: If the liking theory works, then the stock returns are negatively related to the stock name scores; if the information theory is correct, then the stock returns are positively related to the stock name scores.
Hypothesis 2: The correlation between the stock names and the stock returns increase as the number of noise traders increasing.
Interestingly, the first hypothesis tries to show the difference of the two theories, while the second hypothesis shows a similarity of the two theories.
In Assem's paper [4] (van den Assem et al., 2018) he concludes that the information theory wins by checking out the US stock market data. So to verify if the assumption of the information theory is indeed correct, we have the third hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3: the score of stocks names has a positive correlation to the value of a company.
3. Data Analysis
In this paper, all the stock price and volume data come from the RESSET dataset, and all the fundamental data come from the compustat data by the S & P GLOBAL. In our data analysis, we refresh the fundamental data on a yearly basis.
Specifically, we use the component stocks of (China) CSI300 index for the research and choose the time slot from 2011 to 2013. The reasons for the selection are: first, component stocks in the CSI300 index have good volatility; second, the three years from 2011 to 2013 is a period when the Chinese economy developed in a steady way. The impact from the 2008 financial crisis has almost disappeared, which means a stable and healthy macroeconomic environment; third, in April 2010, the CSI300 index future started to trade, so we choose the data afterwards; fourth, starting from the second half of 2014, the Chinese stock market underwent a long-run bull market, and individual stocks performance converged, and thus we select the data before 2014.
We score every stock in the CSI300 index according to the method mentioned above and summarize the result in Table 1. For the detailed results please refer to Appendix III.
In Table 1, higher scores mean better stock names. We can see that nearly half of the 300 stocks have 1 point, and only 1 stock has 3 points. The three-point stock does not make statistical significance, so we will simply ignore it. For the zero-point stocks, the stock names fail to covey enough information about either the company's business or location, and we label them as bad stock names (low-score). For the two-point stocks, the stocks names give investors a good first impression by providing some information, and we label them as good stock names (high-score).
Imagine an arbitrage portfolio in which we long the high-score stocks and short the low-score stocks. We call it a name-arbitrage portfolio, as it tries to profit from the difference in stock name scores. The net position is zero, and the money is evenly distributed among all stocks. We observe the monthly returns of this portfolio and get the risk-adjusted return by subtracting the risk-free rate . The analysis is done with real history data from Jan 2011 to Dec 2013, and we decompose the risk-adjusted returns by the following three ways.
First we use the simple CAPM model:
In Equation (6) is the risk-adjusted market return, and in practice we use the average return of all the stocks in the China A stock market, subtracting the risk-free rate. is the regression error term.
We also use the more detailed Carhart [16] (1997) four-factor model.
Again is the market return. SMB (small minus big) is the small company extra return, HML (high minus low) is the high book value company's extra return, and UMD is the momentum return of the portfolio. This model decomposes the total return into four factors, and the residual return can be taken as the part from our name-arbitrage portfolio.
At last we use the Fama-French [17] (2015) five-factor model.
Table 1. Summary of stock name scores.
In Equation (8) the MKT, SMB, HML terms have the same meaning as in Equation (7). RMW is the extra return by the company's profitrate, and CMA is the extra return due to the company's investment activity.
In practice, we calculate the factor returns by building up the corresponding portfolios. For example, to get the data for SMB, we rank the CSI300 component stocks by asset, and then long the smaller 30% and short the larger 30%, which gives us a portfolio that arbitrages from the small company preference. We then use the history data to get the monthly risk-adjusted return of this portfolio and take it as the SMB factor return. Similarly we get the HML factor returns by ranking the asset/cap ratio, and CMA by ranking the liability/asset ratio. The UMD (momentum factor) comes from the past year performance of the name-arbitrage portfolio.
3.1. The Test of Hypothesis 1
With Hypothesis 1, α is the extra return brought by the name-arbitrage portfolio. If the liking theory is correct, we should have , and if the information theory is correct, we should have . We make the regression to the monthly data between 2011 and 2013 according to Formulas (6), (7), and (8), respectively. The results are summarized in Table 2.
From the results we see that the α values are all negative for the three regression models. The CAPM model is simple as it only separates the market factor, and the monthly arbitrage return of our portfolio is as high as −0.563%, or −6.97% annually. The latter two models both separate multiple factors and the monthly returns due to the name-arbitrage portfolio are still −0.307% and −0.351% respectively. According to the t-stats, the three regression analysis are significant at the 2.5% significance level. The negative α values support the liking theory.
Notably, the total return of the name-arbitrage portfolio between 2011 and 2013 is positive, but this positive return comes from the market and the fundamental factors, while the arbitrage activity to the stock names gives negative returns. This is shown in more details in Appendix II.
3.2. The Test of Hypothesis 2
In the second hypothesis, no matter with the liking theory or the information theory, the price deviation caused by the stock names becomes more significant with higher number of noise traders. To verify this hypothesis, we apply the method described in the paper of Baker and Wurgler [18] (2006), and classify
Table 2. Regression results to test the first hypothesis.
the CSI300 component stocks by the technical indicators. Specifically, we select the book size/capitalization (B/P) ratio and the earning/price (E/P) ratio, which we believe are interesting to individual investors and more likely to attract the attention of noise traders. We rank the stocks according to the two ratios and divide each to three subgroups—the upper 30%, the middle 40%, and the lower 30%. Then we have six subgroups in total. We build up the name-arbitrage portfolios for each of the six sub-samples and repeat the process of regression with CAPM, Carhart-four-factor, and Fama-five-factor models. The results are summarized in Table 3.
We make the following observations from Table 3.
1) All the α values in the regressions (6 subgroups, 3 models for each grouping methods) are negative, which again supports the liking theory.
2) The CAPM models give significant α values in all the subsamples at the 1% significance level. This is similar to the observation from the big sample. However, we should also keep in mind that the CAPM model is too simple to effectively separate different risk factors.
3) In the Carhart-four-factor and Fama-five-factor models, only the two "upper 30%" subgroups have significant α values, while the other four subgroups do not. This result agrees with the second hypothesis, as the "upper 30%" subgroups correspond to the stocks with more noise trader attention. In these two subgroups, the impact of the name-arbitrage strategy is more obvious.
Table 3. The regression results of subgroups.
3.3. More Details on the Regression Results
In the previous sections we focus on α values, because we mostly care about the extra returns brought by the stock names. Meanwhile, the goodness-of-fit of the regression models are also important, as we want to know whether it is reasonable to use the model for analysis. We summarize the result on the total sample in Table 4.
From Table 4 we see that a simple CAPM model does not explain the returns of the name-arbitrage portfolio very well, as neither the F-stats nor the R2 is significant. This is why we rely mainly on the Carhart-four-factor model and the Fama-five-factor model in our previous discussions. With the Carhart-four-factor model and the Fama-five-factor, the F test are significant at the 0.1% level, and R2 are as high as 68%.
3.4. The Test of Hypothesis 3
The third hypothesis points out a fundamental question: is the stock name related to the company value? The answer to this question decides the nature that how stock names affect the stock price. In other words, if the stock name has no correlation to the company value, then it is a purely behavior issue and the stock name only works on the investors psychological status. The test of Hypothesis 3 works as an independent judgment of the liking theory and the information theory.
We apply the cross-sectional data as in the paper of Mueller, Ouimet and Simintzi [19] (2017), and do regression analysis to the following equation.
In Equation (9), is the Tobin's q ratio, which was proposed by James Tobin in 1969 to measure the value of a company. is a dummy index, which takes the value 0 for low-score stocks (name score = 0) and value 1 for high-score stocks (name score = 2). is the logarithm of the company's revenue. The sub-index i goes through the component stocks of CSI300 index with either 0 or 2 stock name scores. If Hypothesis 3 is correct, we should have a positive coefficient .
A company's asset, revenue, and market value change every year, but the stock names do not change very frequently. To keep the consistency, we make the regression for each year from 2011 to 2013, and the results are shown in Table 5.
From Table 5, we observe that none of the β values are significantly larger than zero and the residual return (α) has a big absolute value. This result does
Table 4. The goodness-of-fit results to the whole sample.
Table 5. Regression results of Equation (9).
not support the third hypothesis, i.e. we cannot conclude that the stock name has correlation to the company value. Again this is in favor of the liking theory.
4. Discussion
4.1. Further Discussion about the Stock Name Scores
First we noticed that in the component stocks of CSI300 index, the average name score is 0.923, and the standard deviation is 0.756. 170 stocks receive either a high score (2 or 3 points) or a low score (0 point). So in the process of building up the name-arbitrage portfolio, we do not have the problem of stocks concentrating in some point. The portfolio does not include stocks with 1 point, because we consider 1 point as an "ordinary" condition, when the stock names do not have too much impact on investors. Most investors would not feel surprised when seeing either a location or the business of a company in the stock name. However, if the stock names contain both a location and the business, it is more likely to invoke a sense of familiarity, which is not a rational feeling, but may play a role in the decision process. For example, the stock "jiang-xi-tong-ye (600352)", in which the first two words "jiang-xi" is a province in China, and the second two words "tong-ye" means copper mining. For individual investors, it is impossible to look through all the stocks in the market, so they tend to spend more time on stocks that they feel familiar with. An investor from the Jiangxi province would likely take a few moments to look at the stock "jiang-xi-tong-ye" because of the location familiarity. The word "tong-ye" (copper mining) shown in the stock name further passes the information about the company's main business and may trigger some imagination for investors, as they may start to think about news they learn recently that is relevant to mining. At this point, this stock has already successfully attracted some attention from individual investors. We discuss this example to show one of the mechanisms that how a stock name can affect an investor's decision process. On the contrary, a stock with zero point fails to pass a useful information and leaves little first impression to investors.
Moreover, in the reality of the Chinese stock market, the speculative need is popular among investors, and many people hold a gambling-like psychology when selecting stocks. Some Chinese researchers [20] (Zhao, J, 2009) have pointed out that a good-meaning stock name or a lucky stock number could make it popular among individual investors.
4.2. The Dual between the Liking Theory and the Information Theory
It should be noted that the above discussion about stock names is related only to the investors' psychological status, which leads to certain behavioral financial results. However, the fact that investors (noise traders) prefer certain stocks does not increase the actual company values. On the contrary, the preference causes an overpricing and a lower expected return. From the results shown in Table 2, we see clearly that when we long the high-score stocks and short the low-score stocks, the resultant α return is negative. It tells us that in the Chinese stock market, the liking theory is the one that matches the reality. The stock names affect the noise traders and skews their judgment about stock values, so that stocks with good names are overpriced and stocks with regular names are less popular. In principle, there should be an arbitrage opportunity here for the sophisticated investors, as they can make a reverse strategy by longing the low-score stocks and shorting the high-score stocks. However, the short sale is strictly limited in China, so this arbitrage space stays and consistently gives us a negative α value.
Previously researchers conclude that the information theory is supported by the US stock market data [4] (van den Assem, 2018), but our analysis with the Chinese stock market data supports the liking theory. One of the fundamental differences between the two markets is that in the United States, the liquidity is much better than in China, especially for short sale, so the arbitrageurs can promptly react to any arbitrage opportunity and bring the stock price to a balance point. Another major difference here is that in the United States, almost 90% of the investors are institutions according to the data of US Security and Exchange Commission, who are sophisticated and rational decision makers. On the other hand, in the Chinese stock market, the percentage of individual investors is as high as 40%, who play the role of noise traders.
In Hypothesis 2, we assume that the difference of return for stocks with high-score names and low-score names is proportional to the number of noise traders, and to verify this assumption, we select some fundamental items of companies as an indicator of noise trader attention. Specifically we use the asset/price and revenue/price ratios. The logic behind is that these two fundamental items are most commonly discussed by both institutional and individual investors. Stocks with good fundamental data attract a lot more attention than those with bad fundamental performance, so these two ratios are good representatives of investors' attention. Moreover, for institutional investors, they have access to multiple data sources and their decisions are not based solely on the two fundamental items. On the other hand, individual investors have very limited information source, so they rely more on the common fundamental items that are easy to obtain. As a result, the asset/price and revenue/price ratios attract more from the individual investors than the institutional investors, and thus they can work as a separator for the two types of investors. In practice, we rank the CSI300 component stocks and divide the sample into 30% - 40% - 30% segmentations, where the upper 30% has a higher proportion of individual (noise) investors.
The results shown in Table 3 clearly support the second hypothesis. We further notice that only in the sub samples with the higher noise trader ratio (upper 30%) we have statistically significant value of α, which is negative and therefore proves the liking theory. When we compare the result in Table 3 with that in Table 2, we find that the p values in the total sample are 0.0159 (four-factor model) and 0.00390 (five-factor model) respectively, while in the two upper 30% sub samples, the corresponding numbers are 9.52e−5 (four-factor model), 0.000257 (five-factor model), and 0.000288 (four-factor model), 1.14e−5 (five-factor model), respectively. The level of significance is obviously higher in the sub samples than in the total sample. This comparison is not mathematically rigorous, but it does help us to see the role of noise traders in the impact of stock names.
4.3. Explanation of Hypothesis 3
In Hypothesis 3, we try to investigate the correlation between the real value of a company and the stock name. The so called "real value of a company" is actually the expected one-time income from the risky project in our model. This income is eventually the return to the investors. The correlation between the stock name and the company value does not mean the stock name changes a company's value. Instead, it is just an indicator of the company value, and the information theory assume that arbitrageurs are able to get useful information about the company from its stock name.
In our data analysis, we use the Tobin's q to measure the company value. However, from the result we do not see any evidence of the correlation between Tobin's q and the stock names. This result again opposes the information theory and supports the liking theory.
5. Conclusions
This paper analyzes the component stocks of CSI300 index in the Chinese stock market, and studies the relation between the stock names and the risk-adjusted returns. We compare two candidate theories—the liking theory and the information theory. The liking theory indicates that the stock names affect the stock returns in a purely psychological way and cause an overpricing. The information theory believes that stock names reflect some true information about the companies' management and thus good stock names are related to good company value.
These two theories give opposite predictions to stock returns, but they both point out that the impact of stock names gets stronger with more noise traders' participation.
The novel contribution of this paper is that we build up a scoring system to rate every stock in the CSI300 index, and a market-neutral strategy based on the scores. We further apply three different models (CAPM, Carhart-four-factor, and Fama-five-factor) to decompose the total portfolio return, and show that statistically high-score (name) stocks have lower risk-adjusted returns. The conclusions of our data analysis results are summarized below:
1) The liking theory matches the reality of the Chinese stock market, in which irrational investors could be attracted by good stock names and therefore make emotional decisions to push the stock overpriced.
2) Noise traders are the key factor of the price deviation caused by stock names. A high number of noise traders can magnify the impact of stock names.
3) In China, the proportion of individual investors is much higher than that in the United States, and the individual investors usually take the role of noise traders, so the liking theory works for the Chinese market, while some other research shows that the information theory is good for the US.
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project serial number: 71873020) and Youth Scholars Program of Beijing Normal University (SKXJS310400101).
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Cite this paper
Song, S. and Li, R. (2019) The Impact of Stock Names on the Expected Stock Return. Journal of Mathematical Finance, 9, 368-387. https://doi.org/10.4236/jmf.2019.93021
- 1. Shiller, R.C. (2000) Irrational Exuberance. Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly, 20, 18-23.
- 2. Poteshman, A.M. and Serbin, V. (2003) Clearly Irrational Financial Market Behavior: Evidence from the Early Exercise of Exchange Traded Stock Options. The Journal of Finance, 58, 37-70. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6261.00518
- 3. De Long, J.B., Shleifer, A., Summers, L.H. and Waldmann, R.J. (1990) Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets. Journal of Political Economy, 98, 703-738. https://doi.org/10.1086/261703
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- 5. Liu, L. and Tian, Y. (2004) No Information, Still Reaction: The Study of Name-Change Incidents in the China a Stock Market. The Journal of World Economy, No. 1, 44-50.
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- 14. Clifton Green, T. and Jame, R. (2013) Company Name Fluency, Investor Recognition, and Firm Value. Journal of Financial Economics, 109, 813-834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.04.007
- 15. Hong, H. and Sraer, D. (2013) Quiet Bubbles. Journal of Financial Economics, 110, 596-606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.07.002
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- 19. Mueller, H.M., Ouimet, P.P. and Simintzi, E. (2017) Within-Firm Pay Inequality. The Review of Financial Studies, 30, 3605-3635. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhx032
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Appendix I
The discount rate and the calculation of risk adjusted returns
In our paper we use the deposit rate of national banks as the discount rate (risk-free rate), as shown in Table A1. Denoting the annualized three-month deposit rate as , then the risk-adjusted return is calculated as
where is the actual return, and d is the number of days between two settlement dates.
Table A1. The deposit rate of national banks.
Appendix II
The factor returns in the Fama-five-factor model
Figure A1. The decomposition of name-arbitrage portfolio returns according to the Fama-five-factor model.
Figure A1 shows the monthly risk adjusted returns of each portfolio and factor, including the name-arbitrage portfolio, MKT, SMA, HML, CMA, and RMW. This figure is plotted by imagining 10 million dollars invested in one of the portfolios and calculating the monthly profit and loss (subtracting the risk-free return).
We first notice that the name-arbitrage portfoliohas a lower risk-adjusted return than the market portfolio (MKT), which gives us a negative α in the CAPM model.
We further notice that the SMB and RWM portfolios both have higher return than the name-arbitrage portfolio, again indicating a negative α. Interestingly, the only positive risk-adjusted return comes from the small-cap preference strategy (SMB), while the high-book-value strategy and the high profit rate strategy cannot win over the risk-free rate.
Appendix III
The stock name scores
In Table A2, we have the name scores we used in our data analysis. Since the scoring depends highly on the Chinese language, we keep the Chinese pronunciation and use transliteration in the table so that readers can better understand the scores.
Table A2. Stock name scores.

subset: commoncrawl


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Morning on Myrtle Beach
It's mid morning on the beach and the ocean is unbelievably calm. A gentle breeze tousles my hair while I sit listening to the ocean breathe. The soft waves spill onto the satin sand with a sigh. Then a deep inhale sweeps the water back homeward.
The light shimmering on the surface shines like a thousand gleaming fish. An osprey slices the surf, plucking its prey with turquoise-tinged talons and then disappears over the dunes.
This morning I saw four small deer stepping gingerly through the upland forest. They saw me and stopped to take in my scent. Seemingly unimpressed they trotted away, pressing their slender hooves into the sandy soil and leaving a wake of heart-shaped tracks like a trail of love letters.
The dunes in the morning are full of tracks. Raccoons appear to be busy exploring the area where the forest meets the dunes. Meanwhile, fox, coyote, and deer tracks can be found at the very edge of the dunes along the coast. It's remarkable to think of these wild creatures emerging from their daytime hiding places to bask in the moonlight after all the beachgoers are asleep or otherwise encapsulated in slabs of wood and concrete designed to shield us from all things natural.
I stopped briefly to inspect a parking area where I had previously seen a rabbit nibbling in a patch of grass. I had been riding by on a bicycle and stopped suddenly when I caught sight of the rabbit. The rabbit dashed toward a thicket and froze. We stood watching each other. I shifted my weight. The rabbit adjusted its ears. We stood like this until a car came and chased us both away.
Today I found the area strewn with piles of rabbit droppings in various states of decay. Some were very fresh. Others were dissolving back into the earth. Clearly, this was a favorite bunny dining establishment! I hoped that I might have the chance to encounter my new friend again.
Stay tuned for another installment of nature observations in Myrtle Beach.


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According to Christina Aguilera's make-up artist her new "CD" is going to make her "fighters" shit themselves.
'Taking to Twitter' Stephen Sollitto said, apropos of nothing: "OMG Fighters!!! When u hear this next CD u r going to Sh_T urselves!!!!!! Seriously."
He continued: "U r following the Queen.. Seriously. Line up. U WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED FIGHTERS!!!!!"
Getting a bit more specific in terms of what we might expect, he added: "NON of u r ready for her next ballad. NON!!!"
There are very few details about the album as yet although there's the stuff about Xenomania, but it doesn't look like that came to anything. There there were rumours a while back of some Max Martin involvement so that's exciting. Perhaps not exciting enough to make us shit ourselves but we haven't heard the songs yet so let's not rule it out.


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Italian champions Inter Milan could be without four players for the Cagliari game in the Italian Serie A this weekend according to the report from popular Italian media portal La Gazzetta dello Sport (GdS). It was revealed that Inter Milan boss Simone Inzaghi is set to welcome some of his players back from injury for the Cagliari, while he could also lose some others to injury.
Italian national team fullback Darmian is presently out injured, while Dumfries had to leave the final Champions League Group D clash with Real Madrid at the half-time interval due to injury. Dutch national team star Dumfries was a major injury casualty from the Real Madrid game which ended in a 2-0 defeat for the Nerazzuri.
Inter Milan finished the Real Madrid game with ten men after Nicolo Barella was sent off. Real Madrid sealed top spot in their group thanks to the goals from the likes of Spanish attacker Marco Asensio and retired German international Toni Kroos.
In the absence of both Darmian and Dumfries, Danilo D'Ambrosio is the obvious option to play right wingback for Inter Milan against Cagliari.
Italian international defender Andrea Ranocchia will also miss the Cagliari alongside Argentine striker Joaquin Correa. While Ranocchia is expected to return to full fitness before the month runs out, Correa won't return to action until the Bologna game next month.


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What property types should you consider when buying a home? Here are some key factors to understand when making your decision!
5 tips to help you save for your down payment
Ways to save for your down payment
Our way of living has switched from simply enjoying the moment to living a very structured life. We go to our nine to five job from Monday to Friday. It pays okay. We have enough to pay our bills and that's about it. Our weekends are spent completing all those adult chores that we put off during the week. Once that's done, we may get an hour or two to relax and watch a show on Netflix. Rarely do we take time to really do something for ourselves. We pay our bills and tend to chores, but we never "pay ourselves."
The dream is to own a house one day, but the thought of saving up enough money for a down payment seems out of reach. After the bills, there is very little money left over to put aside for a down payment. However, there are some pretty easy ways to shift that mindset and save for your down payment.
1. Pay yourself first
The most important part of saving money for a down payment is to remember to pay yourself. We work long days for our boss and company. We then take that money to pay off our credit card debt and rent each month. It rarely crosses our minds that we should give ourselves credit for our hard work. Each pay cheque, pay yourself first. Calculate what one hour of pay is for you from your job. Calculate that one hour of pay, by the number of days on each pay cheque. Take that amount and put it into a savings account for you. For example, an hour of pay is $10 and there are 10 days on each pay cheque. Approximately $100 should be going into a savings account each pay period for yourself. Dedicate the savings account to your goal at the time. For a down payment, use the account exclusively to save funds for a down payment. Commit to never taking out funds from it for anything besides the goal you are saving for.
2. Eliminate "can live without" luxuries
We all have a guilty pleasure. Some of us spend $5 a day on a coffee, while others spend $15 for a pack of cigarettes. Whether we like it or not, we all have an item that is a "luxury item." We could live without it, but we are kind of reliant on it. Try taking the money that you invest in these luxury items and save it for a down payment. That $5 coffee may sound necessary and nice at the time, but a new house would provide satisfaction for a longer period of time. Maybe the coffee is something you can't live without but think about whether those purchases are always necessary. An easy way to calculate whether an item is worth the price tag or not is to calculate the annual cost. Take that $5 and multiply it by 365 and see if it is still worth it to you. That coffee seems like a small amount today, but $1,825 is a nice chunk of cash.
3. Reduce your credit card debt
Higher interest debt can be a major waste of your hard-earned dough. When we let debt sit and accrue interest, we are making it a lot harder to save. Higher interest debt means spending more money paying off that bill. Leaving debt open can slow down the progress you've made on saving for a down payment. When you have the money available, pay off those credit cards and other forms of higher interest debt. When you pay off the balance, move onto the next highest interest debt. Keep moving on until you reduce your overall debt. This will set you up for the long run and allow you to save more money for a down payment.
4. Borrow from your RRSP
The Home Buyers' Plan allows home buyers to borrow funds from their RRSP to finance the down payment. Homebuyers can use up to $35,000 from their RRSP to finance the down payment. Couples can combine this to a total of $70,000. This is a nontaxable withdrawal as long as it is repaid. The funds borrowed must be repaid within 15 years. This can help home buyers save up enough money to make a 20% down payment on a house. The 20 per cent down payment would allow buyers to avoid the mortgage default insurance. If you plan this accordingly, you can save money on your taxes by contributing to your RRSP. When you're ready to make an offer on a home, you can take advantage of your planning!
5. Get a side hustle (new income stream)
If you have the ability and time, it might be time to think about a side hustle. We all have a special skill that we can put to work. If you have a knack for helping kids, offer tutoring kids in the neighbourhood. Tutoring brings in some extra cash and exercises your brain. If you live in a neighbourhood with pet lovers, offer to take care of the neighbourhood animals the next time the owner goes out of town. Tutoring and pet sitting are great and easy ways to pull in funds for a down payment. A temporary second job can make serious contributions to savings for a down payment. Sacrificing that show on Netflix to tutor for an hour, can put you one step closer to buying your dream home in the near future.
We all dream of owning a home. Many of us are conditioned to believe that owning a home is out of reach for us. We think it is too expensive. We are barely making it by, paying our monthly bills. By retraining our mindset, we will soon learn to pay ourselves first. Automatically putting money aside each month in a separate account is the fastest way to save for a down payment. Paying off higher interest debt and eliminating luxury purchases will speed up the process of saving. When you're thinking about buying your first home and need help coming up with a plan, give us a call at Clinton Wilkins Mortgage Team! You can give us a call at 902-482-2770 or get in touch with us here!


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by JR Valrey
Frisco filmmaker Kevin Epps is at it again with his weapon of choice, his camera. This time, the "Straight Outta Hunters Point" filmmaker just released his new film, "Solutions Not Suspensions," which takes a look at who is being suspended from the San Francisco Unified School District and under what circumstance.
He is taking a stand on an issue that does not get a lot of attention in our community. People, at the end of the day, have to stand for something or fall for anything. What is more worthy than standing up for our youth and against the issues they are facing? Check out Kev Epps in his own words.
M.O.I. JR: Can you tell the people about your latest film? How did you come up with the concept?
Kev Epps: "Solutions Not Suspensions" is a film examining education and the disturbing systemic school-to-prison pipeline and how restorative justice and restorative practices can make a difference. This film project was inspired by the community-led campaign to shed light on this injustice.
M.O.I. JR: Why is it important to look at school suspensions as more than just a behavioral issue?
Kev Epps: It's critically important. We hold schools in high regard and they generally suspend, expel, incarcerate and criminalize our Black and Brown kids, especially young Black males. Black kids make up more than 50 percent of school suspensions, yet they make up less than 10 percent of the school population in the San Francisco Unified School District.
M.O.I. JR: Is there a connection between suspensions and incarceration?
Kev Epps: Direct connection. Our young people are being labeled as criminals early and pushed into the criminal justice system by the school system.
M.O.I. JR: How do you plan to promote this film?
Kev Epps: Film festivals, community screenings, social media, and other channels and outlets.
M.O.I. JR: How long did it take to create this film?
Kev Epps: It took 18 months. With Coleman Advocates, we followed the youth- and community-led campaign to address this injustice.
M.O.I. JR: What is next for your career?
Kev Epps: I just released "Straight Outta Hunters Point 2" on DVD finally, and I recently launched filmbread.com, a tech startup crowdfunding platform for filmmakers, producers, aspiring filmmakers and visual artists to raise money and resources for projects.
M.O.I. JR: How do people keep up with you online?
Kev Epps: www.kevepps.com, www.filmbread.com
The People's Minister of Information JR Valrey is associate editor of the Bay View, author of "Block Reportin'" and "Unfinished Business: Block Reportin' 2" and filmmaker of "Operation Small Axe" and "Block Reportin' 101," available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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The Biggest Unanswered Questions In WandaVision
WandaVision has come to its explosive conclusion with, among other things, just about every fan theory in the world left without a home. The story of the bizarre lengths to which Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) goes to deal with her crushing grief over the loss of Vision (Paul Bettany) has come and gone without introducing the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Mephisto, or even having Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange stopping by to say hi. For the time being – rather than the predictions of all the major storylines WandaVision would or could set up — WandaVision has proven to mostly be about WandaVision.
But that doesn't mean the first of Marvel's Disney+ miniseries didn't leave us with some pretty big questions, or that the events of its story won't have consequences for the larger MCU. While the biggest mysteries have been solved, there was a lot left to speculation. Examples include the fates of certain characters, the motivation behind other heroes' actions, and how the experience has changed Wanda and her former synthezoid companion.
Not sure what we mean? Keep reading to learn the biggest unanswered questions we have about WandaVision.
Who was Jimmy Woo looking for in the first place?
In "We Interrupt This Program," we find out exactly how Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) got involved in the Westview case. Returning to active duty in S.W.O.R.D., Rambeau is assigned as liaison to FBI Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), who we first meet in 2018's Ant-Man & The Wasp. Rambeau meets Woo outside Westview, where he tells Rambeau that he's there looking for someone in witness protection. But we never get any indication whether Woo successfully locates the witness.
One theory some fans — like Men's Health's Evan Romano — are batting around is that Woo's witness is the same guy who's been masquerading as Wanda's brother. In the finale we learn that the false Pietro (Evan Peters) is named Ralph Bohner and that Agatha has been controlling him with some kind of mystical necklace. When Monica says his name out loud, Ralph laughs at the obvious joke. Most people don't laugh at their own names, but Ralph does come off as someone who — upon entering witness protection — might give himself a funny name on purpose.
If this is the case, however, it's strange that Ralph seems to be an aspiring actor. You'll notice that Monica finds his name on the hard copy of a headshot. You wouldn't think someone in witness protection would want to get a job that would give him more public exposure. Then again, Ralph doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.
Where was the Sorcerer Supreme all this time, anyway?
Not only would it have been really cool to get a Doctor Strange cameo in WandaVision, it's genuinely a little puzzling what the narrative reasoning could be behind it not happening.
For example, think about his appearance in 2017's Thor: Ragnarok. Thor and Loki are only in New York City a few minutes before Strange kidnaps Loki from a safe distance while leaving an invitation for Thor. When Thor accepts the invite to Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, he learns Loki is on a watchlist Strange keeps of threats to Earth and that he's understandably concerned about his return.
So Doctor Strange knows within minutes not only that Loki is back on Earth, but knows where he is with such specificity that he can capture him with a spell that doesn't affect anyone else... but a woman who we eventually learn is a legend among practitioners of magic creates a mystical pocket reality in the middle of New Jersey, resurrects her dead lover, creates two twin sons from scratch, and takes an entire town hostage in the process, and Earth's Sorcerer Supreme doesn't even take a quick trip over to find out what's going on?
This may be addressed in the upcoming film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. One possible explanation is that — since WandaVision takes place not long after the events of 2019's Avengers: Endgame – Strange is too busy dealing with the fallout from that conflict to handle Westview or even be aware of it.
Where did the white Vision go?
The penultimate WandaVision episode ends with the surprise reveal that S.W.O.R.D. has successfully reassembled the deactivated Vision's body (though he kind of looks like the White Walker version of the character). After a brief and scary reunion with Wanda, the white Vision spends most of the rest of the finale locked in battle with the magic Vision that Wanda created in Westview. The white Vision ultimately abandons his mission to kill Wanda and her Vision after the latter unlocks his memories. Though he doesn't change sides to help Wanda — he simply leaves the scene altogether.
So where does he go? And perhaps more importantly, what has the restoration of his memories affected? Do they restore his sense of humanity? You would think if that were the case that he would leap at the chance to help Wanda, but he doesn't. There's also the option of turning on his S.W.O.R.D. handlers for payback, but that doesn't happen either — at least not that we see.
Perhaps the best answer is that — overloaded with all this new "data" — the white Vision retreats somewhere to process his new existence. We certainly hope to see him again and learn what's become of him — and in March 2021 Paul Bettany told Esquire he's planning to return to the role – but for now he's just one of the biggest question marks WandaVision leaves behind.
Why did Wanda separate Westview's families?
There are hints throughout WandaVision of Wanda having done something to the children of Westview, but we don't get a clearer picture of what's been going on until the series finale. When Agatha frees Dottie's (Emma Caulfield Ford) mind, we learn that her real name is Sarah and that for the whole time Wanda's controlled Westview, Sarah has been separated from her daughter. Presumably, the rest of Westview's families find themselves in similar situations. The question is, why would Wanda keep these families separated?
The most obvious answer is that the children are meant as hostages to keep Westview's populace dancing to Wanda's tune. But Wanda seems to have everybody firmly under her psychic control, so why would hostages even be necessary? Another possibility is that Wanda isn't willing to psychically violate children the same way she does their parents, so instead she separates them.
It's also possible that this is another product of Wanda's trauma. Wanda's experienced a lot of loss — losing everyone in her biological family along with Vision — so maybe the separation of Westview's families is simply a reflection of how all of Wanda's loved ones have been taken from her. That may sound like a somewhat poetic reach, but remember that we're given the impression that initially Wanda's actions in Westview come from a very unconscious place, while keeping children from their parents as hostages seems like a very conscious and intentional act.
What was going on with that stork anyway?
When a stork shows up in "Now in Color," it seems to be the only thing in Westview that Wanda's powers can't control. After Monica arrives — still under Wanda's power at this point — Wanda tries multiple times to send the bird away. In most cases, the stork disappears for a moment or two, but it always comes back. The stork makes a very brief reappearance in episode 7 as Wanda's control over Westview begins to slip and the shapes of her illusions start changing all on their own.
So what was going on with that stork? Why was it there, and why didn't Wanda's powers have any lasting affect on it?
The best answer we can come up with is only a partial one — the stork is somehow connected to the arrival of the twins, Billy and Tommy. Not only does it show up on the episode in which the twins are born, but folklore tells us storks deliver human children to their parents. More importantly, Wanda's powers can't dismiss the bird just as her powers can't control the twins. Remember that early in episode 5, when Wanda decides to use her powers to force the twins to stop crying, she's confused to learn her powers won't work on them.
Assuming we're right, that still doesn't explain the stork since it shows up before the twins. Was it an unconscious manifestation Wanda created, or is it possible it represents an unrevealed outside source?
Why doesn't Wanda apologize to the people of Westview?
One of the most interesting moments of the series finale comes when Wanda walks through Westview with the victims of her Hex glaring at her. She has a brief exchange with Monica, who tells her the citizens will never know what she sacrificed for their sake, and Wanda retorts that it wouldn't change what they think of her. Wanda tells Monica she's sorry for the pain she's caused; not long after, she makes her exit from the town.
It's more than a little disturbing that Wanda doesn't bother to take any time to apologize to the people of Westview for what she's done. WandaVision doesn't tell us exactly how long Wanda's Hex has been up, but it's been at least a few weeks. So for all that time, Wanda has kept an entire town psychically and physically hostage. She has separated them from their lives and separated them from their children. She has violated them mentally and physically. And on her way out of town she apologizes... to Monica?
Clearly, Wanda didn't consciously intend to inflict pain on anyone else. But that doesn't make her any less responsible for what happened. She's right when she says nothing would change what they think of her, but so what? Acknowledging her crimes and apologizing for them is the absolute least she could do, and she neglects to do it. That's not a good sign.
What did Wanda do to Agatha?
On the surface, Agatha's fate seems pretty clear. At the end of "Breaking the Fourth Wall," we learn the woman we knew as Agnes isn't a Westview resident. Attracted by Wanda's magic, Agatha uses her own powers to inject herself into Wanda's illusions. After Agatha loses her battle against Wanda in the series finale, the Scarlet Witch doles out what seems like a fitting and poetic punishment — she transforms Agatha into the same nosy neighbor she's pretending to be since the beginning of WandaVision.
But what has us scratching our heads is that shortly after transforming Agatha, Wanda undoes her reality-changing Hex. The illusory Westview of which Agatha pretended to be a citizen no longer exists, meaning that Agatha is now a sitcom character for a sitcom that doesn't exist. So where did she go?
The only answer we can come up with is that Agatha is now a citizen of the real Westview, and that answer is kind of, well, insane. Even if you forget the obvious ethical question of doing to Agatha what Wanda has done, what about the rest of Westview's citizens? Wanda has already put these people through an absolute horror show of trauma and violation. And now she's going to force upon them an everyday reminder of what they've been through in the form of a powerful and power-hungry sorceress as their neighbor? Stay classy, Wanda.
What happened to the beekeeper?
Toward the end of "Don't Touch That Dial," a man in a beekeeper's suit emerges from the sewers beneath Westview. The sight upsets Wanda, who works her magic to erase the moment and put her and Vision back in their house. Two episodes later in "We Interrupt This Program," we learn exactly who the beekeeper is. He's a S.W.O.R.D. agent, sent through the sewers to see if he could infiltrate the Hex without being transformed. (Obviously, it doesn't work.)
After we find out the identity of the man in the beekeeper's suit, we don't hear from him again. Presumably, he's released from his illusions like the rest of Westview's residents in the series finale, but we don't know for sure. There's no obvious reference to his fate in the series finale. It may be that the beekeeper was meant as a red herring in the first place and the show's creators didn't deem his fate worthy of inclusion in the finale, but that seems strange considering how ominous his introduction is in episode 2. The mystery has led some to even speculate that Wanda may have killed the S.W.O.R.D. agent, and considering everything else she's done in the series, it really isn't out of the realm of possibility.
Why did some people know about Westview while others didn't?
The minds of the people inside the Westview Hex aren't the only ones affected by Wanda's magic. When Monica first meets Jimmy Woo just outside the Westview town limits, Woo has the Eastview Sheriff (Brian Brightman) repeat what he told Woo before she arrived — that the town of Westview, New Jersey doesn't exist.
As she sends her drone into the Hex, Monica wonders aloud about the nature of this memory loss, including asking why it affects the Eastview Sheriff and his deputy, but not Woo or her. She asks whether someone needs to have a personal connection to someone in the town to be affected, or if it has more to do with a specific radius around the town. But while we get Monica's questions, between this scene in 'We Interrupt This Program" and the finale, we never get an answer.
One conclusion you might understandably come to — considering "We Interrupt This Program" begins with Monica coming back to life during the events of Avengers: Endgame — is that somehow this selective amnesia doesn't affect people who were part of the Blip, but that doesn't add up. First of all, Randall Park has said (via ScreenRant) he never got a clear answer about whether or not his character was part of the Blip. Second, we know for sure Director Hayward isn't a part of the Blip, and he's the one who sends Monica to Westview in the first place.
Are Billy and Tommy alive?
Toward the end of the finale we're left to assume Billy and Tommy disappeared along with the dream Vision when Wanda took down the Hex, but in a post-credits scene, we see Wanda poring over the Darkhold just before hearing the voices of her children calling out to her for help. Does this mean they could return?
We know that in the comics the souls of Billy and Tommy are reincarnated in the forms of very real boys who in turn become the Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed. But before that, their souls are claimed by the devilish Mephisto, and this is one of the many reasons WandaVision fan theorists believed the villain might show up in the series. While that never happened, could it be that Mephisto now has the twins? Or — to give the situation much more potential for heartbreak — could it be that he doesn't have them, but is creating the illusion of keeping them hostage as bait for Wanda?
Perhaps it isn't Mephisto who has the twins, but another powerful Marvel mystic entity. While it isn't confirmed, one of the more prominent rumors of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – in which Wanda will appear — is that the villain will be Nightmare, who controls a realm of dark dreams. Considering the dreamworld Wanda creates in WandaVision, wouldn't it make sense that she'd attracted his attention?
Exactly who is Wanda now?
WandaVision leaves us wondering exactly who or what this new version of Wanda is, particularly in terms of whether or not we can still count her on the side of the angels. During their battle, Agatha tells Wanda that the Darkhold says the Scarlet Witch is destined to destroy the world. It could be she was lying, but once she reveals herself to Wanda, lying doesn't seem to be her style. Everything else she says to Wanda tends to be true, she just reveals it with as much venom as she can muster.
We know in the comics Wanda has gone down some very dark paths. In the line-wide event Avengers Disassembled, she causes the crisis leading to the deaths of three Avengers. In House of M she transforms the entire world, and at the end of the event she tries to completely strip all mutants of their powers, and succeeds in all but a small percentage. So, you know, being a bad guy isn't exactly alien territory for her.
And her actions at the end of WandaVision are ambiguous as far as this goes. She brings down the Hex, which is definitely a good thing. But she doesn't apologize to any of Westview's people, she doesn't turn herself in to the authorities, and she punishes Agatha in a way that — while fitting — is genuinely cruel. Who knows? When she shows up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, maybe she won't be there to help the Sorcerer Supreme.


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NEM currency saw a couple of ups and downs in the previous couple of weeks. Sitting at $0.1106 on September 5th, NEM went into a week-long downtrend which led towards a monthly low of $0.0796 on September 12th. From here onwards NEM entered somewhat of an uptrend which first peaked at $0.1021. The rise continued in the month of October and we saw prices $0.1121. The daily trade volume reached monthly highs on the same day with $28,094,175 worth of NEM being exchanged on the market.
At the moment of writing, NEM can be purchased for $0.106585 USD (3.26% rise in the last 24 hours)/0.00001633 BTC (3.87% rise in the last 24 hours). This value represents a drop of 94% from the currency's all time high of $1.90. Daily trade volume dropped off from the monthly highs and is currently sitting at $5,813,085, most of it coming from Binance (13%), B2BX (12%) and Zaif (11%). With a market cap of $959,269,409, NEM is currently the 17th most valuable cryptocurrency in the world.
Trader alanmasters from TradingView thinks NEM is looking pretty juicy at the moment:
"Have you looked at NEM (XEMBTC) lately? The charts are looking pretty good. Let me show you some signals that I am getting from the daily chart:
- We have increasing bull volume.
- Strong bullish divergence MACD.
- Bullish RSI / uptrend.
- New formed uptrend.
- Trading above EMA10 and breaking EMA50."
NEM hasn't been in the news much lately, but they have been patiently working and growing their project. As the platform is currently smart-contract ready, most of the focus was on the projects currently utilizing the NEM infrastructure for their own needs. He3Labs built a blockchain "designed for business data" called Catapult, which will allow businesses to run private or hybrid blockchains in a trusted environment. LuxTag, a project focused on providing blockchain-based digital certificates for valuable assets, released a video explaining the company's "story of commitment, innovation, and passion."
?Read Coinbase and Bittrex comparison – head to head.
NEM recently confirmed their intention to keep growing their ecosystem by announcing a couple of partnerships. Gifto, a platform looking to create the world's largest mass consumer "token of appreciation" recently came on board. With Gifto, digital content creators, gamers, and charities can send and receive customized virtual gifts across social media including Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook. Through this partnership, Gifto will rest out the NEM blockchain scalability over the next several months, looking to fully migrate there from its current Ethereum base if the tests give satisfactory results.
Just days later a partnership with Oath, a layer 2 protocol that enables fair, robust, and transparent dispute resolution and governance on the blockchain, was confirmed. This one brings a strong security update to NEM's blockchain while arming NEM users with mechanisms to resolve any potential issues with the infrastructure in a decentralized and fair manner.
In other updates, a partnership was signed with Portal Network, an incentivized and fully-decentralized platform that provides blockchain protocols and projects with identical Blockchain Name Service (BNS) standards governed by smart contracts. NEM partnered up with Singaporean Institute of Blockchain in a deal where NEM's blockchain will be used for issuing electronic certificates and organizing community events. Finally, Japanese real estate company Ruden Holdings decided to adopt NEM blockchain as a framework for solving its currency settlements.
The infamous Bitgrail hack and the subsequent drop in price seemingly haven't demotivated the NEM team. Providing features which include a proof-of-importance algorithm, environmental friendliness, Mosaic tokens, Multisig2.0, spam guard filters, private blockchains, NEM Nano wallets and a universal API, NEM team are creating an interesting candidate to replace Ethereum as people's smart contract platform of choice. Several projects have taken the "NEM pill" and decided to work with the platform, including Eroiy, TravelByBit, PundiX and others. The question remains: will this be enough to overtake other smart contract platforms on the market?


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The Ants are Coming By Peter Tremayne
Lopez could not discern which was the red mess of ants and which was blood. Sanchez was acrawl with the terrifying creatures.
When Jane Sewell returns to the Brazilian jungle to help her anthropologist father in his work, it is not the happy reunion she is expecting. She doesn't find the thriving village she remembers.
Just a pile of bones…
Human bones. Picked clean…
…Then the ancient steamboat Falcao chugs into sight. And, for Jane, the horror really begins.
Jane had to stop the scream that welled in her throat. The captain of the ship, Martinez, was slumped over the wheel. His hands still grasped it with such fierceness that the skin was taut enough for the bones of his knuckles to almost pierce through.
His eyes were still wide open and on his face was frozen an expression of hideous anguish. His lips had been so chewed that they were lacerated and bloody. But the face was a death mask.
The bottom of Martinez' legs appeared to have been eaten away. The flesh was mangled and bloody and in some places the bones stood through glistening white.
Only some fierce determination had kept the old man at the wheel of his beloved Falcao until he died where he stood …
Somewhere, out in the seething jungle, a remorseless army is on the move. And it seems as though nothing can stop its savage, merciless drive.
Relentlessly, inexorably, tearing, rending and consuming everything in their path.
The brutal army of ants tears its way towards a plantation where Jane and those who remained plan to make a final stand…
Praise for Peter Tremayne:
"… excellent … Tremayne does his usual masterful job." – Publishers Weekly
"Splendidly exciting." – Fred Nolan, author of Brass Target
"Tremayne is bloody good!" – Penthouse
"Peter Tremayne is established as one of Britain's leading horror fantasy writers." – Retail Newsagent
Peter Tremayne is the fiction writing pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis. Peter Berresford Ellis is a historian, literary biographer and novelist who has published over 90 books to date under his own name and that of his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. His non-fiction books, articles and academic papers have made him acknowledged as one of the foremost authorities on Celtic history and culture. Under his Tremayne pseudonym he is the author of the international bestselling Sister Fidelma Mystery series. His other works with Venture Press include Nicor!and The Morgow Rises!


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InventHelp Inventor Designs Improved Fitting for Horse Reins (DVR-827)
PITTSBURGH, PA (PRWEB) September 18, 2015 -- Are you tired of fixing broken reins? Do you wish there was a way to protect them from damage? Then you need the patent-pending PANIC SNAP FOR HORSES.
The PANIC SNAP FOR HORSES offers an improved fitting for horse reins. It also helps to protect the reins from damage. As a result, it enhances safety and it helps to prevent injury. The invention features an efficient and durable design that is convenient and easy to use so it is ideal for the owners of horses. Additionally, the PANIC SNAP FOR HORSES can be adapted for use with most typical reins. Also, it can be made for a lead rope that connects to a halter for horses, which would protect the horse from possible injury.
The inventor, from Carbondale, Colo., described the invention design. "My durable design helps to prevent the most common types of rein damage."
The original design was submitted to the Denver office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 14-DVR-827, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com - https://www.youtube.com/user/inventhelp
# # #
Chrissa Chverchko, InventHelp Inc, https://inventhelp.com/prototype-model, +1 (412) 288-2136 Ext: 4118, [email protected]


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From the last week in July until the last week in August our farm and forest is relatively devoid of songbirds and their song. The ducks and geese left in the beginning of July and the barn, cliff and tree swallows were gone a couple of weeks later. The last week in August the population explodes but not the song. What is occurring are the stopovers of myriad species as they migrate to southern climes. Although the bluebirds are checking the boxes for possible future use they are not setting up shop, are not getting territorial, nor are they actively seeking mates, furious activities of the early spring. Many appear to be family groups with some of the late-born still begging for handouts by the adults. The Canada and snow geese will soon be honking their way south in their V formations. The warblers in their fall plumage are hard to identify, and they are many. It is a joy to see our feathered friends again although they will almost all be gone soon, 'til next spring guys.
If you have ever mowed or brush-hogged hay and brush fields you can't but notice the havoc that this human activity wreaks on the resident rodent population. Voles and mice scamper as the roaring tractor with its trailing, spinning blades of death and destruction trammel their habitat. Some make it and some do not, and as they flee I have the habit of cheering them on to safety, as this huge machine cannot in all practicality be stopped or turned to avoid the ongoing calamity for the unfortunate who go the wrong way or stay in the wrong place. There are some in nature who benefit from this chaotic dance caused by the upheaval. They are the hawks, ravens, crows and turkey vultures that are lured to this unexpected and unnatural smorgasbord. I should not say unexpected as this year I had a red tail hawk and two ravens track me from field to field as they obviously knew that there would be a buffet of delicacies to follow. What is ironic is that I was rooting for the little critters as they fled from under me but that all changed as I watched close-up the red tail swoop and miss and swoop and miss, and finally when making a successful attack I found myself rooting for him. I had lost my rodent empathy.
On to my observations of the deer population in Bussey Hollow, at least on our farm. There were two does which had twins this year, called the lower field family and the upper field family, each of which lost one fawn in the past few weeks. There are two other does neither of which have fawns. They may have had fawns but lost them to predation or something else. There is a very small and nervous spike buck that may be wondering what the future holds although he will be safe if he does not stray from my farm. In my estimation the deer population is way down compared to five years ago, this most likely caused by a couple of deep snow years and a higher population of coyotes and black bears. As to the bears, they are starting to work the cornfield as the bumper crop of blackberries is now gone.
I read an interesting article about our ubiquitous porcupines in a scientific journal. Did you ever wonder why our dogs that encounter a porky and get a face full of quills never get an infection from them? Well it turns out that the quills have a coating of antibiotic grease. It is conjectured that this is to protect the porky from himself as they often take spills from the trees they inhabit and get quilled themselves. Apparently there is no need for the expensive antibiotics administered by the veterinarian. ~


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In this essay, I utilize two key notions. The concept of conference-performance serves to explain my Aboriginal approach in the field of performance art. My bilingual expression Art sauvage/Indian acts reflects the early (1869) appellation of "lois sur les sauvages" by the Canadian government. I aim to make a bridge between the meaning in French—which is dominant in the area of Gépèg (Québec) where I live—and the expression Indian acts in the other Aboriginal parts of the North American territory where English is dominant. My argument will be develop in three points:
1) a brief description of The Raven/Coyote/Carcajou's lesson (or the Trickster's Inverted Brain ("cervelle renversée"), my conference-performance created during INDIANacts, which was an original and important event combining Aboriginal conferences and art performances (Emily Carr Institute, Vancouver, 2002);
2) a definition of conference-performance as artistic expression of my Iroquoian (Wendat/Huron) vision replaced in the actual context and practices of those I have called the new Hunters/Shamans/Warriors by art;
3) some theoretical reflections on Aboriginal action art, incorporating knowledge from our heritage as well as ideological and political positions of activism, all based on orality.
In conclusion, more than just a call for cohesion between us, I try to introduce some considerations to go beyond new forms of "rez" (reservations), and to challenge proudly the conditions of the universal art field, where many strategic metissages, such as inter-nations, inter-connectivity, inter-relations, inter-activities, inter-mediality, are now redefining art as common experiences of necessary solidarity and "glocalized" (think global, act local) perspectives, including political and social engagement.
In Vancouver my "conference-performance" called The Raven/Coyote/Carcjaou' lesson (or the Trickster's Inverted Brain) aimed, first, to establish a mythological and territorial rendez-vous of the spirit of three animals—the raven in the West, the coyote in the midlands, the carcajou in the east legend's—as resembling performance toward Kanata (Canada). Secondly, I tried to create a participatory experience to introduce some of the dimensions redefining the complexity of Aboriginal action art in Gépèg (Québec) where live Iroquoians (Kanien'ke: a'ka/Mohawk and Wendat/Huron like me) and Algonquians (Mig'mak, Wolustuk/Malecites, Waban'aki, Atikamekw, Algonquins/Anishnabe, Cris, Naskapis) without forgetting Métis and Inuit.
For more than twenty years, those performers which I have called the Hunters/Shamans/Warriors have been changing the attitudes toward action art. They inspired me. That's why my intervention in Vancouver tried to combine spirituality and geopolitics purposes, integrating many forms of orality (spoken word, rhythms and sounds, visual images and in situ "installactions") as manifestation of those new interdisciplinary, interactive, inter-relational and intercultural approaches.
I first invited the audience to join me live on the stage, initiating symbolic nomadism by recreating the circle of speech on the stage. This collective movement brought the audience close around me to think in-depth about issues of native performance art. Secondly, with the complicity of the Belmore sisters, Florene and Rebecca, I transformed my theorician's look into that of an urban punk warrior with a "Mohawk" coif, visualizing the new urban realities for Indians in Kanata.
On the one hand, the need to better link the autochthonous imaginary from East to West in all its complexity—let's not forget that there are no less than 611 First Nations spread over 2,370 acres of reservation—and, on the other, the need to scrutinize the theoretical and practical beacons of current autochthonous action art (Art sauvage/Indian acts) have pushed me into undertaking more radical action on the substance of the issue as conference-performance.
That's why the two collective, experiential types of deconstruction, the conformity of the audience, and the body of the speaker, aimed to increase consciousness about co-creativity, communal methods and Aboriginal anarchism as action art "mapping the movement."
Since 1993, I have experimented with Aboriginal conferences/performances. The course I have followed breaks down into five periods, which I have named:
- L'élan (1976/1983);
- With the Bearer of Woes (Avec Le Porteur des Peines du Monde) (1984/1992);
- L'élan se change en outarde (1993/1995);
- Kanata: from Wendake to Ossasane (1996/1999);
- The Whisper of the Tortoise-Bear (le souffle de l'Ours-Tortue) (2000-2011).
This neologism develops from a fusion of: (a) creation of spatial installation as specific occupation of the site in regard of its prevailing configuration and social context, and (b) body art for all his expressive possibilities as "agirs communicationnels" (Habermas). I combine four methods in their execution:
At the beginning I always introduce, mentally or physically (when possible) the talking circle around me in the place and with the audience. I first begin to talk using a few words in Huron. After, I continue speaking in French, when it's possible to co-create with the complicity of a translator who joins me as a double who delivers the spirit of the communication. The goal is to make audible, to experiment by listening, for those intercultural distances that exist. It also means that we can together contribute at a common tribune. While my oral intervention informs about savage art/Indian art in Gépèg (Québec), each time I introduce an original reconfiguration of the room and insist on the fact that every person in the crowd physically changes of place to break with the disposition of the panel's table and lines of chairs (using the circle.) Simultaneously I intend to use the full possibilities of the body and its metamorphosis (ex. changing clothes, maquillage, etc) to make it visible and with acts for art. Then, this type of conference-performance rises as a symbol of the failings of writing and printing as colonialist (and now bureaucratic) political and intellectual support to rehabilitate Aboriginal oral for geopolitics and collective aesthetic expressivity.
Asking for the direct participation of the audience, each one of my conference-performances is in homology with my utopia of "changing the world here and now together!" Then, my conference-performance becomes living metaphor as artistic territories of our geopolitics and spiritual connection with Mother-Earth. More than just a cultural legitimization and re-appropriation platforms, they are an affirmative and inventive disposition, making examples of an activist, critical ethics, where theory is live in action.
For each strategy, of course, this means to be coherent with the actual evolutionary context of the Aboriginal imaginary in the international art field. At the end of the eighties, the conjugation of the postmodern attitude against all forms of cultural colonialism with the interdisciplinary approach in the art field was a good context for the resurgence of Aboriginal orality as audio art, spoken word, rap music, theatre and performances. Today, those interdisciplinary attitudes are rising exponentially in the art of the new generations of Aboriginal artists.
Moreover, I have pursued my conferences/performance experimentations owing to invitations from national and international events. For example, more recently, in June 2010 at Saw Gallery (Ottawa) and in October of the same year in Belfast (Northern Ireland), I presented "la cervelle renversée" for the international exchange, Traversées/Crossings, between Aboriginal and Belfast-based performers.
With my conference-performance, I have taken a side.1 As I explain in many essays, the guiding thread of my conferences/performances is the Aboriginal paradigm of orality. Orality and circularity of vision are two cultural components not only for Iroquoian peoples (Wendat and Hodonausone), but they can be a pertinent approach for all First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists working today. This is also my vision as independent curator of events.
Few critics point out these homologous relationships between our autochthonous notions and the various theoretical discourses of current art. Using these concepts to analyze art now interests me because they have epistemological value that is both Amerindian and universal.
Orality is what structures all Aboriginal civilizations. This mode of communication founds the "Americity" of our traditions. It still strikes a chord in the creativity of today, in particular, in the interdisciplinary vogues and multimedia interactivities, as the living art belonging to everyone every day. In the Amerindian view, orality takes on the trappings of a full intellectual "area" where my vision of theory and art criticism finds its Amerindian uniqueness outside official structures. The "communication acts" created by orality enliven the foundations and spread of original thinking as "knowing about doing" (savoir faire) and "knowing about saying" (savoir dire) before it becomes "knowing about writing" (savoir écrire). Orality in acts precedes written criticism of art. Said differently, its many facets make up an authentic Amerindian practice on a theoretical level and at the level of art criticism in itself. This is the area where existence is first exercised, conferring all its meaning on the second area, the writings.
Exponentially, orality sets in motion a series of audiovisual and multi-sensorial elements which make in situ presence and eloquence overflow the mere exercise of abstraction of the paper-and-ink undertaking—and now the keyboards and connecting screens—which is writing. It makes use of the verb to understand and explain, convince and debate, transform or change ideas with style and courage. This way of proceeding possesses the experience of closeness found in art experiences today but nonetheless does not get rid of the ways of knowing, the "passing on" of heritage.
To demonstrate this perspective, which may seem surprising at first glance, I thought it would be interesting to compare broad notions founded on orality and derive from them a series of interesting homologies with utopias, concepts and post-modern artistic practices. The table below aims to indicate some of these epistemological correspondences:
Feast of the Dead, Makushan, Potlatch
Alliances, Treaties, Rhizomes, Nomadism, Métissages, Adoptions, Territoriality, Circularity
Mother Earth, Animal Spirit, Sacred Circle, Suspensions
Rhythms, sounds and story telling
Happening, Immersive Environment, Art Event
Networks, multi-, interdisciplinarity, Interculturalities, Internationalities, Cosmopolitanism
Environmental art, public art, site works, art in context
Action art (performance, transactional art, relational art, communication acts); multimedia art (interactivity, videos, art web, audio art)
"glocalization", engaged art
Amerindian orality is therefore more of an attracting style than a talent for leveraging the verb and words. It is an ethical mode that accompanies aesthetics. It is the reservoir and the method of crossing into an affirmation of identity. Rhythms and sounds, languages and gestures, orality is the bearer of our founding myths, stories, legends of our chants, dances and other "communication acts" seeking to transform the daily life of our communities.
This is a major ethical concern for many of our autochthonous creative artists. For them, developing a professional career is not the point; the point is to intervene in the communities to which they belong. They take the time to clear spaces and create times of hope through their art, models of the future for younger generations.
A passion and enthusiasm for native imagination in the broad field of postmodern action art have always driven me. Whether as a sociologist, university lecturer, independent curator, speaker or writer, I am working to develop an autochthonous theory of the Aboriginal imaginary as "research in action." I mean to contribute to the construction of this necessary sociology, this Amerindian self-history of Amerindian art. Real conditions for exercising critical thinking in acts with a constructive intention (because of the tie between ethics and aesthetics) can be found in this manner of doing things. These are not only strategies of emergence in the social artistic adventure of the new Hunters/Shamans/Warriors of whom I am the accomplice, but also the "event zones" that are intended to encourage the expression and validation in situ of an autochthonous art criticism of current art, Amerindian or otherwise. Added onto this was the pursuit of conferences/performances which I call Art sauvage/Indian acts.
My work is a living thing. It communicates my art criticism as "Art sauvage/Indian acts". There is something more important: the need to communicate with all the Nations.
Guy Sioui Durand
I have exposed and explained those concepts in three essays: Jouer à l'Indien est une chose. Être un Amérindien une autre (in Recherche Amérindiennes au Québec magazine, 2003), Akwa Enton8hi. From Skills and Saliva (in Making a Noise. Aboriginal History and art criticism, Banff Centre, 2004) and Indiens, Indians, Indios (in Inter, art actuel magazine, 2010).