Commissioned Research

February 2025
A Financial Analysis conducted by Prof. Thorsten Hens and Alvin Amstein (Student Assistant).

Gold has established itself as a store of value over thousands of years and has long been the basis of Western financial systems. This study investigated what proportion of gold makes sense in an investment portfolio and whether gold remains a contemporary choice for wealth accumulation in the context of modern technologies such as blockchain.

Link: "Gold for Long-Term Wealth Accumulation"

May 2025
How do you rate a private bank?

As part of the Private Banking Rating 2025 of the business magazine BILANZ, the following procedure was used: mystery shopping in combination with a professional evaluation by a jury headed by Prof. Thorsten Hens, Professor of Financial Markets at the University of Zurich.

Link: Which bank is right for "Miss Moneypenny"?

August 2025
How do ChatGPT and Bard categorize investor risk profiles compared to financial advisors?

Prof. Thorsten Hens and Trine Nordlie (Deloitte Norway) investigate how well large language models (LLMs), specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and Google’s Bard (now rebranded as Gemini), compare to professional bankers in assessing investor's risk profiles, which is a crucial aspect of financial advice. Since strategic asset allocation is known to be the most important determinant of the investment success, accurate risk profiling is critical to ensure suitability and protection for the client.

Link:LLM's in Risk Profiling

Yearly: September
Since 2008, the Department of Finance has carried out an annual value reporting rating of Swiss annual reports as part of the Value Reporting Seminar.

The balance sheet and annual reports are rated by a team from the Department of Finance at the University of Zurich.Prof. Alexander Wagner and his team, together with 30 dedicated students, analyze the reports based on ten criteria blocks and prepare a detailed analysis report.

Link: Value Reporting