Pairs trading is a type of arbitrage investment strategy that buys an underpriced security and simultaneously sells an overpriced security. Since the 1980s, investors have recognized pairs trading as a promising arbitrage strategy that pursues absolute returns rather than relative profits. Thus, individual and institutional traders, as well as hedge fund traders in the financial markets, have an interest in developing a pairs trading strategy. This study proposes pairs trading rules (PTRs) created from a price ratio between securities (i.e., stock index futures) using rough set analysis. The price ratio involves calculating the closing price of one security and dividing it by the closing price of another security and generating Buy or Sell signals according to whether the ratio is increasing or decreasing. In this empirical study, we generate PTRs through rough set analysis applied to various technical indicators derived from the price ratio between KOSPI 200 and S&P 500 index futures. The proposed trading rules for pairs trading indicate high profits in the futures market.

Recently, the increasing power of distributors has given them the opportunity of introducing private brand (PB) products. Based on the game theory, this study analyzes the decision making of a distributor regarding the optimal pricing and quality strategi

This paper examines how Japanese exporters were able to retain their market shares in Korea when the yen appreciated sharply beginning from 1985. The limited decrease in Japan`s share resulted from (1) an opportunistic share-holding pricing strategy of Japanese exporters: they reduced yen prices even further to retain their shares in cases where they were otherwise likely to lose large shares, and (2) inelastic Korean demand. This study focuses on the pricing behavior of Japanese exporters, using Korean import data and information from field interviews. Some factors enabled Japanese exporters to reduce yen prices. Yen costs of imported inputs for Japan`s exports fell, and Japanese exporters squeezed profit margins that existed before the yen appreciated. Some of them even subsidized price reductions with part of the windfall profits that they realized at home because they did not pass on the decrease in cost of imported inputs to domestic consumers. Subsidized price reductions, accompanied by cost reduction efforts, were a long-term strategy of preempting the entry of competitors since cost reduction required time. If the yen appreciates further, Japanese exporters are likely to substitute imported inputs for Japanese domestic value-added or shift to foreign production while reducing yen prices to defend their markets. This paper uses data from the author`s doctoral dissertation at the Harvard Business School, “The Appreciation of the Yen and Japan`s Exports to Korea.”The author received valuable comments from Louis T. Wells, Jr., Alice H. Amsden, and Benjamin-Gomes Casseres, and financial support from the Harvard Business School`s Division of Research for the dissertation.