Bond risk, bond return volatility, and the term structure of interest rates

This paper explores the time variation in the bond risk, as measured by the covariation of bond returns with stock returns and consumption growth, and in the volatility of bond returns. A robust stylized fact in empirical finance is that the spread between the yields on long- and short-term bonds forecasts future excess returns on bonds at varying horizons positively; in addition, the short-term nominal interest rate forecasts both the stock return volatility and the exchange rate volatility positively. This paper presents evidence that movements in both the short-term nominal interest rate and the yield spread are positively related to changes in the subsequent realized bond risk and bond return volatility. The yield spread appears to proxy for business conditions, while the short rate appears to proxy for inflation and economic uncertainty. A decomposition of bond betas into a real cash flow risk component and a discount rate risk component shows that yield spreads have offsetting effects in each component. A widening yield spread is correlated with a reduced cash-flow (or inflationary) risk for bonds, but it is also correlated with a larger discount rate risk for bonds. The short rate only forecasts the discount rate component of the bond beta.     

INFORMATION IN THE YIELD CURVE: A MACRO‐FINANCE APPROACH

We use a macro‐finance model, incorporating macroeconomic and financial factors, to study the term premium in the US bond market. Estimating the model using Bayesian techniques, we find that a single factor explains most of the variation in bond risk premiums. Furthermore, the model‐implied risk premiums account for up to 40% of the variability of one‐ and two‐year excess returns. Using the model to decompose yield spreads into an expectations and a term premium component, we find that, although this decomposition does not seem important to forecast economic activity, it is crucial to forecast inflation for most forecasting horizons. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Fama-French’s five-factor model relation with interest rates and macro variables

Innovations in variables describing future investment opportunities command a risk premium and are correlated with Fama-French factors. As showed in literature, shocks to the aggregate dividend yield and term spread, default spread, and one-month T-bill rate are proxies for HML and SMB factors. However, in the context of five-factor model, they cannot explain RMW. As CPI is related to operational profitability, and so does RMW, we include its unanticipated shocks in the set of macro variables and factors to help explaining the cross section of returns. In the presence of CPI, RMW loses its explanatory power, and, combined with term structure’s slope innovations, all Fama-French factors lose their explanatory ability and the pricing errors become statistically close to zero. We show that for US data, inflation’s innovations not only proxy for RMW, but a model including only excess market returns, shocks to CPI and term structure’s slope explain the cross section of average returns better than innovations to the previous literature’s four-variable set and Fama-French five-factor model.     

On downside risk predictability through liquidity and trading activity: A dynamic quantile approach

Most downside risk models implicitly assume that returns are a sufficient statistic with which to forecast the daily conditional distribution of a portfolio. In this paper, we analyze whether the variables that proxy for market-wide liquidity and trading conditions convey valid information for forecasting the quantiles of the conditional distribution of several representative market portfolios, including volume- and value-weighted market portfolios, and several Book-to-Market- and Size-sorted portfolios. Using dynamic quantile regression techniques, we report evidence of conditional tail predictability in terms of these variables. A comprehensive backtesting analysis shows that this link can be exploited in dynamic quantile modelling, in order to considerably improve the performances of day-ahead Value at Risk forecasts.     

Stock market reactions to upside and downside volatility of Bitcoin: A quantile analysis

We investigate how sensitive developed and emerging equity markets are to volatility dynamics of Bitcoin during tranquil, bear, and bull market regimes. Intraday price fluctuations of Bitcoin are represented by three measures of realized volatility, viz. total variance, upside semivariance, and downside semivariance. Our empirical analysis relies on a quantile regression framework, after orthogonalizing raw returns with respect to an array of relevant global factors and accounting for structural shifts in the series. The results suggest that developed-market returns are positively related to the realized variance proxy across various market conditions, while emerging-market returns are positively (negatively) correlated with realized variance during bear (normal and bull) market periods. The upside (downside) component of realized variance has a negative (positive) influence on returns of either market category, and the dependence structure is highly asymmetric across the return distribution. Additionally, we document that developed and emerging markets are more sensitive to downside volatility than to upside volatility when they enter tranquil or bull territory. Our results offer practical implications for policymakers and investors.     

CAPM模型在上海股票市场的有效性检验

根据资本资产定价模型(CAPM),从上海A股市场随机抽取100支股票,计算它们的收益率,选择上证综合指数为市场组合的市场指数,并利用双层回归分析方法对2007年1月1日至2011年12月31日这段时间的100支股票进行实证检验。虽然很多国外研究表明,CAPM模型在一定程度上能够解释市场收益,并在资产估价、资本预算、投资风险分析方面已经得到了广泛应用,同时也有利于投资者构建最优的证券投资组合,但本文实证研究结果发现,CAPM模型并不适合中国的股票市场,股票预期收益率和系统风险之间不仅不存在正相关的关系,而且也不存在线性关系,除了系统风险外,非系统风险在解释股票收益上也具有一定的作用。     

Default-risky bond prices with jumps,liquidity risk and incomplete information

This paper provides a default-risky bond valuation model, which assumes that the issuer’s credit quality, modelled by the intensity of default, is driven by a continuous-time Markov chain. The model accounts for default and liquidity risk as well as incomplete information. A full-information semimartingale representation of a liquid defaultable bond price, which separates three different types of risks—default, interest-rate and credit-quality, is obtained. The illiquidity is modelled as exogenously specified stochastic reduction in the price of the bond, which adds more risks for the investors. A model of a market with partially informed investors, belonging to specific investor classes and having access to discrete information sets about credit quality, was specified. Valuations of defaultable bonds in this market were provided as well as price impacts of the new information releases.      

Catastrophe bond spread and hurricane arrival frequency

Catastrophe bonds are the most successful alternative risk transfer tools in transferring catastrophic insurance risk to capital markets. This research provides empirical insights about the predictive power of catastrophe bond spreads in forecasting catastrophe arrival frequency as a test of the catastrophe bond market’s price discovery efficacy. Primary-market data for cat bonds, catastrophe arrival frequency data for hurricanes and windstorms, and climate variable data for Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation and CO₂ change rate are collected over June 1997 to March 2013 to examine this power. The calibration results show that cat bond spreads convey valuable incremental information as measured by the Akaike Information Criterion. Furthermore, in an out-sample test for hurricanes prediction, merging the conventional climate variables approach with our market-based forward-looking predictions reduces prediction errors by about 3% over the sample period. As the catastrophe bond market continues to grow with increasing trading volume, a needed ingredient to enhance market efficiency, we would expect this measure of improvement to accentuate.     

Credit default swaps and sovereign debt markets

This study investigates the link between the price discovery dynamics in sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) and bond markets and the degree of financial integration of emerging markets. Using CDS and sovereign bond spreads, the price discovery mechanism was tested using a vector error correction model. Financial integration is measured using news-based methods. We find that sovereign CDS and bond markets are co-integrated. In five out of seven sovereigns (71%), the bond market leads in price discovery by adjusting to new information regarding credit risk before CDS. In 29% of times, CDS markets are the source of price discovery. We also find a positive correlation of 0.67 between the degree of financial integration and the bond market information share. The evidence suggests that changes in sovereign credit risk and bond yields are significantly influenced by common external (global) factors, while country-specific factors play an insignificant role.     

Tax effects in the dutch bond market

In this paper an analysis of the Dutch bond market is made. The technique used is linear programming. Given the fact that coupon income and capital gains are taxed differently and that some investors are tax-exempt in the Netherlands, it is shown that there are overpriced bonds in the market. This is as can be expected. But it is found that there are bonds that a rational investor would never hold in his portpolio, whatever the tax rate the investor has to pay on coupon income. Given the fact that the Dutch bond market is very illiquid for some bonds, an analysis of the effects of bid-ask spreads is made. It is shown that the effect of these spreads cannot explain the existence of bonds that are overpriced. It is not clear where these remaining overpricings stem from.     

流动性风险对我国公司债券信用利差的影响——基于次贷危机背景的研究

基于2007年4月至2009年9月的周数据,就次贷危机时期流动性风险对我国公司债券信用利差的变化进行了实证研究。结果表明,公司债券信用利差的变化与非流动性指标之间存在稳定的正相关关系,且在控制其他变量之后该结果依然是稳健的,说明流动性风险已融入我国公司债券信用利差中。尤其是在次贷危机背景下,流动性风险对信用利差的影响显著增强了。     

An update on EMU sovereign yield spread drivers in times of crisis: A panel data analysis

We empirically investigate the determinants of EMU sovereign bond yield spreads with respect to the German bund. Using panel data techniques, we examine the role of a wide set of potential drivers. To our knowledge, this paper presents one of the most exhaustive compilations of the variables used in the literature to study the behaviour of sovereign yield spreads and, in particular, to gauge the effect on these spreads of changes in market sentiment and risk aversion. We use a sample of both central and peripheral countries from January 1999 to December 2012 and assess whether there were significant changes after the outbreak of the euro area debt crisis. Our results suggest that the rise in sovereign risk in central countries can only be partially explained by the evolution of local macroeconomic variables in those countries. Besides, without exception, the marginal effects of sovereign spread drivers (specifically, the variables that measure global market sentiment) increased during the crisis compared to the pre-crisis period, especially in peripheral countries. Moreover, the increase in the significance of the banking level of indebtedness and foreign bank's claims in the public sector (mainly in peripheral countries) along with the crisis unfolding seems to highlight the interconnection between private and public debt and thus, between banking and sovereign crises.     

Switching interest rate sensitivity regimes of U.S. Corporates

We study interest rate sensitivities of U.S. investment grade BBB-rated and high yield corporate bonds over the period of 2001–2016. Our methodology assesses the capital gains of corporate bond portfolios and risk-free government bond portfolios, using average coupon and blended yield indices for the U.S. market. For both, U.S. BBB and high yield corporate bonds, we evidence the switching, from positive to negative interest rate sensitivity, occurring over the transition from the normal economic conditions to the periods of economic distress and vice-versa. The proposed theoretical explanation of such binary behavior posits an interrelation between interest rate and creditworthiness of issuers, which varies according to the phases of the business cycle. This research advances an economic understanding of interest rate risk management and sheds light on how financial institutions may develop strategies that hedge against downside risk.     

Jump risk and cross section of stock returns: evidence from China’s stock market

Various studies have confirmed the existence of jumps in different financial markets. However, there is sparse theoretical or empirical effort to examine the dynamic relation between jump risk and cross-sectional expected stock returns. We follow a stylized SDF-based diffusion-jump model to examine its testable implications about the relation between cross-section expected excess returns and variations in jump intensities across stocks. The zero-cost portfolio, exploiting the return spreads between the top and bottom decile portfolios formed on jump intensity, could earn an annualized return as high as 24% with an annualized Sharpe ratio of 1.67. A Fama-MacBeth test shows that stock excess returns monotonically decrease in jump intensity even after controlling for other common risk factors.     

年报信息披露的超常收益及其影响因素

与年报盈余公告效应的研究不同,本文在拓展年报信息考虑范围的基础上,检验盈余信息、股利信息、账市比、成长性和财务风险等年报披露信息对不同公司规模的超常收益的解释能力。研究结果表明,年报信息披露窗口存在显著超常收益,账市比、盈余信息、股利信息对该超常收益有显著的解释能力,因为在大多数公司规模中,账市比、盈余信息的极端值含有股票未来收益的信息,账市比、盈余信息、股利信息对超常收益有显著的边际影响;但成长性和财务风险等年报信息仅对部分公司规模的超常收益有解释能力。     

Land of addicts? an empirical investigation of habit‐based asset pricing models

This paper studies the ability of a general class of habit‐based asset pricing models to match the conditional moment restrictions implied by asset pricing theory. We treat the functional form of the habit as unknown, and estimate it along with the rest of the model's finite dimensional parameters. Using quarterly data on consumption growth, assets returns and instruments, our empirical results indicate that the estimated habit function is nonlinear, that habit formation is better described as internal rather than external, and the estimated time‐preference parameter and the power utility parameter are sensible. In addition, the estimated habit function generates a positive stochastic discount factor (SDF) proxy and performs well in explaining cross‐sectional stock return data. We find that an internal habit SDF proxy can explain a cross‐section of size and book‐market sorted portfolio equity returns better than (i) the Fama and French ( 1993 ) three‐factor model, (ii) the Lettau and Ludvigson ( 2001b ) scaled consumption CAPM model, (iii) an external habit SDF proxy, (iv) the classic CAPM, and (v) the classic consumption CAPM. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The association of default risk factors with the systematic risk of corporate bonds

This study examines the association between bond betas and default risk factors. We find that both long-term debt and the relative ratio of long-term debt to short-term debt increase the bond beta; two measures of profitability, net income/total assets and EBIT/total assets and a cash flow measure of cash flow from operations/total assets decrease the bond beta. A proxy measure of standard deviation of returns is also significantly negatively related to bond betas, confirming the prediction from the option pricing model. In addition, by using new cash flow measures in the discriminant analysis, we improve on the successful prediction rate of bond ratings.     

Robust performance measures for high yield bond funds

We examine performance measures for high yield bond mutual funds, which are a considerable percentage of taxable bond investments, but have not been widely studied. High yield funds exhibit persistence in their monthly returns, so we calculate Sharpe ratios using methods that incorporate the serial correlation of returns. We find that high yield fund rankings using raw returns and conventionally calculated Sharpe ratios are different from those using trailing standard deviations and robust standard errors. High yield fund rankings based on robust Sharpe ratios also differ from those computed using multi-index Jensen's alphas and information ratios. When measured by risk-adjusted returns, high yield bond fund managers do not add much value.