Does independent directors’’ monitoring affect reputation? Evidence from the stock and labor markets

Using novel data on independent directors’ opinions in China, we investigate the stock and labor market effects prompted by independent directors publicly saying “no” to major board decisions. We find that the market reacts negatively to modified director opinions, but positively to firms interlocked with the directors who said “no.” We further find substantial turnover and decline in board seats after independent directors issue modified opinions. Overall, we identify a dilemma in China whereby the labor market does not reward vigilant directors for standing up to firm insiders, although investors add a premium to effective board monitoring.     

Do rating agencies’ decisions impact stock risks? Evidence from European markets

This article analyses the effect of rating agencies’ decisions on stock risks for European issuers concerning five kinds of events. Our approach is an extension of dummy variable regression event study methodology, using a GARCH(1,1) estimation to capture simultaneously the impact on both systematic and specific stock risks. This new methodology allows us to obtain both global results by categories of rating decisions and individual results, event by event. We document, globally, a positive impact of upgrading on systematic risk, a negative impact of rating confirmation on specific risk, and no significant impact in all other cases. Regarding event-by-event results, the proportion of rating actions exhibiting a significant effect on risk is almost always observed between 20% and 30%. The weak evidence of a global effect on systematic risk may be due to the lack of informational content of the rating decisions on the stocks’ risk, or the existence of rebalancing effects between systematic and idiosyncratic risks. Furthermore, it should be noticed that the decline in volatility in case of a rating affirmed is an insight of the certification role played by the agencies.     

Are RiskMetrics forecasts good enough? Evidence from 31 stock markets

Academic research has highlighted the inherent flaws within the RiskMetrics model and demonstrated the superiority of the GARCH approach in-sample. However, these results do not necessarily extend to forecasting performance. This paper seeks answer to the question of whether RiskMetrics volatility forecasts are adequate in comparison to those obtained from GARCH models. To answer the question stock index data is taken from 31 international markets and subjected to two exercises, a straightforward volatility forecasting exercise and a Value-at-Risk exceptions forecasting competition. Our results provide some simple answers to the above question. When forecasting volatility of the G7 stock markets the APARCH model, in particular, provides superior forecasts that are significantly different from the RiskMetrics models in over half the cases. This result also extends to the European markets with the APARCH model typically preferred. For the Asian markets the RiskMetrics model performs well, and is only significantly dominated by the GARCH models for one market, although there is evidence that the APARCH model provides a better forecast for the larger Asian markets. Regarding the Value-at-Risk exercise, when forecasting the 1% VaR the RiskMetrics model does a poor job and is typically the worst performing model, again the APARCH model does well. However, forecasting the 5% VaR then the RiskMetrics model does provide an adequate performance. In short, the RiskMetrics model only performs well in forecasting the volatility of small emerging markets and for broader VaR measures.     

Can advanced markets help diversify risks in frontier stock markets? Evidence from Gulf Arab stock markets

This study examines global diversification benefits from the perspective of local investors in the frontier markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council using two diversification measures: the correlation index and return dispersion. The findings suggest a strong link between market volatility and both diversification measures in all markets, with the exception of Bahrain, indicating that investors in these frontier markets will face significant challenges achieving desired levels of diversification using domestic stocks only. However, I also find that significant amount of market risk in these countries can be eliminated by supplementing domestic portfolios with positions in advanced markets. Finally, I show that risk minimization strategies using foreign traded assets also lead to favorable risk adjusted returns for investors in these markets, stressing the potential benefits of financial liberalization in developing markets.     

Are stock markets really efficient? Evidence of the adaptive market hypothesis

This study examines the adaptive market hypothesis in the S&P500, FTSE100, NIKKEI225 and EURO STOXX 50 by testing for stock return predictability using daily data from January 1990 to May 2014. We apply three bootstrapped versions of the variance ratio test to the raw stock returns and also whiten the returns through an AR-GARCH process to study the nonlinear predictability after accounting for conditional heteroscedasticity through the BDS test. We evaluate the time-varying return predictability by applying these tests to fixed-length moving subsample windows and also examine whether there is a relationship between the level of predictability in stock returns and market conditions. The results show that there are periods of statistically significant return predictability, but also episodes of no statistically significant predictability in stock returns. We also find that certain market conditions are statistically significantly related to predictability in certain markets but each market interacts differently with the different market conditions. Therefore our findings suggest that return predictability in stock markets does vary over time in a manner consistent with the adaptive market hypothesis and that each market adapts differently to certain market conditions. Consequently our findings suggest that investors should view each market independently since different markets experience contrasting levels of predictability, which are related to market conditions.     

Which sentiment index is more informative to forecast stock market volatility? Evidence from China

In this paper, we investigate the predictive ability of three sentiment indices constructed by social media, newspaper, and Internet media news to forecast the realized volatility (RV) of SSEC from in- and out-of-sample perspectives. Our research is based on the heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) framework. There are several notable findings. First, the in-sample estimation results suggest that the daily social media and Internet media news sentiment indices have significant impact for stock market volatility, while the sentiment index built by traditional newspaper have no impact. Second, the one-day-ahead out-of-sample forecasting results indicate that the two sentiment indices constructed by social media and Internet media news can considerably improve forecast accuracy. In addition, the model incorporating the positive and negative social media sentiment indices exhibits more superior forecasting performance. Third, we find only the sentiment index built by Internet media news can improve the mid- and long-run volatility predictive accuracy. Fourth, the empirical results based on alternative prediction periods and alternative volatility estimator confirm our conclusions are robust. Finally, we examine the predictability of the monthly sentiment indices and find that the two sentiment indices of social media and Internet media news contain more informative to forecast the monthly RV of SSEC, CSI800, and SZCI, however invalid for CSI300.     

Does the reputation mechanism apply to independent directors in emerging markets? Evidence from China

We examine whether reputable independent directors improve firm performance and governance quality in emerging markets, using data from China. Firms with such directors, measured as the number of directorships in other listed firms, have higher profitability, operating efficiency and productivity. They suffer from fewer agency problems, pay more cash dividends and have lower likelihoods of receiving modified audit opinions and participating in financial disclosure-related irregularities than their counterparts. In China’s unique institutional context, the reputation mechanism for independent directors applies to firms in regions with weak marketization environments, non-state-owned enterprises and firms without political connections; it also applies when external governance is weak. Overall, reputable independent directors appear to occupy valuable advising and monitoring roles and compensate for weak institutions and governance in China.     

Do extreme returns matter in emerging markets? Evidence from the Chinese stock market

Recent evidence in the U.S. and Europe indicates that stocks with high maximum daily returns in the previous month, perform poorly in the current month. We investigate the presence of a similar effect in the emerging Chinese stock markets with portfolio-level analysis and firm-level Fama–MacBeth cross-sectional regressions. We find evidence of a MAX effect similar to the U.S. and European markets. However, contrary to U.S. and European evidence, the MAX effect in China does not weaken much less reverse the anomalous idiosyncratic volatility (IV) effect. Both the MAX and IV effects appear to independently coexist in the Chinese stock markets. Interpreted together with the strong evidence of risk-seeking behaviour among Chinese investors, our results partially support the suggestion that the negative MAX effect is driven by investor preference for stocks with lottery-like features.     

Do green bond and green stock markets boom and bust together? Evidence from China

This paper investigates the green bond-stock correlation in China, as well as the influence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on that correlation, through cross-quantilogram and partial cross-quantilogram approaches. Directional spillovers are detected at different quantile levels across various investment horizons, and the findings reveal that the green bond and green stock markets are more connected in extreme market conditions than in normal conditions. The results indicate that the dependence structure between these markets exhibits distinct sector variation; only the green stocks (GS) in the water environment treatment (WT) and atmospheric protection (AP) sectors and green bonds (GB) boom together. Besides providing considerable diversification benefits, GB can act as a safe-haven asset for GS. Moreover, we find that spillover effects tend to be medium- and long-term. The uncertainty variable (EPU) is not a significant determinant of the cross-asset relation. The empirical results have significant implications for the formulation of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) portfolio strategies and carbon neutral-oriented policymaking.     

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.     

Are firms from developed markets more international than firms from emerging markets?

Regionalist supporters’ claim that most of the world's largest firms are regional rather than global and that managers should be encouraged to ‘think regional, act local and forget global’ (Rugman and Moore, 2004, p. 67). We apply the matrix of multinationality proposed by Aggarwal et al. (2011) to a sample of the world's 500 largest corporations, the Fortune Global 500. We show that these firms range from purely domestic to regional, trans-regional and entirely global with most lying in the trans-regional and global categories. Our results imply that global strategies are essential to international trade and management in today's business environment. We compare multinationality results by market type (developed versus emerging market), industry, size and age. We find that firms from more advanced economies tend to be older, larger and more multinational than firms from emerging markets. We find no relationship between multinationality and age or multinationality and size, and conclude that developed market firms are not more multinational as a result of size, age or industrial structure.     

Are outside directors with greater board tenure valuable? Evidence from the last credit crisis

Analyses of bank performance around the 2007–2008 financial crisis indicate that outside directors with financial experience acquired through longer board service at their own banks are more effective than those with financial experience acquired elsewhere. Institutions with more long-tenured independent directors (i) earn higher Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CARs) around the collapse of both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, (ii) limit their risk exposure before the crisis, (iii) exhibit better stock return and accounting performance during the crisis, (iv) are less likely to be bailed out by the U.S. government’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), and (v) receive proportionally less financial assistance from TARP.     

Are IFRS value-relevant for separate financial statements? Evidence from the Italian stock market

Using a sample of Italian firms, this paper investigates whether separate financial statements are useful to capital market investors, and whether International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are more value-relevant than domestic generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). These issues are key in evaluating the decision made by some states in the European Union to extend the use of IFRS to separate financial statements. The study provides evidence that separate financial statements are value-relevant, regardless of the accounting standard set. However, contrary to expectations, separate financial statements under IFRS do not have incremental information content beyond domestic GAAP. There is even some evidence that domestic GAAP financial statements are more value-relevant than IFRS. Finally, this paper documents the important role of model specification in value-relevance studies.     

Does foreign investor demand for information affect forecast accuracy? Evidence from the Chinese stock markets

Prior international accounting studies have examined mainly the supply side of analyst research. Specific trading rights and financial reporting systems in China provide a unique opportunity to test both demand and supply factors of analyst information. For shares traded only by less-informed foreign investors, the increased information demand may create incentives for analysts to exert greater efforts than for shares traded by local investors. This study provides evidence that analyst effort (proxied by analyst coverage) and expertise (proxied by consensus cross-analyst forecast variability) affect forecast accuracy more significantly for shares traded by foreign investors than for shares traded by local investors. Additionally, I find that the relation between analyst characteristics and relative forecast accuracy is stronger for shares traded by the foreign investors. The findings are consistent with analysts responding to demands for information by less-informed investors.     

Can hedge funds time global equity markets? Evidence from emerging markets

This paper examines the ability of global hedge funds to time a particularly volatile asset class — emerging market equities. In particular, we study whether or not these funds can either time emerging markets as a whole, or time their exposures to different regions. Using both pooled and calendar-time approaches, we generally find no evidence of overall timing ability. However, we do find some evidence of period-specific timing ability during the financial crisis and subsequent recovery.     

Do fundamental indexes produce higher risk-adjusted returns than market cap indexes? Evidence for European stock markets

A fundamental index weighs stocks proportionally to fundamentals such as book value, dividends, or sales. We investigate risk/return characteristics of fundamentally-weighted and market-cap-weighted indexes and employ various risk-adjustment approaches to ensure that return differences are not driven by risk. Based on stocks in the DJ Stoxx 600 index from July 1993 to April 2007, we show that fundamentally-weighted indexes achieve higher risk-adjusted returns than market-cap-weighted indexes. Our results provide empirical evidence for former theoretical findings that cap weighting may result in suboptimal risk/return characteristics.     

Are extreme returns priced in the stock market? European evidence

This paper revisits some recently found evidence in the literature on the cross-section of stock returns for a carefully constructed dataset of euro area stocks. First, we confirm recent results for US data and find evidence of a negative cross-sectional relation between extreme positive returns and average returns after controlling for characteristics such as momentum, book-to-market, size, liquidity and short term return reversal. We argue that this is the case because these stocks have lottery-like characteristics, which is attractive to certain investors. Also, these stocks tend to be very volatile so that arbitrageurs are discouraged from correcting potential mispricing. As a consequence, these stocks are often overpriced and hence face lower expected returns. Second, when we control for extreme returns, the recently found negative relationship between idiosyncratic risk and future returns is less robust. In our models, after adding maximum returns, the relationship is insignificant and sometimes even positive. We also find that idiosyncratic skewness and coskewness play an important role for asset pricing, as predicted by several theoretical models.     

Does the weather have impacts on returns and trading activities in order-driven stock markets? Evidence from China

We study the association between weather-related mood factors and stock index returns in an order-driven market, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) of China. Our results indicate that asset returns are unaffected by changes in mood introduced by factors including the weather and the onset and recovery from SAD. In contrast, many of these variables are strongly correlated with a reduction in market turnover and liquidity, consistent with investor mood driving variations in market activity. Overall, we show that in an order-driven market, environmental impacts on sentiment are likely to affect trading activities, but not returns.     

Stocks for the long run? Evidence from emerging markets

We estimate the myopic (single-period) and intertemporal hedging (long-run) demand for stocks in 20 growth-leading emerging market economies during the 1999–2012 period. We consider two types of investors: a domestic investor who invests in emerging-market assets only (with returns in local currency) and an international investor who invests in both US and emerging-market assets (with returns in US dollars). We establish economically relevant short-run and long-run demand for stocks in several emerging market economies, for both domestic and international investors. From a welfare perspective, however, the myopic demand for emerging-market stocks is much more important than the hedging demand. Further international diversification and foreign currency hedging by the international investor do not alter this conclusion. Hence, for both domestic and international investors emerging-market stocks are mainly assets for the short run.     

Is convexity efficiently priced? Evidence from international swap markets

While it is widely claimed in the literature that convexity is correctly priced, we find evidence in four major swap markets that this is the case only on average and that extended periods occur when convexity-based trading strategies offer economically very significant exceptional returns. These abnormal returns can be reaped with fully no-peek-ahead strategies and after accounting for transaction costs. We find a strong link between the periods of highest profitability and conditions of reduced market liquidity. This suggests that, as observed in recent liquidity studies on US Treasuries, temporary deviations from market efficiency at the long end of the swap curve occur when pseudo-arbitrageurs do not have sufficient capital to correct the mispricings.