Volatility spillovers and connectedness among credit default swap sector indexes

This article studies volatility spill-over effects and market connectedness using daily data of credit default swap spreads for U.S. companies over a period from 2007 to 2012. We quantify volatility spillovers by means of an unconditional analysis performed using the entire sample, and a conditional analysis which estimates the model using a rolling window. As our database contains the global financial crisis (GFC), we are able to determine how volatility spillovers spread in the economy during the recent market turmoil. Our unconditional results confirm that the Financials sector was a main contributor to the overall market volatility along with the Consumer Goods, Consumer Services and Basic Materials sectors. The conditional analysis clearly identifies that the Financials was the major feeding sector of volatility spill-over effects, and that the market volatility was successively driven by Technology and Basic Materials over a rather short period of time, followed by Consumer Goods and Consumer Services over a prolonged period of time. Our results illustrate indirect linkages between the sectors that conveyed shocks during the GFC.     

Asymmetric spillover effects between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets: evidence from quantile lagged regression

This article surveys the asymmetric spillover effects between the mainland China-based Shanghai Composite Index (SCI) and the Hong Kong based Hang Seng Index (HSI) using a quantile lagged regression model. Compared to previous studies, this article, based on data before and after the 2008 global financial crisis, presents a more detailed analysis, as we investigate the spillovers in terms of returns, volatilities and exchange rates between the renminbi (RMB) and the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) throughout the entire conditional return distribution, including the central quantiles, which are closely related to the normal circumstances, and the extreme quantiles, which correspond to the bear and bull markets. First, we find that the return spillovers from its lagged returns or from the other index not only vary across time but also depend on stock state. Second, while return volatility may boost the stock market in a bull market, it accelerates the decline in a bear market. Third, the depreciation of the RMB relative to the HKD does not significantly affect current returns for the HSI, while it negatively affects current returns for the SCI in a bad state after the crisis. The findings presented in this article will facilitate investors’ understanding of the two stock markets.     

Volatility spillovers and macroeconomic announcements: evidence from crude oil markets

The paper applies an event study methodologyaims to investigate the macroeconomic announcements effects on Standard&Poor’s500 and oil prices. Our results provide evidence for a significant impact of the US macroeconomic news on oil prices. This impact is split into two components, namely the direct effect (common response) and indirect effect (volatility transmission). Altogether our results show that the volatility transmission is bidirectional. Not only a significant volatility transmission from the oil market to the US stock market is revealed, but also a high volatility transmission is recorded from the oil market to the stock market especially after the release of consumption indicators.     

Volatility spillovers to the emerging financial markets during taper talk and actual tapering

On 22 May 2013, Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke surprised markets by indicating to the media that the US Fed may taper its quantitative easing programme. This set out financial volatility across the globe over the next several months that spilled over to the financial markets of emerging market economies (EMEs). It prompted many EME central banks to take varied policy actions. Looking into this widely known event, this article presents formal empirical evidence establishing that (i) conditional volatility during taper talk exceeded that during actual tapering and (ii) volatility spillovers took place ‘contemporaneously’ from the US markets to the key EMEs during this period. The results suggest importance of careful communications by advanced economy central banks and the possibility of establishing ‘rules of the monetary game’. They also suggest that in the absence of international policy coordination to contain spillovers, EME central banks should build adequate buffers and reinforce financial stability ahead of the reversal of the global interest rate cycle.     

Linear and non-linear transmission of equity return volatility: evidence from the US, Japan and Australia

This paper models the transmission of shocks between the US, Japanese and Australian equity markets. Tests for the existence of linear and non-linear transmission of volatility across the markets are performed using parametric and non-parametric techniques. In particular the size and sign of return innovations are important factors in determining the degree of spillovers in volatility. It is found that a multivariate asymmetric GARCH formulation can explain almost all of the non-linear causality between markets. These results have important implications for the construction of models and forecasts of international equity returns.     

Volatility transmission between Islamic and conventional equity markets: evidence from causality-in-variance test

This study examines whether a volatility/risk transmission exists between the Dow Jones Islamic stock and three conventional stock markets for the United States, Europe and Asia during the pre- and the in- and post-2008 crisis periods. It also explores the volatility spillover dynamics between those markets and US Monetary policy, oil prices, global financial risk and uncertainty factors. The recently developed Hafner and Herwartz (2006)’s causality-in-variance test provides evidence of risk transfers between these seemingly different equity markets, indicating a contagion between them during the full sample and the subperiods. The volatility structure of these markets is dominated by short-run volatility in the first period and by high long-run volatility in the second period. The volatility impulse response analysis indicates a similar volatility transmission pattern although it is characterized by a more volatile and short-lived structure in the second period. It also appears that the Islamic equity market responds to shocks from the risk factors and not from the oil price and the US economic policy uncertainty index during both periods.     

Volatility spillovers and determinants of contagion: Exchange rate and equity markets during crises

We study the hourly volatility spillover between the equity markets of New York (DJI), London (FTSE 100) and Tokyo (N225) and their exchange rates (USD, EUR, GBP and JPY) for the period of 2001 through 2013 covering the non-crises period, the global financial crisis and the euro debt crisis. First, we find a general increase in spillover between the equity and exchange rate markets during the crisis periods. Second, pure contagion (attributable to irrational investors’ behavior) and fundamental contagion (measured by macroeconomic fundamentals) explains the increased spillover between the FTSE 100, N225 to the DJI during the global financial crisis and from the exchange rate markets to the DJI during the euro debt crisis.     

The relationship between developed equity markets and the Pacific Basin's emerging equity markets

Using a trivariate vector autoregression (VAR) model with a proper control for heteroscedasticity, this paper investigates the relationships between the two largest equity markets in the world—the U.S. and Japan—and the four Asian emerging equity markets: Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Evidence indicates that the links between the developed markets and the Asian emerging markets (AEMs) began to increase after the stock market crash in October 1987, and have significantly intensified since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in July 1997.     

Impacts of China's crash on Asia-Pacific financial integration: Volatility interdependence,information transmission and market co-movement

This paper examines the price and volatility dynamics between China and major stock markets in the Asia-Pacific, investigating the effects of the Chinese stock market crash (2015–2016) for the first time. Employing the Bayesian VAR and BEKK GARCH, we observe that price and volatility spillover behaviours are different during the stable and stress periods. Particularly, price spillovers from China to other regional markets are more significant during a bullish period, showing that ‘good news’ emanating from China has strong impacts on its neighbours during better market condition. In the turbulent period, we observe strong shock spillover effects and enhanced volatility spillovers from China to most Asia-Pacific stock markets. This is because China, as an important trading partner and strategic financial centre shows to exert significant influence on the Asia-Pacific region through various economic channels. We also find that the Asia-Pacific stock markets spill over their shocks to China during the crisis, indicating that China is becoming more integrated with the regional financial markets.     

Spillovers between Bitcoin and other assets during bear and bull markets

This article contributes to the embryonic literature on the relations between Bitcoin and conventional investments by studying return and volatility spillovers between this largest cryptocurrency and four asset classes (equities, stocks, commodities, currencies and bonds) in bear and bull market conditions. We conducted empirical analyses based on a smooth transition VAR GARCH-in-mean model covering daily data from 19 July 2010 to 31 October 2017. We found significant evidence that Bitcoin returns are related quite closely to those of most of the other assets studies, particularly commodities, and therefore, the Bitcoin market is not isolated completely. The significance and sign of the spillovers exhibited some differences in the two market conditions and in the direction of the spillovers, with greater evidence that Bitcoin receives more volatility than it transmits. Our findings have implications for investors and fund managers who are considering Bitcoin as part of their investment strategies and for policymakers concerned about the vulnerability that Bitcoin represents to the stability of the global financial system.     

Regional spillovers across transitioning emerging and frontier equity markets: A multi-time scale wavelet analysis

The episodic wave of crises experienced across the global financial markets over the past two decades has raised questions surrounding the vulnerability of transitioning emerging and frontier equity markets to exogenous shocks. These markets, by design, have lacked the institutional or financial architecture supporting their capital base compared to more established markets. We make the initial attempt to examine four such stock markets (Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa and Israel). We perform multi-timescale analysis using wavelet-based time and frequency decompositions in order to investigate (i) whether the shocks transmitted were pure contagion or fundamental-based and (ii) also whether the dynamic evolution of stock market integration was mainly short-term or long-term. We find that prior to the 2008/09 US subprime crisis, the shocks generated pure contagion in contrast to the subprime crisis that reveals evidence supportive of fundamental-based contagion. Further, when exploring the dynamics of market integration, we find that integration strengthens over time as opposed to any immediate short-term outcome. This supports policies engendered to promote stock market resiliency and stability.     

Causal relationship between stock returns and real economic growth in the pre- and post-crisis period: evidence from China

This article empirically examines the causality in mean and variance between stock returns and real economic growth in China before and after the outbreak of US subprime crisis. Using a nonuniform weighting cross-correlation approach and the multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model, we found no causality in mean or variance between China’s stock returns and real economic growth for the period before the subprime crisis. Interestingly, however, in the period after the crisis, we detected unidirectional causality in mean from real economic growth to stock returns and unidirectional causality in variance from stock returns to real economic growth. These new findings imply that the linkage between China’s stock market and its real economy has become stronger in the post-crisis period. The implication of our results is that Chinese policymakers should continue the deregulation and improve the efficiency of the stock market to sustain high economic growth rate in the future.     

Modeling the dependence structure between default risk premium,equity return volatility and the jump risk: Evidence from a financial crisis

This paper investigates the dependence structure between default risk premium, equity return volatility and jump risk in the equity market before and during the subprime crisis. Using iTraxx CDS index spreads from Japanese and Australian markets, the paper models the different relationships that can exist in different ranges of behavior. We consider several Archimedean copula models with different tail dependence structures, namely, Gumbel, Clayton, Frank, AMH and Joe copulas. Although the dramatic change in the levels of the iTraxx CDS index, we find strong evidence that the dependence structure between CDS and stock market conditions is asymmetric and orienting toward the upper side. In addition, we find that the Japanese CDS market is more sensitive to the stock return volatility than the jump risk and the magnitude of this sensitivity is related to the market circumstances. However, Australian CDS market is more sensitive to the jump risk than stock return volatility before and during the financial crisis. This result has important implications for both global financial stability and default risk management. Specifically, the heterogeneity of markets, coupled with the diversity in the risk exposures cause the default risk premium and equity markets to exhibit different levels of sensitivity.     

Examining the relationship between stock return volatility and trading volume: new evidence from an emerging economy

Using daily stock return data for individual stocks from an emerging economy, this article examines the relationship between return volatility and trading volume under the theoretical postulate of the mixture of distributions hypothesis. The results suggest that the contemporaneous trading volume as a proxy for latent information arrival to the market did not contribute to the removal of significant ARCH or Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity effects that are found in stocks at the first stage of the investigation. The same holds for the lagged volume except for one case. This, perhaps, suggests that the trading volume (contemporaneous or lagged) is not adequately conveying information to induce traders’ views of the desirability of trade and, therefore, points to the need for searching for other micro and macro variables to be used as potential proxy for information arrival to the stock market of the emerging economy.     

中美股市价格收益波动关联性的研究

随着经济和资本市场的全球化,各国股市之间的相互影响变得越来越大。为了研究中美股市自金融危机爆发后价格收益波动的关联性,可以选取上证综指和标准普尔500作为研究样本,绘出中美股市的走势图,研究两者的联动性,运用协整检验对上证综指和标准普尔500进行实证检验和分析。结果表明,中美股市价格收益波动存在一定程度的关联性。