International equity flows and country funds

This study investigates the relationships between U.S. equity flows in foreign countries and returns of closed-end country funds for emerging Latin American markets, emerging Asian markets and developed markets. The major issues addressed are (1) relationships between flows and fund returns based on two basic models—information contribution and feedback trading effects, (2) the role of volatility in these relationships, and (3) the effects of the Asian crisis. Basic findings include: (1) information contribution (past flows affect returns) and feedback trading arguments (past returns affect flows) are supported; (2) strong evidence is found for the market segmentation argument rather than the investor sentiment argument; (3) there exists strong evidence of significant volatility effects under information contribution and feedback trading; (4) the Asian crisis effects are important but limited to Asian funds.     

International Equity Index and Currency Futures: Commodity Currencies or Emerging Versus Developed Markets?

Equity index futures in both emerging and developing markets that are net commodity exporters are strongly linked to their respective currency futures markets. Unconditional correlations among equity and currency futures are the highest for these net basic materials producers in both emerging and developed markets. Granger causality tests also indicate that stock market returns are more strongly related to currency futures returns for commodity-exporting countries. Additionally, conditional correlations among currency and equity futures returns are the strongest for commodity-producing countries in both emerging and developed economies. Volatility spillover analysis provides consistent results. The overall results indicate that the status of a country as a net importer or exporter of raw materials is more important to the relationship between equity and currency futures than whether it is an emerging or developed economy.     

Extreme observations and diversification in Latin American emerging equity markets

In this paper, we focus on the tails of the unconditional distribution of Latin American emerging markets stock returns. We explore their implications for portfolio diversification according to the safety first principle, first proposed by Roy [Econometrica (1952) 20, 431]. We find that the Latin American emerging markets have significantly fatter tails than industrial markets, especially, the lower tail of the distribution. We consider the implication of the safety first principle for a US investor who creates a diversified portfolio using Latin American stock markets. We find that a US investor gains by adding Latin American equity markets to her purely domestic portfolio. For different parameter specifications, we find a more realistic asset allocation than the one suggested by the literature based on the traditional mean-variance framework.     

The cost of equity of internet stocks: a downside risk approach

Beta as a measure of risk has been under fire for many years. Although practitioners still widely use the CAPM to estimate the cost of equity of companies, they are aware of its problems and are looking for alternatives. A possible alternative is to estimate the cost of equity based on the semideviation, a well-known and intuitively plausible measure of downside risk. Complementing evidence reported elsewhere about the ability of the semideviation to explain the cross-section of returns in emerging markets and that of industries in emerging markets, this article reports results showing that the semideviation also explains the cross-section of Internet stock returns.     

TESTS OF RANDOM WALK AND MARKET EFFICIENCY FOR LATIN AMERICAN EMERGING EQUITY MARKETS

Variance-ratio methodology is used to test the hypothesis that Latin American emerging equity market prices follow a random walk. The data are monthly index prices in local currency from December 1975 to March 1991 for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. The variance-ratio tests reject the random walk hypothesis. However, runs tests indicate that Latin American equity markets are weak-form efficient. These empirical findings suggest that domestic investors might not be able to develop trading strategies that would allow them to earn excess returns.     

Brand Equity and Firm Risk: An Empirical Investigation in an Emerging Market

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between brand equity and firm risk in Turkey using a sample of 254 firm-year observations for the period 2009–2014. Our findings suggest that brand equity is an important determinant of equity risk in addition to conventional firm-specific variables. In particular, after controlling for firm-specific variables, the results reveal that firms with high brand equity experience lower volatility in stock returns. We also find that enhancing brand equity is an important tool for firms in reducing unsystematic and downside systematic risk in their stock prices. Our findings are robust to different valuation models of domestic and global investors as well as different methods of estimations. The results are encouraging for both marketing managers and investors, particularly those in emerging markets where stock price volatility is relatively higher than in developed markets.     

Predictable risk and returns in emerging markets

The emergence of new equity markets in Europe, Latin America,Asia, the Mideast and Africa provides a new menu of opportunitiesfor investors. These markets exhibit high expected returns aswell as high volatility. Importantly, the low correlations withdeveloped countries' equity markets significantly reduces theunconditional portfolio risk of a world investor. However, standardglobal asset pricing models, which assume complete integrationof capital markets, fail to explain the cross section of averagereturns in emerging countries. An analysis of the predictabilityof the returns reveals that emerging market returns are morelikely than developed countries to be influenced by local information.     

Speculative bubbles in emerging stock markets and macroeconomic factors: A new empirical evidence for Asia and Latin America

The purpose of this study is firstly to test for the existence of periodically collapsing stock price bubbles in Asian and Latin American emerging stock markets for the period 1990–2009. We use the new non-cointegration test developed by Taylor and Peel (1998) with the Residuals-Augmented Least Squares (RALS) method of Im (1996) and Im and Schmidt (2008) for monthly data of price indexes and dividends. The results show that the hypothesis of formation of bubbles cannot be rejected for all of the studied emerging stock markets. This evidence implies that the co-integration relation between the prices and the dividends is not always supported, indicating that the stock prices do not reflect their fundamental values in the emerging stock markets. We then link speculative bubbles with macroeconomic and financial factors, which is an interesting contribution of this study. The degree of equity market openness is found to be the key factor, positively related to the formation of speculative bubbles in these markets.     

U.S. investors and global equity markets

This study examines international equity flows of U.S. residents to emerging markets in Latin America and Asia and to developed markets in Europe, Canada, and Japan. The major issues addressed are (1) appropriate means of measuring relationships between returns and flows, (2) role of volatility in these relationships, and (3) effects of the Asian crisis. Basic findings include: (1) the information contribution argument is stronger than the feedback trading argument (flows affect returns more than past returns affect flows), (2) volatility of flows and of returns are not of major importance, (3) the Asian crisis effects are important and strongest for Asia followed by developed markets and by Latin America, and (4) regional measures and U.S. returns play significant roles in international equity flows to many countries.     

Local risk factors in emerging markets: Are they separately priced?

We provide new evidence on the pricing of local risk factors in emerging stock markets. We investigate whether there is a significant local currency premium together with a domestic market risk premium in equity returns within a partial integration asset pricing model. Given previous evidence on currency risk, we conduct empirical tests in a conditional setting with time-varying prices of risk. Our main results support the hypothesis of a significant exchange risk premium related to the local currency risk. Exchange rate and domestic market risks are priced separately for our sample of seven emerging markets. The empirical evidence also suggests that although statistically significant, local currency risk is on average smaller than domestic market risk but it increases substantially during crises periods, when it can be almost as large as market risk. Disentangling these two factors is thus important in tests of international asset pricing for emerging markets.     

Dynamic relationships among equity flows,equity returns and dividends: Behavior of U.S. investors in China and India

This research examines the linkages among U.S. equity flows to China and India, their equity returns, and their fundamental variables. We find that positive shocks to U.S. equity flows to China and India elicit an insignificant response to returns. This finding provides evidence that U.S. institutional investors are not a destabilizing influence in these markets. However, positive innovations to dividends in both China and India have a negative impact on returns. We conjecture that the high potential growth rates in these markets make it preferable for companies to retain earnings rather than pay dividends. In India, shocks to dividend yields have a strong negative influence on U.S. equity flows. Our results validate the need to take into account fundamental variables when examining U.S. investor behavior in emerging equity markets.     

The Impact of the U.S. and the Japanese Equity Markets on the Emerging Asia-Pacific Equity Markets

Using a tri-variate vector autoregression model, we study the relationships between the four Asian emerging equity markets: Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, and the two largest equity markets in the world: U.S. and Japan. We find that while most of the unexpected variations in stock returns in these Asian emerging markets is explained by domestic own shocks, the impacts from the U.S. and Japan are larger in Hong Kong and Singapore than in Korea and Taiwan. This foreign effect is pronounced after the Crash of the October 1987, especially in Singapore. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Evaluating the Forecast Accuracy of Emerging Market Stock Returns

This paper analyzes the forecast performance of emerging market stock returns using standard autoregressive moving average (ARMA) and more elaborated autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models. Our results indicate that the ARMA and ARCH specifications generally outperform random walk models. Models that allow for asymmetric shocks to volatility are better for in-sample estimation (threshold autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity for daily returns and exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity for longer periods), and ARMA models are better for out-of-sample forecasts. The results are valid using both U. S. dollar and domestic currencies. Overall, the forecast errors of each Latin American market can be explained by the forecasts of other Latin American markets and Asian markets. The forecast errors of each Asian market can be explained by the forecasts of other Asian markets, but not by Latin American markets. Our predictability results are economically significant and may be useful for portfolio managers to enter or leave the market.     

The interrelatedness of global equity markets, money markets, and foreign exchange markets

This article investigates different aspects of global financial markets, specifically relationships among equity markets, money markets, and foreign exchange markets across countries. To represent the three major financial markets of the world, Japan is the proxy for Asia, Germany is the proxy for Europe, and the United States is the proxy for North America. Strong evidence exists that international money markets and international equity markets are becoming increasingly integrated over time. This article incorporates foreign exchange values as partial determinants of equity returns and money market returns and investigates the interactions among these three asset markets from a global perspective.     

Hot money in disaggregated capital flows

We explore the possible existence and behavior of hot money in six categories of disaggregated bilateral capital flows (equity inflows, equity outflows, bond inflows, bond outflows, banking credit inflows, and banking credit outflows) for 12 emerging markets vis-à-vis the US from 1995 to 2012 and provides several new findings. First, we identify the existence of hot money in all six categories above and conclude that both gross inflows and gross outflows can be the sources of hot money. Second, hot money in equity inflows (outflows) engages in positive (negative) feedback trading regarding local stock market returns. Third, some categories of hot money have a temporary influence on local stock market returns while the others have a permanent influence, supporting the explanations of both price pressures and information advantage. Finally, local stock market returns in half of our sample countries, which have tightened capital controls during the late 2000s global financial crisis (GFC), are more affected by hot money than in the other half. Our findings confirm several popular conjectures of hot money, and endorse the use of capital controls to limit financial vulnerability in the run-up to and during the GFC.     

Global economic activity as an explicator of emerging market equity returns

This paper evaluates whether global economic activity, measured by the maritime index and commodity index, is a distinct common factor in explaining equity returns in emerging markets. We document two important features of global equity markets that show that emerging market equities are a segregated part of the global stock market. First, our results show that increases in global economic activity are associated with higher emerging market equity returns. Second, companies in developed markets that have a significant exposure in emerging markets have incremental exposure to commodity returns. By allocating more capital to emerging market equities, an investor increases portfolio exposure to changes in global economic activity.     

What moves international stock and bond markets?

We study the relation between international mutual fund flows and the different return components of aggregate equity and bond markets. First, we decompose international equity and bond market returns into changes in expectations of future real cash payments, interest rates, exchange rates, and discount rates. News about future cash flows, rather than discount rates, is the main driver of international stock returns. This evidence is in contrast with the typical results reported only for the US. Inflation news instead is the main driver of international bond returns. Next, we turn to the interaction between these return components and international portfolio flows. We find evidence consistent with price pressure, short-term trend chasing, and short-run overreaction in the equity market. We also find that international bond flows to emerging markets are more sensitive to interest rate shocks than equity flows.     

Selecting macroeconomic variables as explanatory factors of emerging stock market returns

Emerging stock markets have been identified as being at least partially segmented from global capital markets. As a consequence, it has been argued that local factors rather than global factors are the primary source of equity return variation in these markets. This paper seeks to address the question of whether local macroeconomic variables have explanatory power over stock returns in emerging markets. Moderate evidence is found to support this contention. Furthermore, using a principal components approach, two types of commonality in returns are examined. Evidence is found that supports commonality in the factors that drive return variation across emerging markets. A test is also conducted for identical sensitivity to a common set of extracted factors. While little evidence of common sensitivities is found when emerging markets are considered collectively, considerable commonality is found at the regional level. These results have implications for international investors as they suggest that the benefits from diversification are enhanced when the allocation of funds is spread across, rather than within, regions.     

MENA stock market volatility persistence: Evidence before and after the financial crisis of 2008

The global financial crisis began with a financial meltdown in the United States in early 2008 and then it had spread to the rest of the world. In this paper we test whether the MENA equity market volatility presents a different behavior before and after the financial crisis of 2008. Using long range dependence techniques we test for long memory in the returns, absolute and squared returns of the MENA equity markets. We subject the series to unit root tests that allow for structural breaks and use the Bai and Perron (1998, Econometrica, 66, 47; 2003a, J. Appl. Econometrics, 6, 72; 2003b, Econometrics J., 18, 1) to test for multiple breaks in the mean returns. The results indicate that the volatility measures represented by absolute and squared returns show evidence of long memory for the full and subsample periods, while the returns show a weak evidence of long memory. Considering the shift dates and corresponding to the 2008 financial crisis, the returns and volatility measures display less evidence of long memory in the after crisis period as opposed to the before crisis period. The change in the returns and volatility dynamics of these markets was due to financial and economic conditions that took place in the MENA region after the crisis.     

Forms of Foreign Investment Liberalization and Risk in Emerging Stock Markets

I examine the effect of different forms of foreign investment liberalization on risk in emerging equity markets, including international cross-listings and closed-end country funds, and in the domestic equity market as foreign investment restrictions are eliminated. I find that in Latin American markets volatility declines significantly with different forms of foreign investment liberalization, and in Asian markets volatility does not increase significantly. Volatility is driven by domestic factors in South America, but the transmission of volatility from the United States to Mexico increases after liberalization. The market risk exposure increases in Argentina after liberalization, in Chile with an index of American Depositary Receipts, and in Thailand with greater foreign ownership, reducing the diversification benefits of these markets.