International Cross-Listing and Order Flow Migration: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Policymakers in emerging markets are increasingly concerned about the consequences for the domestic equity market when companies list stock abroad. We show that the effects of cross-listing depend on the quality of intermarket information linkages. We investigate these issues with unique data from the Mexican equity market. The impact of cross-listing is complex—balancing the costs of order flow migration against the benefits of increased intermarket competition. These effects are exacerbated by equity investment barriers that induce segmentation of the domestic equity market. Consequently, the benefits and costs of cross-listing are not evenly spread over all classes of shareholders.     

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.     

International linkage of interest rates: Evidence from the emerging economies of Asia

This article employs monthly short-term interest rate data over the 1980–1999 period to investigate the intermarket interest rate linkages across seven newly industrialized markets in Asia, and the influence that Japan and the US exert on interest rates in the region. In an attempt to isolate the impact of the liberalization process from the Asian financial crisis on interest rate transmission mechanisms, the sample period is broken down into two equally divided subperiods (1980 through 1989 and 1990 through 1999). The results from the study indicate that (a) the national short-term interest rate nexus is inherently a steady-state, long-run phenomenon, in that they are found to be cointegrated; (b) there is a pronounced increase in the cross-country interest rate linkages during the 1990s; (c) Hong Kong and Singapore play an important, but not dominant, role in the Asian region, and serve to integrate the regional economies and mediate the short-run linkages between the regional and the world financial markets; and (d) while Japan played an influential role during the 1980s, the US supplants Japan's role during the 1990s. Several policy implications are derived.     

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.     

The growth in equity market size and trading activity: An international study

This paper presents new evidence on the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors in equity market development and on the sources of equity market growth. Using panel data on 33 countries, I find that development of financial intermediaries and trade openness are positively associated with equity market size, and that development of financial intermediaries is also positively associated with the level of activity in equity markets. Government consumption is negatively associated with equity market activity. I construct a direct estimate of the effect of institutional factors on equity market development that compares a country's actual level of development to a hypothetical “best-practice” country having the same macroeconomic fundamentals as the original country. I show that the level of equity market development of an average country is around 30% below its maximum potential. There are wide differences in institutional characteristics across countries and over time, and Canada, the United States, and Singapore possess the most shareholder-friendly institutional frameworks that foster larger and more active equity markets. It appears that institutional improvements and changes in financial technology have provided the major impetus for the phenomenal expansion of global equity markets.     

Returns,Volatilities, and Correlations Across Mature,Regional, and Frontier Markets: Evidence from South Asia

We investigate returns, volatilities, and correlations across mature, dominant regional, and frontier equity markets. Standard & Poor's 500 is chosen as a mature equity market; India is chosen as a dominant regional market; and Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are chosen as frontier markets. Our empirical tests show that the frontier markets remain fundamentally decoupled from the mature markets during normal market periods. During turbulent times, the contagion effects from the mature to the frontier markets become more pronounced. The results suggest that the dominant regional market plays a key role in disseminating shocks across the frontier markets during normal periods; during the turbulent recent financial crisis period, a similar contagion is not observed.     

Linkages between Indian and US financial markets: impact of global financial crisis and Eurozone debt crisis

This paper examines inter-linkages between Indian and US equity, foreign exchange and money markets using the vector autoregressive-multivariate GARCH-BEKK framework. We investigate the impact of global financial crisis (GFC) and Eurozone debt crisis (EZDC) on the conditional volatility and conditional correlation estimates derived from the multivariate GARCH model for Indian and US financial markets. Our results indicate that there is significant bidirectional causality-in-mean between the Indian stock market returns and the Rs./USD market returns, and significant unidirectional causality-in-mean from the US stock market returns to the Indian stock market returns. As regards volatility spillovers, we find that volatility in the Indian stock market rises in response to domestic as well as US financial market shocks but Indian financial market shocks do not impact the US markets. Further, impact of the recent crisis episodes on the covariance matrix is found to be significant. We find that volatility in the Indian and US financial markets significantly amplified during GFC. The conditional correlations across asset markets were significantly accentuated in the wake of the two crisis episodes. The impact of GFC on cross-market conditional correlations is higher for majority of the asset market pairs in comparison to the EZDC.     

A three-tiered nested analytical approach to financial integration: The case of emerging and frontier equity markets

This study investigates the patterns of integration of emerging and frontier equity markets with the US stock market during the period 2002–2014 characterised by financial turmoil and instability. To add rigour to the study, to overcome the limitations of simple correlation analysis of integration, and to produce more robust results, we propose a nested analytical approach based on a three-tiered research design. The first level uses the smooth transition conditional correlations among the US, emerging, and frontier markets. The second tier uses the results of the smooth transition approach to creating different international portfolios, which, based on alternative investment strategies, account for the time-varying correlations among markets and exploit the scope of international diversification with less integrated markets. Finally, the last tier of analysis uses returns and risks of these different international portfolios and applies structural models to explore characteristics and integration patterns in turbulent times. The three nested approaches indicate that the global financial crisis has produced a permanent increase in the degree of integration among the US and frontier markets. Conversely, the crisis's effect seems to have been only temporary in the case of integration among the US and emerging equity markets. Despite the changes brought by the crisis, the degree of integration among emerging markets and the US market is considerably more significant than the degree of integration among frontier and US markets. The novelty of this methodological approach enables us to provide some original contributions and empirical results that are robust and relevant to investors in international markets.     

Macroeconomic fundamentals and cryptocurrency prices: A common trend approach

Based on asset pricing theory, we posit and find that equity markets and cryptocurrency markets share a common fundamental. Our cointegration tests show that the most important asset pricing primitive, consumption, can serve as the common fundamental. We further show that additional macroeconomic factors, as well as uncertainty and sentiment, all play a role in explaining the deviation from fundamentals. To understand the linkage between equity markets, cryptocurrency markets, and the macroeconomy, we suggest the following three channels: (i) portfolio allocation decisions, (ii) intermarket order flows, and (iii) technological adaption expectations.     

An empirical investigation of stock market behavior in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper analyzes excess market returns in the relatively understudied financial markets of nine Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries within the context of three variants of the Capital Asset Pricing Model: the static international CAPM; the constant-parameter intertemporal CAPM; and a Markov-switching intertemporal CAPM which allows for the degree of integration with international equity markets to be time-varying. On the whole we find that: (1) Israel and Turkey are most strongly integrated with world financial markets; (2) in most other MENA markets examined there is primarily local pricing of risk and evidence of a positive risk-return trade-off; and (3) there is substantial time variation in the weights on local and global pricing of risk for all of these markets. Our results suggest that investment in many of these markets over the sample studied would have provided returns uncorrelated with global markets, and thus would have served as financial instruments with which portfolio diversification could have been improved.     

With Economic Integration Comes Financial Contagion? Evidence from China

China's economy has maintained a rapid growth rate over the past two decades; however, its stock market has exhibited a very different level of performance during financial crises. In this paper, we try to explain this phenomenon and answer two important questions: Is there financial contagion in China? Can economic integration aggravate financial contagion? We construct a composite index of economic integration by reviewing the incremental reform and opening-up process in China's financial markets. We utilize a dynamic conditional correlation model to capture the correlations between stock returns of China and those of other important markets around the world. The empirical results provide positive evidence for the aforementioned two questions.     

Does linkage fuel the fire? The transmission of financial stress across the markets

This paper develops an indicator of financial stress transmission, called Financial Stress Spillover Index (FSSI), to monitor the condition of financial system and to identify periods of excessive spillover that may lead to financial instability. Specifically, using the “spillover index” approach of Diebold and Yilmaz (2012), we modify and extend the financial stress indices proposed by Oet et al. (2011) to track both total and directional stress spillovers across the U.S. equity, debt, banking, and foreign exchange markets. Unlike other previous studies, the important linkages among these four major financial sectors in an interconnected world are directly taken into account by considering the average and time-varying connectedness of each individual market. The evidence suggests that there are important stress episodes and fluctuations across markets; the total cross-market stress spillovers were rather limited until the onsets of financial crises. As the crises intensified, so too did the financial stress spillovers; with significant stress carrying over from debt and equity markets to the others. In addition, our results indicate that FSSI has a significant predictive power for the economic activity and provides useful information for dating financial crisis.     

Benefits of diversifying investments into emerging markets with time-varying correlations: An Australian perspective

Australian investors can reduce their overall portfolio risk by diversifying into equities from other markets. Emerging markets have attracted significant interest because of their low correlations with Australian equity market returns; however, a number of studies have indicated that correlations between equity returns are increasing over time, so using unconditional estimates of correlations in a portfolio optimization model can result in the selection of a portfolio that may not be optimal.We use an Asymmetric Dynamic Conditional Correlation GARCH model to estimate time-varying correlations and include these correlation estimates in the portfolio optimization model. The assets used for portfolio construction comprise seven emerging market indices that are available to foreign investors. This study finds that, despite increasing correlations, there are still potential benefits for Australian investors who diversify into international emerging markets.     

Explaining when developing countries liberalize their financial equity markets

This paper is the first to explain when countries opened their financial equity markets and is the first to explain financial liberalization using a large sample of developing countries. We test several novel hypotheses. We find that equity markets are opened earlier in countries that trade more with developed countries and that have more developed financial markets. Equity markets are opened earlier in democracies, especially if the country's leader is a civilian. Our other findings are consistent with the literature, which has found greater financial market openness in countries receiving more FDI, in richer countries, and in democracies.     

International linkage of the Russian market and the Russian financial crisis: A multivariate GARCH analysis

This study considers the linkage of the Russian equity market to the world market, examining the international transmission of the Russia's 1998 financial crisis utilizing the GARCH–BEKK model proposed by Engle and Kroner [Engle, R.F., Kroner, K.F., 1995. Multivariate simultaneous generalized ARCH. Economet. Theor. 11, 122–150]. We find evidence of direct linkage between the Russian equity market with regards to returns and volatility, while the weakness of the linkage suggests that the Russian equity market was only partially integrated into the world market. At the time of the crisis, evidence of contagion is clear.     

宏观经济信息与金融市场关联性——来自混频动态条件相关系数模型的证据

宏观经济信息是金融市场之间相互传递的重要信息内容,有效利用宏观经济信息是否有助于更好地理解金融市场关联性？为此,本文运用混频动态条件相关系数(DCC-MIDAS)模型分析了我国四个重要金融市场之间的动态相关性如何受到纳入的宏观经济信息的影响。结果发现:(1)工业增加值和货币供应量M2负向影响金融市场关联性,经济政策不确定性和通货膨胀水平反之。前三者是影响金融市场关联性较为重要的因素,而通货膨胀的重要性相对较低;(2)宏观经济信息作为市场关联性的长期成分相较基于市场信息的模型可以获得至少1.45%的效率提升。(3)工业增加值和通货膨胀对金融市场关联性的影响较为稳健,货币供应量M2和经济政策不确定性的影响表现出周期性特征。经济上行阶段工业增加值、货币政策信息带来的效率提升更为明显,经济下行阶段政策不确定性相对重要。本文研究结论对于加强金融监管协调和防范金融市场风险共振具有参考价值和指导意义。     

The Halloween Effect and Japanese Equity Prices: Myth or Exploitable Anomaly

Bouman and Jacobsen (American Economic Review 92(5), 1618–1635, 2002) examine monthly stock returns for major world stock markets and conclude that returns are significantly lower during the May–October periods versus the November–April periods in 36 of 37 markets examined. They argue that, in general, the Halloween strategy outperforms the buy and hold strategy thereby casting doubt on the validity of the efficient market paradigm. More recently, Maberly and Pierce (Econ Journal Watch 1(1), 29–46, 2004) re-examine the evidence for U.S. equity prices and conclude that Bouman and Jacobsen’s results are not robust to alternative model specifications. Extending prior research, this paper examines the robustness of the Halloween strategy to alternative model specifications for Japanese equity prices. The Halloween effect is concentrated in the period prior to the introduction of Nikkei 225 index futures in September 1986. After the internationalization of Japanese financial markets in the mid-1980s, the Halloween effect disappears.JEL classification: G14, G15     

Correlation and return dispersion dynamics in Chinese markets

This paper studies the relation between firm-level return dispersions and correlations among Chinese stocks during periods of unusually large upward and downward swings. We analyze individual stock returns across 18 sectors and test if return dispersions and stock correlations show asymmetric patterns for extreme up and down markets. Evidence from studies on U.S. stocks suggests that equity return correlations tend to be much greater on the downside than on the upside and that the degree of comovement gets even stronger during extreme market states. However, in the case of Chinese stock market, we find that higher downside correlations apply to only stocks within the Financial sector. With the exception of Financial stocks, we find that stock correlations are significantly higher during up markets, rather than down markets. Regarding firm-level return dispersions, our findings are consistent with rational asset pricing model predictions. We find that equity return dispersions are significantly higher during periods of large price changes.     

Volatility linkage across global equity markets

This paper analyzes the volatility linkage across the U.S., European, German, Japanese, and Swiss equity markets from 1999 to 2009. Both the unconditional and conditional correlations exhibit large fluctuations during the sample period. The results from the VAR analysis show an asymmetric two-way relation between the VIX and other market volatility indices, in which VIX has a larger impact in both the tranquil and crisis times. The structure of the volatility correlation before and during the recent global financial crisis does not show significant changes. In addition, robust test results from realized volatilities confirm the results from implied volatility indices.     

No place to hide: The global crisis in equity markets in 2008/2009

This paper provides a broad analysis of the effect of the current financial crisis on global equity markets and their major components. We also examine the magnitude of the crisis in terms of value destruction in comparison to other market crashes. In brief, upon looking at return performance across an array of regions, countries, and sectors, broad market averages are down approximately 40% on their end of 2006 levels. While deterioration started in most markets in early to mid 2008, the crisis period of mid-September to the end of October 2008 is responsible for the lion's share of the collapse with just about all indices falling 30–40% in this short period. Financial sectors have taken a bigger hit than non-financials over the period, though they both suffered similarly during the peak of the crisis. Due to larger rises in 2007 the emerging markets drop more in 2008 than developed markets but in large part end up at the same level as the other markets. The global nature of the crisis is also apparent from the high correlations between markets and investment styles that further increased during the crisis. As a result, diversification provided little help to investors when needed most as markets dropped in tandem.