Do the crude oil futures of the Shanghai International Energy Exchange improve asset allocation of Chinese petrochemical-related stocks?

The Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) facilitates both local and international investment in Chinese petrochemical-related stocks through local crude oil futures. This study investigates whether the Chinese emerging market can better aid investors' risk hedging and asset allocation compared to two major international developed markets–the Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures markets—and examines the pairwise risk hedging effects and multi-asset allocation performance of INE and petrochemical-related stocks. The results show that INE has higher hedge effectiveness than Brent and WTI under pairwise hedging. Further, in multi-asset allocation, the portfolios containing INE outperform other portfolios. Overall, INE results in a better diversification effect and volatility reduction than the use of WTI crude oil futures to construct multi-asset allocation with Chinese petrochemical-related stocks. However, INE performance is inferior to Brent's in terms of constructing portfolios with oil or energy stocks. Finally, our results are robust to the five factors proposed by Fama and French (2015) in asset pricing.     

Static and dynamic connectedness between NFTs,Defi and other assets: Portfolio implication

The paper examines the return and volatility transmission between NFTs, Defi assets, and other assets (oil, gold, Bitcoin, and S&P 500) using the TVP-VAR framework. The results report weak static return and volatility spillovers between NFTs and Defi assets and selected markets, showing that these new digital assets are still relatively decoupled from traditional asset classes. Bitcoin, oil, and half of the NFTs and Defi assets are net transmitters of return and volatility spillovers, whereas rest of the markets are net recipients of spillovers. Our findings show that the dynamic return and volatility connectedness become higher during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cryptocurrency bubble of 2021. We also compute the static and dynamic optimal weights, hedge ratios, and hedging effectiveness for the portfolios of NFTs/other asset and Defi asset/other asset and show that investors and portfolio managers should consider adding NFTs and Defi assets in their portfolios of gold, oil, and stock markets to achieve diversification benefits.     

Dynamic spillover effects in futures markets: UK and US evidence

Previous studies on spillover effects in futures markets have so far confined themselves to static analyses. In this study, we use a newly introduced spillover index to examine dynamic spillovers between spot and futures markets volatilities, volume of futures trading and open interest in the UK and the US. Based on a dataset over the period February 25, 2008 to March 14, 2013, that encompasses both the global financial crisis and the Eurozone debt crisis, we find that spot and futures volatilities in the UK (US) are net receivers (net transmitters) of shocks to volume of futures trading and open interest. The analysis also sheds light on the dynamic interdependence of spot and futures markets volatilities between the US and the UK. Specifically, the spot and futures volatility spillovers between the UK and US markets are of bidirectional nature, however, they are affected by major economic events such as the global financial and Eurozone debt crises. Several robustness checks endorse our main findings. Overall, these results have important implications for various market participants and financial sector regulators.     

Price discovery for cross-listed firms with foreign IPOs

We investigate the inter-market return and volatility linkages for an atypical case of firms with foreign IPOs that subsequently cross-listed in their domestic market. In particular, our data set consists of a unique sample of 29 Israeli firms that went public in the US (host market) and then cross-listed in the Israeli market (home market). To estimate the spillover effects, we employ bivariate GARCH models, assuming both constant and dynamic conditional correlation specifications. At the aggregate market level, we find unidirectional mean and volatility spillovers from the US to the Israeli market. For the portfolios of Israeli cross-listed stocks, we report significant spillovers, at both the mean and volatility levels, from the underlying stocks in the Israeli market to their American Depository Receipts (ADRs) but not vice versa. Thus, the home market dominates the host market in the price discovery process in this atypical international cross-listing case, providing new evidence in support of the home bias hypothesis. We also find that external shocks originating from the Middle East peace process have no impact on the conditional correlation between the two markets but external shocks originating from the world and regional markets impact the conditional correlation positively.     

Dissecting hedge funds' strategies

This paper dissects the dynamics of the hedge fund industry with four financial markets, including the equity market, commodities, currencies, and debt market by employing a large number of assets from these markets. We employ four main representative hedge fund strategy indices, and a cap-weighted global index to estimate an asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation (ADCC) GJR-GARCH model using daily data from April 2003 to May 2021. We break down the performance, riskiness, investing style, volatility, dynamic correlations, and shock transmissions of each hedge fund strategy thoroughly. Further, the impact of commodity futures basis on hedge funds' return is analyzed. Comparing the dynamic correlations during the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) with COVID-19 pandemic reveals changing patterns in hedge funds' investing styles. There are strong and pervasive shock spillovers from hedge fund industry to other financial markets, especially to futures commodities. An increase in the futures basis of several commodities drives up hedge funds' performance. While hedge fund industry underperforms compared to equity market and commodities, the risk-reward measures show that hedge funds are superior to other markets, and safer than the bond market.     

Intra- and inter-regional return and volatility spillovers across emerging and developed markets: Evidence from stock indices and stock index futures

We provide empirical evidence on the patterns of intra- and inter-regional transmission of information across 10 developed and 11 emerging markets in Asia, the Americas, Europe and Africa using both stock indices and stock index futures. The main transmission channels are examined in the period from 2005 to 2014 through the analysis of return and volatility spillovers around the most recent crises based on the generalized vector autoregressive framework. Our findings demonstrate that markets are more susceptible to domestic and region-specific volatility shocks than to inter-regional contagion. A novel result reported in our study is a difference in patterns of international signals transmission between models employing indices and futures data. We conclude that futures data provide more efficient channels of information transmission because the magnitude of return and volatility spillovers across futures is larger than across indices. Our findings are relevant to practitioners, such as stock market investors, as well as policy makers and can help enhance their understanding of financial markets interconnectedness.     

Determinants of asymmetric return comovements of gold and other financial assets

Using conditional time-varying copula models, we characterize the dependence structure of return comovements of gold and other financial assets (stocks, bonds, real estate and oil) during economic expansion and contraction regimes. We also investigate which key macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic variables significantly impact the asset return comovements using a two stage Markov Switching Stochastic Volatility (MSSV) framework. Our results show that the non-macro variables have significant influence on the return comovements. We find that gold is an inappropriate hedge against interest rate changes for real-estate and oil-based portfolios, while for bond portfolios, gold offers a good hedge against inflation uncertainty. We also provide evidence that the “flight to safety” phenomenon is due to the implied volatility of the stock market, rather than the observed stock market uncertainty. Finally, we forecast the asset return comovements and examine their economic significance. We show that a dynamic MSSV model which includes the macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic variables yields superior forecast of future asset return comovements when compared with a multivariate conditional covariance model.     

Is gold the best hedge and a safe haven under changing stock market volatility?

We evaluate the role of gold and other precious metals relative to volatility (Volatility Index (VIX)) as a hedge (negatively correlated with stocks) and safe haven (negatively correlated with stocks in extreme stock market declines) using data from the US stock market. Using daily data from November 1995 to November 2010, we find that gold, unlike other precious metals, serves as a hedge and a weak safe haven for US stock market. However, we find that VIX serves as a very strong hedge and a strong safe haven during our sample period. We also find that in periods of extremely low or high volatility, gold does not have a negative correlation with the US stock market. Our results show that VIX is a superior hedging tool and serves as a better safe haven than gold during our sample period. We highlight the practical significance of our results for financial market participants by conducting a portfolio analysis.     

Modeling Time-Varying Correlations in Volatility Between BRICS and Commodity Markets

This article investigates the asymmetric and long memory volatility properties and dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs) between Brazilian, Russian, Indian, Chinese, and South African (BRICS) stock markets and commodity (gold and oil) futures markets, using the trivariate DCC-fractionally integrated asymmetric power autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (FIAPARCH) model. We identify significant asymmetric and long memory volatility properties and DCCs for pairs of BRICS stock and commodity markets, and variability in DCCs and Markov Switching regimes during economic and financial crises. Finally, we analyze optimal portfolio weights and time-varying hedge ratios, demonstrating the importance of overweighting optimal portfolios between BRICS stock and commodity assets.     

Financial Exposure and the International Transmission of Financial Shocks

This paper analyzes the transmission mechanism of banking sector shocks in an international real business cycle model with heterogeneous bank sizes. We examine to what extent the financial exposure of the banking sector affects the transmission of foreign banking sector shocks. In our model, the more exposed domestic banks are to the foreign economy via lending to foreign firms, the greater are the spillovers from foreign financial shocks to the home economy. The model highlights the role of openness to trade and the dynamics of the terms of trade in the international transmission mechanism of banking sector shocks: spillovers from foreign banking sector shocks are greater the more open the home economy is to trade and the less the terms of trade respond to foreign shocks.     

Stock market volatility spillovers and portfolio hedging: BRICS and the financial crisis

The paper investigates the dynamic risk–return properties of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) capital markets and models potential time-varying correlations and volatility spillover effects with the US stock market. A VAR(1)–GARCH(1,1) framework contributes useful insight into US–BRICS market interactions and expands on a thin past empirical literature. A disaggregated approach pays attention to critical US–BRICS business sectors, namely the industrial and financial sectors. Significant return and volatility transmission dynamics are identified between the US and BRICS stock markets and business sectors. This is a critical input that can affect efficient global portfolio diversification and risk management strategies. Based on this empirical evidence, the study proceeds to assess effective portfolio hedge ratios and to construct optimal portfolio weights for diversified asset allocation to US–BRICS markets and business sectors.     

Volatility returns with vengeance: Financial markets vs. commodities

To assess how financial markets and commodities are inter-related, this paper introduces a ‘volatility surprise’ component into the asymmetric DCC with one exogenous variable (ADCCX) framework. We develop an econometric model in which returns and volatility allow to influence pairs of assets, and derive several case studies linking commodities to stocks, bonds and currencies from 1983 to 2013. The innovative feature of our model is that these volatility spillovers are modeled consistently within the correlation dynamics of the ADCCX. We find evidence that return and volatility spillovers do exist between commodity and financial markets and that in turn, their relative impact on each other is very substantial.     

Optimal portfolio diversification with a multi-chain regime-switching spillover GARCH model

A multi-chain regime-switching spillover GARCH (MCRSSG) model is proposed for optimal portfolio diversification. MCRSSG specifies the within-regime time-varying correlation via a multi-chain state-dependent spillover factor and quantifies the magnitude of volatility spillovers under different regime combinations. MCRSSG is applied to investigate the diversification benefit of precious metals, crude oil, and financial securities for the Korean stock market at a sector level. The empirical results reveal that the Dow Jones Islamic market US total return index provides the best diversification benefit and MCRSSG exhibits superior effectiveness for risk-adjusted return and reward-to-semivariance ratio.     

Time-varying co-movements and volatility spillovers among financial sector CDS indexes in the UK

This article investigates co-movements and volatility spillovers between the three UK financial sector CDS indexes over time. We find sharp increases in the dynamic conditional correlations for all pairs after the Lehman shock, indicating evidence of contagion, and decreases for two pairs (banking-life insurance and life insurance-other financial) after the zenith of the European debt crisis, implying the emergence of diversification opportunities. Dynamic spillover index measures suggest that, although the banking sector was a dominant net transmitter of volatility, other financial sectors also became net transmitters for some periods, highlighting the importance of appropriate regulation of these two sector areas.     

Hedging volatility risk

Volatility risk plays an important role in the management of portfolios of derivative assets as well as portfolios of basic assets. This risk is currently managed by volatility “swaps” or futures. However, this risk could be managed more efficiently using options on volatility that were proposed in the past but were never introduced mainly due to the lack of a cost efficient tradable underlying asset.The objective of this paper is to introduce a new volatility instrument, an option on a straddle, which can be used to hedge volatility risk. The design and valuation of such an instrument are the basic ingredients of a successful financial product. In order to value these options, we combine the approaches of compound options and stochastic volatility. Our numerical results show that the straddle option is a powerful instrument to hedge volatility risk. An additional benefit of such an innovation is that it will provide a direct estimate of the market price for volatility risk.     

Hedging with Chinese Aluminum Futures: International Evidence with Return and Volatility Spillover Indices Under Structural Breaks

This paper examines the hedging performance of the Shanghai futures market, with the London futures market acting as the channel for volatility spillover. Taking into consideration structural change, basis effects, and return and volatility spillover effects, the authors find that the estimated hedging performance is not improved. Their findings suggest that the effectiveness of the hedging performance of aluminum futures contracts in China is not affected by the magnitude or direction of return and volatility spillovers. Therefore, even when the magnitude and direction of volatility spillover from other markets can be correctly predicted, the hedging performance of a futures contract cannot be significantly improved. This paper uses precise measures of return spillovers and volatility spillovers based directly on the framework of vector autoregressive variance decompositions. The study also includes an analysis of both crisis and noncrisis episodes, with modeling on bursts in spillovers.     

Illiquidity,return and risk in G7 stock markets: Interdependencies and spillovers

Trading activity in G7 stock markets reflects not only the macroeconomic and financial impact of these G7 economies in international economic growth, but also their financial interdependence. While this nexus of major stock markets has been explored in terms of volatility and return spillovers, there has been no combined analysis of return, volatility and illiquidity spillovers. We study illiquidity spillovers because they are transmissions of trading activity and, thereof, transmissions of information and market sentiment. We find that the dynamics of international stock markets are characterized by persistent illiquidity and also that illiquidity shocks are significantly correlated across markets. Furthermore, we discover Granger causal associations between risk, return and illiquidity across G7 stock market and also within each stock market. Our findings bear significance for the regulation of international financial markets and also for international portfolio diversification.     

Do long-short speculators destabilize commodity futures markets?

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of the financialization of commodity futures markets by studying the conditional volatility of long–short commodity portfolios and their conditional correlations with traditional assets (stocks and bonds). Using several groups of trading strategies that hedge fund managers are known to implement, we show that long–short speculators do not cause changes in the volatilities of the portfolios they hold or changes in the conditional correlations between these portfolios and traditional assets. Thus calls for increased regulation of commodity money managers are, at this stage, premature. Additionally, long–short speculators can take comfort in knowing that their trades do not alter the risk and diversification properties of their portfolios.     

On the dynamic dependence and investment performance of crude oil and clean energy stocks

This paper examines the directional spillover between crude oil prices and stock prices of technology and clean energy companies. The study uses the daily data over the period from May 2005 to April 2015. The estimated results exhibit following empirical regularities. First, it appears that technology stocks play vital role in the return and volatility spillovers of renewable energy stocks and crude oil prices. Second, technology (PSE) and clean energy indices (ECO) are the dominant emitters of return and volatility spillovers to the crude oil (WTI) prices. Third, the time and event-dependent movements are well captured by the directional spillover approach. Fourth, the application of directional spillover method seems to be more advantageous than MGARCH models as it not only establishes the inter-variables return and volatility spillovers but also helps in identifying direction of spillover through calculation of pairwise net spillovers. Last, the dynamic hedging results suggest that clean energy index can provide a profitable hedging opportunity in combination with crude oil futures than technology index. Many new findings further discussed and analysed.     

The Volatility and Price Sensitivities of Managerial Stock Option Portfolios and Corporate Hedging

We use estimates of the Black–Scholes sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility and the sensitivity of managers' stock and stock option portfolios to stock price to test the relationship between managers' risk preferences and hedging activities. We find that as the sensitivity of managers' stock and stock option portfolios to stock price increases, firms tend to hedge more. However, as the sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility increases, firms tend to hedge less.