Does institutional ownership increase stock return volatility? Evidence from Vietnam

The literature on institutional ownership and stock return volatility often ignores small emerging countries. However, this issue is more profound, due to the large size of institutional investors and small stock market size, in emerging equity markets. This paper examines the effects of the institutional ownership on the firm-level volatility of stock returns in Vietnam. Our data cover most of non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange for the period 2006–2012. Employing different analysis techniques for panel data and controlling for possible endogeneity problems, our empirical results suggest that institutional investors stabilize the stock return volatility. Moreover, we document that: i) the stabilizing effect of institutional investor ownership is higher in dividend paying firms, and ii) if firms are paying out more dividends, this stabilizing effect is greater. Our results outline the important role of institutional investors in maintaining the stability in emerging stock markets.     

Brand equity of stock exchange as a mediator in financial decisions

The aim of this study is to investigate investors’ brand equity perception for a stock exchange as a mediator in financial investment decisions. An online survey is conducted in two samples in the developed market context of Ireland and developing one of Turkey. Results indicate that although investors’ risk perception has a negative impact on investment decisions, this impact is partially mediated by brand equity of stock exchanges in question. This mediating effect further differs by the market context, with a larger effect size in the developing Turkish market. It can be concluded that although developing markets face higher volatility in macroeconomic conditions, it could be possible to spread the risk resulting from this volatility with an effective brand equity management, which is found to be especially important in developing markets. The study offers some practical implications to policy makers and managerial sides regarding the need for a careful perception management aimed at individual investors.     

Family control and idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from listed firms in Hong Kong

Family control of listed firms in Hong Kong is substantively different and materially higher than in the US which could offer different insights into the effects of family ownership on corporate transparency. Using a sample of listed Hong Kong firms and idiosyncratic volatility as a proxy for firm-specific stock price informativeness, we find that family firms exhibit higher idiosyncratic volatility of stock prices than similar non-family firms. Further, the relation between family ownership and idiosyncratic volatility is weaker for firms with higher leverage but stronger in periods before equity issues. Additionally, we find that family firms disclose more information, particularly related to operations, than nonfamily firms in annual reports. These results are consistent with the argument that family firms disclose more information than their nonfamily peers to reassure skeptical outside investors that they are not expropriating their investment.     

Beyond CAPM: estimating the cost of equity considering idiosyncratic risks

The present study proposes a new evaluation approach aimed at estimating the cost of equity through standardized models which consider an innovative set of firm-specific information on the main unsystematic risks which are typical of any business. Our objective is extending the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) by defining a standard formula for quantifying the premium for certain idiosyncratic risks as a function of a new set of firm-specific quantitative information. We define two econometric models, for listed and non-listed firms respectively, which consider five idiosyncratic risk factors: firm size, value factor, operating risks, financial structure and stock market price volatility. The models were tested on a sample of European non-financial companies. The empirical results show that while the CAPM systematically underestimates the cost of equity, the proposed models correctly estimate its expected value; furthermore, they show a slight improvement also in terms of estimates’ volatility. Due to their efficacy and ease of use, the proposed models represent a valid practical tool for investors, analysts and professional evaluators. This work contributes to the existing literature by proposing a typologically innovative extension of the CAPM set of explanatory variables, defining and testing new models for the estimation of the unsystematic risks’ spread of the cost of equity based on an original set of firm-specific accounting and market information.     

Determinants of idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from the Indian stock market

This paper investigates whether firm-specific characteristics explain idiosyncratic volatility in the stocks of non-financial firms traded in the Indian stock market. It employs the linear time series five-factor model, augmented with a liquidity factor and the conditional EGARCH model, to extract yearly idiosyncratic volatility. We estimate a panel data regression to quantify the relationship between firm-specific characteristics and the volatility of individual securities. The results show that idiosyncratic volatility is significant in emerging markets such as India, and that cross-sectional return variations of firms are associated with firm-specific characteristics such as firm size, book-to-market ratio, momentum, liquidity, cash flow-to-price ratio, and returns on assets. We find that the idiosyncratic risk documented in this study is associated with smaller size of company, higher liquidity, low momentum, high book-to-market ratio, and low cash flow-to-price ratio. The findings suggest need to develop alternative tools to make investment decisions in emerging markets.     

Dynamic correlations and volatility linkages between stocks and sukuk: Evidence from international markets

An understanding of volatility and co-movements in financial markets is important for portfolio allocation and risk management practices. The current financial crisis caused a shrinkage in values of most assets, an increased volatility and a threat to the survival of several institutional investors. Managing risks and returns within the classic portfolio theory, when correlations across securities soar, is increasingly challenging. In this paper, we investigate the volatility behavior and the co-movements between sukuk and international stock indexes. Symmetric multivariate GARCH models with dynamic conditional correlations (DCC) were estimated under Student-t distribution. We provide evidence of high correlations between sukuk and US and EU stock markets, without finding the well-known flight to quality behavior affecting Islamic bonds. We also show that volatility linkages between sukuk and regional market indexes are higher during financial crisis. We argue that investors could obtain diversification benefits including sukuk in a well-diversified equity portfolio, given their lower volatility compared to equity. But higher volatility linkages and dynamic correlations during financial crises show that they are hybrid instruments between bonds and equity. Our findings are relevant for institutional investors and asset managers that include Islamic bonds in a diversified portfolio.     

Asset pricing in China's domestic stock markets: Is there a logic?

China's stock markets have grown rapidly since their inception and have become an increasingly important emerging market for international investors. However, there are few systematic studies on how asset prices are formed in Chinese domestic equity markets; popular financial media even depict the market as irrational. In this paper, we study the asset pricing mechanism in the nascent Chinese stock markets, with the objective of identifying variables that capture the cross-sectional variation in average stock returns. We focus on the effects of various market imperfections in China. We find that while the market risk (beta) is not priced, there is a significantly negative relationship between firm-specific risk and expected returns. Chinese investors are willing to pay a significant premium for more liquid stocks or for dividend-paying stocks. Furthermore, investors value local A-shares more if there are offshore counterparts (e.g., B- and H-shares) for foreigners, implying that a Chinese firm with a foreign shareholder base has a lower cost of capital, ceteris paribus. Lastly, as with U.S. and other mature markets, firm size and the book-to-market ratio are systematically related to stock returns. Given market imperfections, stocks are priced rather rationally in China, despite the widespread perception to the contrary.     

Risk,return, and liquidity during Ramadan: Evidence from Indonesian and Malaysian stock markets

Indonesia and Malaysia are common in religion; however, the two countries have different developments in their equity markets. This study investigates the risk, return, and liquidity during Ramadan for the Indonesia and Malaysia stock markets. We find that the volatility is higher around Ramadan for the Indonesia stock market, while displays dynamic patterns in different phases around the month of Ramadan for Malaysia. Despite the changing risk during Ramadan, the risk-adjusted return remains unchanged. Furthermore, this study finds that the liquidity in most stock index markets of the two countries is higher around Ramadan. These findings support the notion that Ramadan affects investors’ risk-taking attitude and facilitates the trade in stocks.     

Illiquidity and volatility spillover effects in equity markets during and after the global financial crisis: An MEM approach

Even though the volatility spillover effects in global equity markets have been documented extensively, the transmission of illiquidity across national borders has not. In this paper, we propose a multiplicative error model (MEM) for the dynamics of illiquidity. We empirically study the illiquidity and volatility spillover effects in eight developed equity markets during and after the recent financial crisis. We find that equity markets are interdependent, both in terms of volatility and illiquidity. Most markets show an increase in volatility and illiquidity spillover effects during the crisis. Furthermore, we find volatility and illiquidity transmission are highly relevant. Illiquidity is a more important channel than volatility in propagating the shocks in equity markets. Our results show an overall crucial role for illiquidity in US markets in influencing other equity markets' illiquidity and volatility. These findings are of importance for policy makers as well as institutional and private investors.     

Trading externalities and new equity issues in emerging markets

The volatility in emerging market finance over the last decade has highlighted the importance of developing equity exchanges to enhance risk sharing between international investors. Debt markets do not allow for as much risk sharing. Theoretically, stock market development involves trading externalities, as the decision by one firm to list provides a positive spillover for other firms considering an initial offering. This theory thus has a clear policy implication in terms of deliberate government action to promote stock market development. This paper tests empirically for the existence of trading externalities in developing countries, and finds evidence of such externalities for Latin American, but not Asian, stock markets.     

Do foreign investors improve stock price informativeness in emerging equity markets? Evidence from Vietnam

Most of previous studies on stock price informativeness tend to focus on the context of mature stock markets while this issue is more acute in emerging equity markets where regulatory and institutional structure are weak. This paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership and stock price informativeness in Vietnam stock market. We utilize a data set covering firm attributes of non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange over the period 2007–2015. Employing different estimation techniques for panel data, the empirical results indicate that foreign investors improve stock price informativeness in Vietnam stock market. The finding from this paper confirms the important role of foreign investors in emerging equity markets.     

The pricing of currency risk in Japan

Previous work on the pricing of exchange-rate risk has primarily focused on US firms and, surprisingly, found stock returns were not significantly affected by exchange-rate fluctuations. In this paper we conduct an in-depth investigation that examines whether exchange-rate risk is priced in the equity market of Japan using an intertemporal asset pricing testing procedure that allows risk premia to change through time in response to changes in macroeconomic conditions. Our multiperiod asset pricing tests show that the foreign exchange-rate risk premium is a significant component of Japanese stock returns. Specifically, the results suggest that currency-risk exposure commands a significant risk premium for multinationals and high-exporting Japanese firms. The currency-risk factor is found to be less influential in explaining the behavior of average returns for low-exporting and domestic firms. However, it is shown to exhibit large return volatility that is likely to be perceived by investors, who wish to control portfolio risk, as an important underlying source of risk. Furthermore, Japanese stock returns are found to be related to the relative distress and size factors above and beyond the covariation explained by the currency-risk factor.     

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.     

Does international cross-listing improve the information environment

We investigate whether cross-listing in the U.S. affects the information environment for non-U.S. stocks. Our findings suggest cross-listing has an asymmetric impact on stock price informativeness around the world, as measured by firm-specific stock return variation. Cross-listing improves price informativeness for developed market firms. For firms in emerging markets, however, cross-listing decreases price informativeness. The added analyst coverage associated with cross-listing likely explains the findings in emerging markets, rather than changes in liquidity, ownership, or accounting quality. Our results indicate that the added analyst coverage fosters the production of marketwide information, rather than firm-specific information.     

Informed Trading in Stock and Option Markets

We investigate the contribution of option markets to price discovery, using a modification of Hasbrouck's (1995) "information share" approach. Based on five years of stock and options data for 60 firms, we estimate the option market's contribution to price discovery to be about 17% on average. Option market price discovery is related to trading volume and spreads in both markets, and stock volatility. Price discovery across option strike prices is related to leverage, trading volume, and spreads. Our results are consistent with theoretical arguments that informed investors trade in both stock and option markets, suggesting an important informational role for options.     

How Do Capital Structure Policies of Emerging Markets Differ from Those of Developed Economies? Survey Evidence from Korea

We examine the capital structure policies of Korean firms using survey data for business group (chaebol) firms and independent firms. Our results are compared with findings in earlier studies for developed economies: Graham and Harvey (2001) for the United States and Brounen et al. (2004, 2006) for Europe. Korean chief financial officers are concerned about financial flexibility and volatility of earnings when issuing debt; they are concerned about target debt ratio maintenance and recent stock price increases when issuing equity. In contrast to independent firms, chaebol firms are more concerned about differences in corporate tax rates between foreign and domestic markets and the risk of refinancing in bad times. Chaebol firms are less likely to issue debt when faced with insufficient internal funds, which indicates that active internal capital markets are at work among the firms in a business group. Our results suggest that, compared to U. S. and European firms, Korean firms are under more pressure from their peers in formulating capital structure policies, consider equity a cheap source of financing, are less concerned with the dilution of earnings per share, and less frequently provide shares to employees as compensation.     

Terrorism,country attributes,and the volatility of stock returns

This study investigates the interplay between terrorism and finance, focusing on the stock return volatility of American firms targeted by terrorist attacks. We find terrorism risk is an important factor in explaining the volatility of stock returns, which should be taken into account when modelling volatility. Using a volatility event-study approach and a new bootstrapping technique, we find volatility increases on the day of the attack and remain significant for at least fifteen days following the day of the attack. Cross-sectional analysis of the abnormal volatility indicates that the impact of terrorist attacks differs according to the country characteristics in which the incident occurred. We find that firms operating in wealthier, or more democratic countries, face greater volatility in stock returns relative to firms operating in developing countries. Firm exposure varies with the nature of country location, with country wealth and level of democracy playing an important role in explaining the likelihood of a terrorist attack. Our results show that despite significant terrorist events this past decade, stock markets in developed countries have not taken terrorist risk into sufficient consideration.     

Stock price informativeness on the sensitivity of strategic M&A investment to Q

Using a strategic merger sample that covers the period from 1985 to 2011, we find that the acquirer’s stock price firm-specific information, the new information created by investors about the value of firm fundamentals, increases the positive sensitivity of strategic merger investment to the acquirer’s Q; the target’s stock price firm-specific information increases the negative sensitivity of merger investment to the target’s Q. These results suggest that managers learn from financial markets in identifying strategic merger investment opportunities by transferring assets from poorly managed firms to well managed firms. In addition, the target’s stock price firm-specific information itself increases the acquisition size, indicating that informed acquirer managers are more likely to take out large merger investment. Last but not the least, stock price informativeness increases merger synergies and post-merger performance, suggesting that informed managers make better merger investment that increases shareholder value. Our study contributes to the recent increasing stream of studies on managerial learning from the market.     

Institutional investor horizon and stock price synchronicity: Do product market competition and analyst coverage matter?

This paper provides new insights into the relation between institutional investment horizon and stock price synchronicity and investigates whether this relationship depends on the intensity of product market competition and analyst coverage. Based on a sample of French listed companies, we find that long-term (short-term) institutional investors are associated with lower (higher) stock price synchronicity. The results also show that the negative effect of long-term institutional investors is more accentuated for firms in less competitive markets and with high analyst coverage. An additional analysis shows that the synchronicity reduction effect does not vary during the financial crisis. Overall, these findings suggest that unlike their short-term counterparts, long term investors reduce asymmetric information and help disseminate firm-specific information into stock prices.     

The determination and international transmission of stock market volatility

This paper extends the literature on low-frequency analysis of the causes and transmission of stock market volatility. It uses end-monthly data on stock market returns, interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, and industrial production for five countries (Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the US) from July 1973 to December 1994. Efficient portfolios of world, European, and Japanese/US equity are first constructed, the existence of multivariate cointegrating relationships between them is demonstrated, and the transmission of conditional volatility between them is described. The transmission of conditional volatility from world equity markets and national business cycle variables to national stock markets is then modeled. Among the main findings are: first, world equity market volatility is caused mostly by volatility in Japanese/US markets and transmitted to European markets, and second, changes in the volatility of inflation are associated with changes of the opposite sign in stock market volatility in all markets where a significant effect is found to exist. To the extent that the volatility of inflation is positively related to its level, this implies that low inflation tends to be associated with high stock market volatility.