Indices, Index Funds and Etfs ― Exploring Hci, Nonlinear Risk and Homomorphisms

Indices, index funds and ETFs are grossly inaccurate and inefficient and affect more than €120 trillion worth of securities, debts and commodities worldwide. This book analyzes the mathematical/statistical biases, misrepresentations, recursiveness, nonlinear risk and homomorphisms inherent in equity, debt, risk-adjusted, options-based, CDS and commodity indices – and by extension, associated index funds and ETFs. The book characterizes the “Popular-Index Ecosystems,” a phenomenon that provides artificial price-support for financial instruments, and can cause systemic risk, financial instability, earnings management and inflation. The book explains why indices and strategic alliances invalidate Third-Generation Prospect Theory (PT³), related approaches and most theories of Intertemporal Asset Pricing. This book introduces three new decision models, and some new types of indices that are more efficient than existing stock/bond indices. The book explains why the Mean-Variance framework, the Put-Call Parity theorem, ICAPM/CAPM, the Sharpe Ratio, Treynor Ratio, Jensen’s Alpha, the Information Ratio, and DEA-Based Performance Measures are wrong. Leveraged/inverse ETFs and synthetic ETFs are misleading and inaccurate and non-legislative methods that reduce index arbitrage and ETF arbitrage are introduced.

Michael I. C. Nwogugu is an author, entrepreneur, and consultant who has held senior management and Board-of-Director positions in companies in both the U.S. and Nigeria. Mr. Nwogugu has written three books: Risk in the Global Real Estate Market (Wiley); Illegal File-sharing Networks, Digital Goods Pricing and Decision Analysis (CRC Press); and Anomalies In Net Present Value, Returns And Polynomials And Regret Theory In Decision Making (Palgrave MacMillan). Mr. Nwogugu’s research articles have been cited in top academic journals such as International Journal of Approximate Reasoning; Applied Mathematics & Computation; Journal of Business Research; European Journal of Operational Research; PNAS; Annual Review of Psychology; Neural Computing & Applications; Mathematical Methods of Operations Research; Computers & Industrial Engineering; and Expert Systems With Applications among others. Mr. Nwogugu earned degrees from the University of Nigeria; CUNY, New York, USA; and Columbia University, New York, USA.