U.S. monetary policy indicators and international stock returns: 1970-2001

It is documented in the literature that U.S. and many international stock returns series are sensitive to U.S. monetary policy. Using monthly data, this empirical study examines the short-term sensitivity of six international stock indices (the Standard & Poor 500 [S&P] Stock Index, the Morgan Stanley Capital International [MSCI] European Stock Index, the MSCI Pacific Stock Index, and three MSCI country stock indices: Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom) to two major groups of U.S. monetary policy indicators. These two groups, which have been suggested by recent research to influence stock returns, are based on the U.S. discount rate and the federal funds rate. The first group focuses on two binary variables designed to indicate the stance in monetary policy. The second group of monetary indicators involves the federal funds rate and includes the average federal funds rate, the change in the federal funds rate, and the spread of the federal funds rate to 10-year Treasury note yield. Dividing the sample period (1970-2001) into three monetary operating regimes, we find that not all policy indicators influence international stock returns during all U.S. monetary operating periods or regimes. Our results imply that the operating procedure and/or target vehicle used by the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) influences the efficacy of the policy indicator. We suggest caution in using any monetary policy variable to explain and possibly forecast U.S. and international stock returns in all monetary conditions.     

Nonlinear relationship between monetary policy and stock returns: Evidence from the U.S.

This paper studies the relationship between monetary policy and stock market return in the U.S. using nonlinear econometric models. It first employs a univariate Markov-switching model on each of the three stock indices and three monetary policy variables, displaying significant regime-switching patterns and common movements. This paper then uses a Markov-switching dynamic bi-factor model to simultaneously extract two latent common factors from stock indices and monetary policy variables to represent monetary policy changes and stock market movements separately. The smoothed probabilities of regimes demonstrate that expansionary monetary policy regimes follow economic recessions, but bear stock markets usually occur before economic recessions. The maximum likelihood estimation results show that expansionary monetary policy such as a decrease in the federal funds rate raises stock returns, but stock returns don't directly influence monetary policy decision.     

Comparing the impact of Chinese and U.S. economic policy uncertainty on the volatility of major global stock markets

This study compares the impact of Chinese and U.S. economic policy uncertainty (EPU) (proxied by the EPU index) on the volatility of 11 major stock markets. Unlike previous research that only utilizes monthly EPU for such a comparison, this study uses both daily and monthly data to examine the impact within a month as well as over months. In order to provide a detailed analysis, EPU shocks are investigated from a two-sided viewpoint: one considering the effects of EPU indices as exogenous shocks, and the other examining the spillovers from EPU indices as endogenous variables. Meanwhile, the role of global turmoil, such as the 2007–2008 global financial crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic, in influencing the impact of Chinese (or U.S.) EPU is highlighted. The results show that the impact of U.S. EPU is reinforced at both daily and monthly frequencies during the GFC, with a greater effect on the European stock markets. After the GFC, the rising influence of Chinese EPU is observed at a monthly frequency in several markets in Asia and elsewhere. Overall, the dynamic spillovers from the EPU indices to stock volatility suggest the dominant role of U.S. EPU in most markets at a daily frequency, while the extent of the spillovers is driven by turbulent events, including the GFC and the COVID-19 pandemic.     

A comprehensive investigation on the predictive power of economic policy uncertainty from non-U.S. countries for U.S. stock market returns

This study uses economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indices for ten developed countries, three diffusion models, and five combination methods to forecast excess returns in the U.S. stock market. It shows empirically that, over the period January 1997 to January 2022, non-U.S. EPU indices have better predictive power for U.S. equity market excess returns than the U.S. EPU index itself. This illustrates how economic information from international markets can affect the U.S. stock market. This finding challenges the extensively recognized view that the U.S. is where important market signals are initially transmitted to other markets, suggesting that this belief is incomplete. Our outcomes are robust to a battery of tests covering model selection, model specification, forecast horizons, and the pandemic period, and their economic values are assessed. The findings are essential for the financial field to confront future fierce situations and crises.     

Financial crises and the dynamics of the spillovers between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets

We examine the spillover dynamics between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets using the multivariate DECO-GJR-GARCH model and spillover index method. We identify time variations in volatility equicorrelation and significant dynamic spillovers between these stock markets, as well as an increased impact of uncertainty on spillovers. Spillovers between markets intensify after the inception of the global financial crisis and subsequent European sovereign debt crisis. We also find, following the commencement of the crisis periods, that the U.S., Brazilian, and Chinese markets are net volatility transmitters, whereas the Russian, Indian, and South African markets are net recipients. These results shed new light on the information transmission channels between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets.     

Do Islamic Bond (Sukuk) Prices Reflect Financial and Policy Uncertainty? A Quantile Regression Approach

We studied the relationship between Islamic bond (sukuk) prices and financial and policy uncertainty conditions using a quantile regression approach. Our empirical results for the period 2010–2014 show that US bond prices had a negative impact and causality effects on sukuk prices, whereas European Monetary Union bond prices only co-moved with sukuk prices. We also show that financial uncertainty had a negative effect that was limited to intermediate sukuk quantiles; moreover, sukuk prices were not affected by economic policy uncertainty or stock market returns. Therefore, although Islamic bonds are distinctive assets, their price dynamics are dependent on other bond-related asset prices and so incorporate financial market uncertainty.     

A multilateral approach to examining the comovements among major world equity markets

This study investigates the comovement in stock indices among major developed markets, where Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices are employed for the purposes of the study. We employ a model that accommodates multilateral international impacts on equity index movements. The empirical results reveal the existence of significant international transmission effects among these major world markets, both in terms of returns and volatility, and mostly in a positive direction. The U.S. market, as expected, is the leading market in the sense that it has the most pervasive and significant impact on all markets across continents. However, the U.S. market exhibits a different relationship with European markets from that with Asia-Pacific markets. The evidence also suggests that strong regional transmission effects exist. A further investigation using the extended model reveals that the linkages between U.S. and European markets are driven by positive global common forces and by negative international competitive effects. On the other hand, the U.S. and Asian markets are linked through positive global common forces and positive international contagion effects. The United States, Canada, and the U.K. are the three markets that still demonstrate contagion influence over countries outside its own region. The Asia-Pacific markets are more susceptible to contagion effects. Finally, it is interesting to find that Japanese market performance became more contagious toward other markets during the Asian financial crisis period.     

U.S. Monetary Policy Surprises and International Securitized Real Estate Markets

This paper examines the impact of U.S. monetary policy surprises on securitized real estate markets in 18 countries. The policy surprises are measured by both the surprise changes to the target federal funds rate (the target factor) and surprises in the future direction of the Federal Reserve monetary policy (the path factor). The results show that most international securitized real estate markets have significantly positive responses to surprise decrease in current or future expected federal funds rates, though such responses vary greatly across countries. Also, while the U.S. securitized real estate market reacts mainly to the target factor, foreign securitized real estate markets react to the path factor. Furthermore, we find that the cross-country variation in the response to the target factor is correlated with the country’s exchange rate regime and its degree of real economic and particularly financial integration, while the cross-country variation in the response to the path factor is mainly related to the country’s degree of financial integration.     

Oil prices and economic policy uncertainty: Evidence from global,oil importers,and exporters’ perspective

Containing various information, economic policy uncertainty reflects significant rises and declines when facing shocks like financial crisis, oil-price change, and other specific economic or policy events. This paper empirically studies the interaction between oil prices and the newly formulated economic policy uncertainty indices using a time-varying parameter vector autoregression framework. Generally, the results of this study suggest that economic policy uncertainty reveals fluctuating responses to oil price shocks, while the oil price has a negative response to the uncertainty. The findings also reveal that the economic policy uncertainty indices for oil-importers and oil-exporters respond to oil price shocks differently. The oil price shock has a larger fluctuation to the economic policy uncertainty of oil-exporters than that of importers. Moreover, for the oil-exporters, the negative response to the oil price shock is greater than that of the oil-importing countries. This paper also discusses the impact of asymmetric shocks of oil price on economic policy uncertainty. In particular, after two financial crises, positive shocks decrease the uncertainty and vice versa. These findings are robustly verified.     

货币政策公告、政策不确定性及股票市场的预公告溢价效应——来自中国市场的证据

中国人民银行周期性发布的货币政策相关公告为市场判断货币政策走向提供重要信息。较于实体经济反馈政策信息具有滞后性,股票市场是否在货币政策公告期内及时对政策消息做出反应,即存在公告效应？股票价格是否体现预期货币政策调整带来的不确定性？本文基于2011-2017年A股市场数据,研究我国股票市场在我国货币政策相关公告发布前后几日这一较短窗口区间内的市场反应。结果表明,股市指数在发布货币供应量指标的公告前几天内会出现显著为正的风险溢价,而在指标发布后溢价并不显著,这一现象我们称之为货币政策相关公告的“预公告溢价效应”。本文发现,预公告溢价的产生并非由于市场提前预期到货币政策的走向,而是来源于投资者预先获得了对政策不确定性的溢价补偿。本文进一步就防范系统性风险、从数量型货币政策工具向价格型转变等问题提出了相关政策建议。     

Investors’ risk perceptions in the US and global stock market integration

Investors’ risk perceptions have significant implications for international stock markets. This paper estimates the time-varying impact of the VIX index – a widely used measure of investors risk perceptions – on the dynamic correlation across international stock markets. Results show that risk perceptions significantly impact the dynamic correlation between the U.S. market and the leading stock markets of the world. Further, in 17 out of 20 international stock markets, risk perceptions Granger cause dynamic correlations. The impact of VIX is positive on the correlation of the U.S. market with European and Latin American markets. In contrast, the relationship of the U.S. market with all the Asian markets weakens (strengthens) as the VIX index rises (falls). In all cases, the time-varying parameter model shows that the impact of VIX on these correlations varies significantly across time.     

A Market Efficiency Comparison of Islamic and Non-Islamic Stock Indices

This article examines the martingale difference hypothesis (MDH) and the random walk hypothesis (RWH) for nine conventional and nine Islamic stock indices: Asia-Pacific, Canadian, Developed Country, Emerging, European, Global, Japanese, UK, and United States. It investigates whether Islamic stock indices are more, less, or as efficient as their conventional counterparts. We test four sub-periods of bullish and bearish stock markets, together with the financial meltdown and its recovery, over the period 1997–2012. We use the Escanciano and Lobato’s (2009) automatic portmanteau test (AQ) and Deo’s (2000) test for the MDH. We also apply the automatic variance ratio test (AVR) developed by Choi (1999) and Kim (2009) for the RWH. Over the period from 1997 to 2012, we find that three conventional indices (Europe, Japan, and UK) are efficient, but that none of the Islamic indices are efficient in these markets. During the recent financial crisis, our results indicate slightly more efficiency for the Islamic indices than their conventional counterparts. Our study finds that overall the conventional indices are more efficient than their Islamic counterparts. Nevertheless, during periods of general downturns the Islamic indices have shown the same level of efficiency as their counterparts. Furthermore, it appears that during the last two sub-periods under study, the Islamic indices have moved toward efficiency, displaying the same level of efficiency as their counterparts.     

DIFFERENCES OF OPINION,OVERCONFIDENCE, AND THE HIGH‐VOLUME PREMIUM

We argue that both differences of opinion and overconfidence lead to high‐volume shocks. However, a high‐volume shock induced mainly by differences of opinion (overconfidence) will lead to superior (inferior) stock returns. Empirically, Asian financial markets, in contrast to U.S. markets, reveal weaker and inconsistent high‐volume premiums. The inconsistency may be attributable to investor's overconfidence. Additional evidence based on U.S. data supports this view, as a high‐volume shock accompanied by increased institutional ownership yields substantially higher high‐volume premiums than otherwise, and high‐volume premiums generally are much stronger in down‐market states than up‐market states.     

The Dynamic Extreme Co-Movement between Chinese Stock Market and Global Stock Markets

ABSTRACT

We use time-varying Symmetrized Joe-Clayton Copula model to study the extreme co-movement (boom or crash together) between the Chinese stock market and major stock markets in the world from 2007 to 2017, including developed markets and stock markets on “Belt and Road Initiative” (hereafter B.R.I.). We find that the extreme co-movement probability between Chinese market and “Belt and Road Initiative” markets is higher than developed markets at both tails. Then we study important “real” and “non-fundamental” factors affecting the excess co-movement probability, including bilateral trade openness, financial integration, and economic policy uncertainty. The results of panel regression analysis show that: the bilateral financial integration has significant effects over the lower tail dependence between Chinese and developed markets, but does not affect the extreme co-movement between Chinese and B.R.I. markets. And the bilateral trade openness is an important factor for the extreme co-movement at both tail between Chinese and global markets. The economic policy uncertainty index, especially China’s economic policy uncertainty, plays a key role in the extreme co-movement between Chinese and developed markets at both tails. However, it has sizable effects only at the upper tail co-movement between Chinese and B.R.I. markets.     

Spreading the fear: The central role of CBOE VIX in global stock market uncertainty

Construction of efficient portfolios is reliant on understanding the correlation between assets. If correlations change markedly during times of economic turmoil then investors are exposed to greater risk at the most inopportune time. We examine the linkages between global stock markets using measures of market uncertainty (implied volatility). Using a sample of daily changes in G7 and BRIC implied volatility measures, over a 20-year sample period, we demonstrate that uncertainty in U.S. markets plays a pivotal role in global stock market uncertainty. “Fear is spread” across markets, as heightened uncertainty in U.S. markets is transmitted across global markets. Conversely, changes in global market uncertainty do not explain changes in U.S. market uncertainty. While there is a clear increase in connectedness during crisis periods, we observe a disparity in the way that inter-dependencies change during the two major economic crises in our sample period; the GFC (2007–2009) and COVID-pandemic (2020). The additional importance of US news largely drives our results during the GFC, while the effect is spread among several countries (particularly within European markets) during COVID.     

On the volatility spillover between lslamic and conventional stock markets: A quantile regression analysis

This paper aims at analyzing the degree and structure of interdependencies in terms of volatility (transmission, contagion) between Islamic and conventional stock markets on calm periods and at times of financial fragility and crisis. We focused on the recent financial instability periods and used the Quantile Regression-based GARCH model. Main results lead to very interesting conclusions. First, it has been found that Islamic stock markets are not totally immune to the global financial crisis. Second, a very strong interdependence is sensed from the conventional to the Islamic stock markets, especially, from the conventional developed markets to the Islamic Emerging and Arab markets and to the Islamic developed markets. Finally, it has been proved that the interdependencies from conventional to Islamic markets are propagated between Islamic markets. Our findings suggest that the Islamic finance industry does not seem able to provide cushion against economic and financial shocks that affect conventional markets.     

Risk transmission between Islamic and conventional stock markets: A return and volatility spillover analysis

This paper contributes to the current debate on the empirical validity of the decoupling hypothesis of the Islamic stock market from its mainstream counterparts by examining return and volatility spillovers across the global Islamic stock market, three main conventional national stock markets (the US, the UK and Japan) and a number of influential macroeconomic and financial variables over the period from July 1996 to June 2016. To that end, the VAR-based spillover index approach based on the generalized VAR framework developed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) is applied. The empirical analysis shows strong interactions in return and volatility among the global Islamic stock market, the conventional stock markets and the set of major risk factors considered. This finding means that the Islamic equity universe does not constitute a viable alternative for investors who wish to hedge their investments against the vagaries of stock markets, but it is exposed to the same global factors and risks hitting the conventional financial system. Therefore, this evidence leads to the rejection of the decoupling hypothesis of the Islamic stock market from conventional stock markets, which has significant implications for faith-based investors and policy makers in terms of portfolio diversification, hedging strategies and contagion risk.     

The reaction of asset prices to macroeconomic announcements in new EU markets: Evidence from intraday data

We estimate the impact of macroeconomic news on composite stock returns in three emerging European Union financial markets (the Budapest BUX, Prague PX-50, and Warsaw WIG-20), using intraday data and macroeconomic announcements. Our contribution is twofold. We employ a larger set of macroeconomic data releases than used in previous studies and also use intraday data, an excess impact approach, and foreign news to provide more reliable inferences. Composite stock returns are computed based on 5-min intervals (ticks) and macroeconomic news are measured based on the deviations of the actual announcement values from their expectations. Overall, we find that all three new EU stock markets are subject to significant spillovers directly via the composite index returns from the EU, the U.S. and neighboring markets; Budapest exhibits the strongest spillover effect, followed by Warsaw and Prague. The Czech and Hungarian markets are also subject to spillovers indirectly through the transmission of macroeconomic news. The impact of EU-wide announcements is evidenced more in the case of Hungary, while the Czech market is more impacted by U.S. news. The Polish market is marginally affected by EU news. In addition, after decomposing pooled announcements, we show that the impact of multiple announcements is stronger than that of single news. Our results suggest that the impact of foreign macroeconomic announcements goes beyond the impact of the foreign stock markets on Central and Eastern European indices. We also discuss the implications of the findings for financial stability in the three emerging European markets.     

The impact of unconventional monetary policy on the tail risks of stock markets between U.S. and Japan

Facing the economic downturn, the central bank of U.S. and Japan adopts the unconventional monetary policy to stimulate their economy. This paper studies the quantitative easing policy effectiveness via the tail risks of stock markets in the U.S., Japan and the other 74 countries. Although the stock markets of U.S. and Japan reveals the announcement-day effects of the QE policy, this study finds an asymmetric tail risk of return distribution on the QE policy effect. The post-period right-tail and left-tail risks of the stock markets are significantly smaller and larger than that of the pre-period of the QE programs, respectively. This implies that the tail risks of stock returns have dissimilar interdependence with the QE programs. Furthermore, the geographical dependence is the major factor that determines the contagion of stock market, and the fragility of foreign stock market caused by the US QE policy is larger than that of the Japan.     

Price behavior of small-cap stocks and momentum: A study using principal component momentum

This study analyzes why the negative momentum effect appears in Asian (China, Japan, Korea) stock markets, contrary to the U.S. market. We use principal component momentum (PMOM), a newly devised momentum measure. The PMOM is constructed by extracting commonalities from traditional momentum measures using principal component analysis. The results show evidence of positive and negative momentum profits in the U.S. and Asian markets, respectively. Negative momentum profits in Asian markets are attributable to the strong performance reversal of small stocks in the loser portfolio. Conversely, the positive momentum profits of the U.S. market are driven by the performance continuity of small stocks in the winner portfolio. The PMOM strategy is significantly more advantageous than traditional momentum strategies, based on the economic and statistical perspectives of momentum profits. These results are robust to changes in empirical designs.