The asymmetric relationship between returns and implied volatility: Evidence from global stock markets

We investigate the asymmetric relationship between returns and implied volatility for 20 developed and emerging international markets. In particular we examine how the sign and size of return innovations affect the expectations of daily changes in volatility. Our empirical findings indicate that the conditional contemporaneous return-volatility relationship varies not only based on the sign of the expected returns but also upon their magnitude, according to recent results from the behavioral finance literature. We find evidence of an asymmetric and reverse return-volatility relationship in many advanced, Asian, Latin-American, European and South African markets. We show that the US market displays the highest reaction to price falls, Asian markets present the lowest sensitivity to volatility expectations, while the Euro area is characterized by a homogeneous response both in terms of direction and impact. These results may be safely attributed to cultural and societal characteristics. An extensive quantile regression analysis demonstrates that the detected asymmetric pattern varies particularly across the extreme distribution tails i.e., in the highest/lowest quantile ranges. Indeed, the classical feedback and leverage hypotheses appear not plausible, whilst behavioral theories emerge as the new paradigm in real-world applications.     

Empirical relationship between macroeconomic volatility and stock returns: Evidence from Latin American markets

Emerging market stock returns have been characterized as having higher volatility than returns in the more developed markets. But previous studies give little attention to the fundamentals driving the reported levels of volatility. This paper investigates whether dynamics in key macroeconomic indicators like exchange rates, interest rates, industrial production and money supply in four Latin American countries significantly explain market returns. The MSCI world index and the U.S. 3-month T-bill yield are also included to proxy the effects of global variables. Using a six-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model, the study finds that the global factors are consistently significant in explaining returns in all the markets. The country variables are found to impact the markets at varying significance and magnitudes. These findings may have important implications for decision-making by investors and national policymakers.     

Intraday volatility and periodicity in the Malaysian stock returns

Many empirical studies using high-frequency intraday data from a variety of markets indicate that PGARCH models give superior return volatility forecasts than those produced from standard GARCH models. This paper investigates into modelling approaches of four versions of PGARCH models of high-frequency data of Bursa Malaysia, in particular where the intraday volatility of double U-shaped pattern. It is examined through half-hourly dummy variables, quarterly-hourly dummy variables, Fourier Functional Form (FFF) based variables and spline-based variables. The non-periodic GARCH models, i.e., GARCH, EGARCH and TARCH are used for comparison of performance of best fit. The analysis show that among the four versions of PGARCH models, the half-dummy and the spline-based versions perform the best. EGARCH produced consistently superior results to other GARCH specifications.     

An examination of the relation between asymmetric risk measures,prior returns and expected daily stock returns

We use a sample of individual firm stock returns over the 1988–2009 time period to determine whether: (1) expected daily returns are related to asymmetric risk measures, (2) expected daily returns are related to the directional change of the prior day's price, and (3) our results are robust to the addition of firm size, book-to-market equity and liquidity. We find that investors are compensated for asymmetric risk; however, the positive risk–return relation is present only for our smallest firm quintile. We find a short-term return reversal present in all subgroups, except for the largest firms in our sample. We also document that the low volatility anomaly may be related to firm size and liquidity.     

Common stochastic volatility trends in international stock returns

The aim of this work is to capture common stochastic trends in weekly volatilities of the Dow Jones, Nikkei, Hang Seng and Strait Times index using a multivariate stochastic volatility (SV) model. The results suggest a very high correlation among the volatility innovations, so that it is examined whether the four series share any common stochastic trends. A Principal Component Analysis and a Factor Analysis in the state space setting reveal that two common stochastic trends can be found to underlie the volatility series. The resulting linear combinations of the volatility series no more exhibit any stochastic trend but are stationary in the state space framework. Thus, it can be concluded that volatilities of the four stock indexes are in essence co-persistent.     

Modelling return and conditional volatility exposures in global stock markets

This article empirically investigates the exposure of country-level conditional stock return volatilities to conditional global stock return volatility. It provides evidence that conditional stock market return volatilities have a contemporaneous association with global return volatilities. While all the countries included in the study exhibited a significant and positive relationship to global volatility, emerging market volatility exposures were considerably higher than developed market exposures. JEL Classification G12     

The cross-sectional relationship between stock returns and domestic and global factors in the Chinese A-share market

By using an extension of the Fama and MacBeth cross-sectional regression model, this analysis examines the relationship between stock returns and (i) a local beta, (ii) two global betas, and (iii) some firm-specific characteristics in the Chinese A-share market. The results of the analysis suggest that neither the conditional local beta nor the global betas has a significant relationship with stock returns in A-shares. Our findings indicate that firm factors, such as the book-to-market ratio and firm size, are important in explaining stock returns. However, the size effect is sensitive to the specification of the model. Finally, the results of sub-period tests indicate that the A-share market did not become increasingly integrated with either the world stock markets or the Hong Kong stock market over the period 1995–2002.

Cross section of option returns and idiosyncratic stock volatility

This paper presents a robust new finding that delta-hedged equity option return decreases monotonically with an increase in the idiosyncratic volatility of the underlying stock. This result cannot be explained by standard risk factors. It is distinct from existing anomalies in the stock market or volatility-related option mispricing. It is consistent with market imperfections and constrained financial intermediaries. Dealers charge a higher premium for options on high idiosyncratic volatility stocks due to their higher arbitrage costs. Controlling for limits to arbitrage proxies reduces the strength of the negative relation between delta-hedged option return and idiosyncratic volatility by about 40%.     

Idiosyncratic volatility and cross‐sectional stock returns in Southeast Asian stock markets

We examine the role of idiosyncratic risk in five ASEAN markets of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Our research was motivated by the findings of Ang et al. (2006, 2009) of a ‘puzzling’ negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and 1‐month ahead stock returns in developed markets and the suggestion of the ubiquity of these results in other markets. In contrast, we find no evidence of an idiosyncratic volatility puzzle in these Asian stock markets; instead, we document a positive relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and returns in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia and no relationship in the Philippines. The idiosyncratic volatility trading strategy could result in significant trading profits in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and to some extent in Indonesia. Our study underscores the fact that generalizing empirical results obtained in developed stock markets to new and emerging markets could potentially be misleading.     

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.     

Correlations in price changes and volatility across international stock markets

The short-run interdependence of prices and price volatilityacross three major international stock market is studied. Dailyopening and closing prices of major stock indexes for the Tokyo,London, and New York stock markets are examined. The analysisutilizes the autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (ARCH)family of statistical models to explore these pricing relationship.Evidence of price volatility spillovers from New York to Tokyo,London to Tokyo, and New York to London is observed, but noprice volatility spillover effects in other directions are foundfor the pre-October 1987 period.     

On the conditional relationship between beta and return in international stock returns

This paper examines the conditional relationship between beta and return in international stock returns between January 1970 and July 1998 using the approach of Pettengill et al. [Pettengill, G., Sundaran, S., & Mathur, I. (1995). The conditional relation between beta and return. J Financ Quant Anal, 30, 101–116] (1995).Consistent with previous research, there is a flat unconditional relationship between beta and return. However, when the sample is split into up market and down market months, there is support for the relationship. There is a significant positive relationship between beta and return in up market months and a significant negative relationship between beta and return in down market months. Subsidiary results highlight a January effect in the conditional beta and return relationship.     

Correlated implied volatility with jump and cross section of stock returns

I derive the option‐implied volatility allowing for nonzero correlation between price jump and diffusive risk to examine the information content of implied diffusive, jump risks and their implied covariance in the cross‐sectional variation of future returns. This study documents a strong predictive power of realized volatility and correlated implied volatility spread (RV ? IV_C) in the cross section of stock returns. The difference of realized volatility with the implied diffusive volatility (RV ? σ_C), jump risk (RV ? γ_C) and covariance (RV ? ICov) can forecast future returns. These RV ? σ_C and RV ? γ_C anomalies are robustly persistent even after controlling for market, size, book‐to‐market value, momentum and liquidity factors.     

Empirical study on relationship between persistence-free trading volume and stock return volatility

A large body of literature finds that the unexpected trading volume, which is obtained by filtering out time trend, autocorrelation, can be used as a proxy of the information flow and can explain the heteroskedasticity of stock return in some degrees. In this paper, we find that the heteroskedasticity exists in the unexpected trading volume, and we further generate a new information proxy by filtering out the heteroskedasticity from the unexpected trading volume, termed “persistence-free trading volume”. Our empirical results indicate that the persistence-free trading volume can explain the heteroskedasticity of the return better than the unexpected trading volume; moreover, the explanatory power of the persistence-free trading volume is positively related to market maturity.     

The current account and stock returns

In this paper, I use stock return data to test an intertemporal model of the current account. I find that the model performs well in three countries: the U.K., Canada, and Japan. Hall [Hall, R.E., 1978. Stochastic implication of the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis: theory and evidence. J. Polit. Econ. 86 (6), 971–987] points out that because stock price predicts the future state of the economy, it predicts consumption. Assuming that consumption depends on permanent income, my empirical finding indicates that a representative agent smoothes consumption based on stock market information. In other words, stock market returns yield information about permanent income.     

Stock returns,trading volume,and volatility: The case of African stock markets

The presence of the African Stock Markets (ASMs) in the global frontier markets indices confirms their global portfolio diversification role. This study investigates the asymmetric and intertemporal causality among the stock returns, trading volume, and volatility of eight ASMs. Results based on the linear model reveal that return generally Granger cause trading volume. However, evidence from the quantile regression shows that lagged trading volume has a negative causal effect on returns at low quantiles and positive causal effects at high quantiles. This evidence is consistent with volume-return equilibrium models, disposition and overconfidence models, and information asymmetry models. The positive causal effects of volatility on volume support the dispersion of beliefs model. In contrast, intertemporal evidence of contemporaneous and lagged causal relationships from trading volume to volatility supports the mixture of distribution hypothesis, sequential information acquisition hypothesis, and dynamic efficient market hypothesis. Volume-return and return-volume causality dynamics are quantile-specific and therefore driven by market conditions. However, the volume-volatility causality is dependent on volatility regimes. The linear model results confirm how model misspecification can distort and even reverse empirical evidence relative to nonlinear models.     

Asymmetric volatility connectedness between Islamic stock and commodity markets

This paper examines the asymmetric volatility connectedness amongst the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index (DJIM) and the Brent crude oil, gold, and silver markets. We use the Diebold and Yilmaz methodology to examine asymmetric volatility connectedness associated with bad (negative semi-variance) and good (positive semi-variance) volatility in these markets. We identify significant volatility connectedness between the DJIM and commodity markets, with the DJIM and Brent oil markets being the largest net contributors of spillovers. Furthermore, the evidence on semi-volatility connectedness displays asymmetric behavior. Bad volatilities are associated with net transmission of spillovers to other markets, except for silver. Our results have significant implications for investors dealing with the DJIM and commodity markets in terms of asset management and diversification.     

Empirical analysis of dynamic correlations of stock returns: evidence from Chinese A-share and B-share markets

This paper examines the dynamic correlation structure between A-share and B-share stock returns based on three different measures of correlation coefficients. Testing the models by employing daily stock-return data for the period from 1996 through 2003, we reach the following empirical conclusions. First, the correlation coefficients between A-share and B-share stock returns are time varying. Second, the dynamic path of the correlation coefficients indicates that the correlation coefficients are significantly correlated with the trend factor. Third, there is a substantial spillover effect from the Asian crisis to Chinese stock-return dynamic correlations. Fourth, the evidence suggests that the time-varying correlations are significantly associated with excessive trading activity as measured by excessive trading volumes and high–low price differentials. Fifth, the correlation between A-share and B-share markets has increased since the relaxation of the restriction on B-share market investments by domestic investors.     

A careful re-examination of seasonality in international stock markets: Comment on sentiment and stock returns

In questioning Kamstra, Kramer, and Levi’s (2003) finding of an economically and statistically significant seasonal affective disorder (SAD) effect, Kelly and Meschke (2010) make errors of commission and omission. They misrepresent their empirical results, claiming that the SAD effect arises due to a “mechanically induced” effect that is non-existent, labeling the SAD effect a “turn-of-year” effect (when in fact their models and ours separately control for turn-of-year effects), and ignoring coefficient-estimate patterns that strongly support the SAD effect. Our analysis of their data shows, even using their low-power statistical tests, there is significant international evidence supporting the SAD effect. Employing modern, panel/time-series statistical methods strengthens the case dramatically. Additionally, Kelly and Meschke represent the finance, psychology, and medical literatures in misleading ways, describing some findings as opposite to those reported by the researchers themselves, and choosing selective quotes that could easily lead readers to a distorted understanding of these findings.