Optimal hedge ratios and alternative hedging strategies in the presence of cointegrated time-varying risks

This paper utilizes the inter-temporal relationship between the FTSE-100 stock index and its futures price level between 1992 and 1999 to examine the characteristics of several minimum variance hedge ratios and the performances of several alternative hedging strategies for dynamic portfolio management in the presence of cointegrated time-varying risks. Earlier studies neglected the importance of cointegration between the two variables which resulted in biased estimates. These studies, in general, also assume that the hedging period is the same as the estimation time interval. This paper also looks at several key issues when the holding period is longer than the estimation period, such as the construction of optimal minimum variance hedge ratios, and the trade-off between transaction costs and risk reduction.     

Pricing assets with higher moments: Evidence from the Australian and us stock markets

This paper investigates the importance of higher moments of return distributions in capturing the variation of average stock returns for companies listed in the leading S&P US and Australian indices. We find that Australian stocks are more negatively skewed but less leptokurtic than US stocks. As a result, we find that co-skewness plays a more important role in explaining Australian returns while co-kurtosis is consistently influential for US stock returns. We postulate that the differences in results are related to the underlying firm characteristics of the companies in the two indices, where principally the Australian firms are noticeably smaller than their US counterparts and concentrated in a smaller number industry sectors. This implies that for many smaller exchanges around the world higher moment characteristics displayed by the US market may not be applicable. We also show our results are robust to partly explaining average stock returns in the presence of size, value, and momentum effects.     

Bank systemic risk: An analysis of the sovereign rating ceiling policy and rating downgrades

We investigate the impact that the sovereign ceiling policy has on financial stability. In the event of a sovereign rating downgrade, we find that the rating agencies' sovereign ceiling policy leads to a disproportionate downgrade of the most creditworthy financial institutions in the economy and results in increased systemic risk. This asymmetric variation in bank ratings also impairs equity growth that further exacerbates bank insolvency. Our results are robust to several matching techniques, such as propensity score matching and entropy balancing, falsification tests, subsample analyses, alternative empirical proxies and model specifications.     

The time-to-maturity pattern of futures price sensitivity to news

This paper examines the effect time-to-maturity has on how sensitive futures prices are to news flows. Unscheduled daily news flows that relate to the underlying asset of a futures contract are related to the daily realized volatility of futures to calculate a price-news sensitivity ratio. The observed pattern follows an inverted U-shape relationship and has a bearing on whether the maturity effect will be noticeable in a futures contract. This paper also shows that by examining the peak-to-maturity of the price sensitivity to news pattern, it is possible to better identify which contracts are more likely to yield higher volatility.     

The Causal Relationship Between Real Estate and Stock Markets

This paper examines the dynamic relationship that exists between the US real estate and S&P 500 stock markets between the years of 1972 to 1998. This is achieved by conducting both linear and nonlinear causality tests. The results from these tests provide a number of interesting observations which primarily show linear relationships to be spuriously affected by structural shifts which are inherent within the data. Linear test results generally show a uni-directional relationship to exist from the real estate market to the stock market. However, these results are not consistent with financial theory and for all sub-samples of the data. In contrast, the nonlinear causality test shows a strong unidirectional relationship running from the stock market to the real estate market, and is consistent in the presence of any structural breaks.     

Return performance volatility and adaptation in an automated technical analysis approach to portfolio management

This paper discusses the design of a quantitative computational intelligence portfolio management system and evaluates the advantages of some adaptive mechanisms to enable the system to adjust its management approach as market conditions change. A detailed analysis of the performance of the system outside is also provided. It is found that an adaptive methodology where trading rules are able to adjust to market conditions performs better, having greater excess returns and lower volatility than a fixed rule approach. We consider several performance metrics, including portfolio alpha and information content. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic Hedging Effectiveness in South Korean Index Futures and the Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis

This paper focuses on the impact of the 1997 Asian financial market crisis upon hedging effectiveness within the KOSPI 200 stock index and index futures markets. The paper utilizes the inter-temporal relationship between the two markets to examine the characteristics of several minimum variance hedge ratios. It also examines the performances of alternative hedging strategies for dynamic portfolio management in the presence of cointegrated time-varying risks. The results show a decline in the persistence of conditional volatility within market prices after the crisis. This decline leads to the relative performance of utilizing constant hedge ratios to increase, though not significantly so to guarantee a superior performance over more sophisticated time-varying hedge ratio strategies.     

The intra‐day price discovery process between the Singapore Exchange and Taiwan Futures Exchange

This paper focuses on the increasing competition between exchanges for listing similar index futures contracts and the impact this has on information dissemination between various markets. Specifically, using both the Hasbrouck and Gonzalo–Granger methodologies for extracting the information content held in each market, a comparison of information efficiencies between the Singapore Exchange and the Taiwan Futures Exchange is examined for Taiwan Index Futures listed in both markets. The results show not only a common stochastic trend between index futures and their underlying indices, but also provide strong evidence to suggest price discovery primarily originates from the Singapore futures market. There are direct implications of this result for both financial exchanges and traders—in particular, that traders realize price determination can arise from both futures markets, and the need for exchanges to maintain a reputation as an information center for these similarly traded financial instruments. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22: 219–240, 2002     

Does market power discipline CEO power? An agency perspective

We examine how product market competition (PMC) shapes chief executive officer's (CEO) power. Using various measures to capture both PMC and CEO power, our analyses, which include a quasi‐natural experiment, find evidence that CEOs have less power when the product market is more competitive. Furthermore, the impact of PMC on CEO power is more pronounced for firms with entrenched management, lower CEO ownership, lower analyst coverage, and for firms experiencing good ‘luck’ (windfall performance). Our results suggest that market power can act as a substitute for corporate governance in disciplining CEO power, particularly when prone to agency problems.     

The Effectiveness of Capital Regulation on Bank Behavior in China

This paper examines the impact that ownership and governance structures have on how Chinese banks react to regulatory pressure. We find that the current regulatory regime induces banks to increase their capital, but its effectiveness in doing so varies based on whether the bank is listed or not, and also who is the majority shareholder. We also find that the degree of central government ownership and the political ties the chief executive officer of the bank has play an important role in the risk‐taking behavior of banks. Overall, our results have a number of policy implications supporting the need to further reduce state ownership of banks in China to mitigate the prevailing moral hazard and dual‐agency problems that arise from the government being both the regulator and the majority shareholder.