Strategic returns to international diversification: An application to the equity markets of Europe,Japan and North America

We undertake a decomposition of the risk factor loadings of 15 national stock market returns from 1972 to 1990, using a variant of the Campbell-Shiller (1988) linearisation. (Campbell, John Y. and Shiller, Robert J., ‘The dividend-price ratio and expectations of future dividends and discount factors’, Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 1, 1988, pp. 195–228.) We find considerable variation among countries in the relative importance of a cash flow component and a discount rate component in determining the beta with the world equity index return and with other risk factors. Also, the substantial international heterogeneity in factor loadings suggests that a global portfolio allows ample hedging opportunities, presumably deriving from differences in underlying economic structure.     

The interrelatedness of global equity markets, money markets, and foreign exchange markets

This article investigates different aspects of global financial markets, specifically relationships among equity markets, money markets, and foreign exchange markets across countries. To represent the three major financial markets of the world, Japan is the proxy for Asia, Germany is the proxy for Europe, and the United States is the proxy for North America. Strong evidence exists that international money markets and international equity markets are becoming increasingly integrated over time. This article incorporates foreign exchange values as partial determinants of equity returns and money market returns and investigates the interactions among these three asset markets from a global perspective.     

An empirical analysis of the equity markets in China

This paper subjects the newly established stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen to tests of market efficiency, utilizing daily stock price data. Using a battery of tests, the study concludes that there are significant inefficiencies present on both exchanges. These can be traced to the unique structural and institutional problems that plague both exchanges. The study also tests for the presence of seasonal anomalies on both exchanges. The results show that there are significant negative weekend and positive holiday effects, but there is no evidence of a January effect or early January effect.     

Are the gains from international portfolio diversification exaggerated? The influence of downside risk in bear markets

The fundamental rationale for international portfolio diversification is that it expands the opportunities for gains from portfolio diversification beyond those that are available through domestic securities. However, if international stock market correlations are higher than normal in bear markets, then international diversification will fail to yield the promised gains just when they are needed most. We evaluate the extent to which observed correlations to monthly returns in bear, calm and bull markets are captured by three popular bivariate distributions: (1) the normal, (2) the restricted GARCH(1,1) of J. P. Morgan’s RiskMetrics, and (3) the Student-t with four degrees of freedom. Observed correlations during calm and bull markets are unexceptional compared to these models. In contrast, observed correlations during bear markets are significantly higher than predicted. Higher-than-normal correlations during extreme market downturns result in monthly returns to equal-weighted portfolios of domestic and international stocks that are, on average, more than two percent lower than those predicted by the normal distribution. If the extent of non-normality during bear markets persists over time, then a US investor allocating assets into foreign markets might want to allocate more assets into foreign markets with near-normal correlation profiles and avoid markets with higher-than-normal bear market co-movements.     

Size,value, and momentum in developed country equity returns: Macroeconomic and liquidity exposures

The paper investigates value and momentum factors in 23 developed international stock markets. We find that typically value and momentum premia are smaller and more negatively correlated for large market capitalization stocks relative to small. Momentum factors are more highly correlated internationally relative to value. We provide international evidence on three sets of risk exposures of value and momentum returns: macroeconomic risk, funding liquidity risk, and stock market liquidity risk. We find that value returns are typically lower prior to a recession while momentum returns often exhibit little sensitivity. Value returns are typically lower in times of poor funding liquidity, whereas, with notable exceptions, momentum returns are typically unaffected. Lastly, for almost all countries, value returns are high in poor stock market liquidity conditions.     

The going public decision and the structure of equity markets

The industries in which listed firms are concentrated in less developed equity markets are not random, nor entirely explained by the underlying composition of production. Listed firms and market capitalization are disproportionately concentrated in industries with low beta (measured with their beta with the market portfolio in the U.S.). We document a strong positive relationship between the industry-weighted country beta and the degree of market development across countries. Recent IPO activity confirms the result since new listings have higher betas than the average firm already in the market.     

The trading behavior of institutions and individuals in Chinese equity markets

This paper employs a unique data set to analyze the trading behavior of 4.74 million individual and institutional investors across Mainland China. Results show that groups of individual investors with varying trade values (as proxies for wealth levels) engage in different trading strategies. Chinese institutions are momentum investors, while less wealthy Chinese individual investors at large are contrarian investors. The results also indicate that a small group of wealthiest Chinese individuals tend to behave like institutions when they buy stocks, and behave like less wealthy individuals when they sell. Furthermore, only the trading activities of institutions and of wealthiest individuals can affect future stock volatility, but those of Chinese individual investors at large have no predictive power for future stock returns.     

Asset fire sales (and purchases) in equity markets

This paper examines institutional price pressure in equity markets by studying mutual fund transactions caused by capital flows from 1980 to 2004. Funds experiencing large outflows tend to decrease existing positions, which creates price pressure in the securities held in common by distressed funds. Similarly, the tendency among funds experiencing large inflows to expand existing positions creates positive price pressure in overlapping holdings. Investors who trade against constrained mutual funds earn significant returns for providing liquidity. In addition, future flow-driven transactions are predictable, creating an incentive to front-run the anticipated forced trades by funds experiencing extreme capital flows.     

Downside beta and the cross section of equity returns: A decade later

This study reexamines the relation between downside beta and equity returns in the United States. First, we replicate the 2006 work of Ang, Chen, and Xing who find a positive relation between downside beta and future equity returns for equal‐weighted portfolios of NYSE stocks. We show that this relation doesn't hold after using value‐weighted returns or controlling for various return determinants. We also extend the original sample, add AMEX/NASDAQ stocks or utilize alternative downside beta measures and still find no downside risk premium. We focus on factor analysis results, persistence of downside beta, and various subsamples to understand the economic reasons behind the findings.     

Common stochastic trends and volatility in Asian-Pacific equity markets

This paper uses Johansen's cointegration test and a modified cointegration test with generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) effects to examine linkages between the U.S. and five Asian-Pacific stock markets (Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore) during the period from 1988 to 1994. The modified cointegration test with GARCH effects is used to assess whether these stock price series share common time-varying volatility. The results indicate that the six stock markets are highly integrated through the second moments of stock returns but not the first moments.     

Global equity fund performance, portfolio concentration, and the fundamental law of active management

This paper investigates the relation between portfolio concentration and the performance of global equity funds. Concentrated funds with higher levels of tracking error display better performance than their more broadly diversified counterparts. We show that the observed relation between portfolio concentration and performance is mostly driven by the breadth of the underlying fund strategies; not just by fund managers’ willingness to take big bets. Our results indicate that when investors strive to select the best-performing funds, they should not only consider fund managers’ tracking-error levels. More important is that they take into account the extent to which fund managers carefully allocate their risk budget across multiple investment strategies and have concentrated holdings in multiple market segments simultaneously.     

Downside risk in Dow Jones Islamic equity indices: Precious metals and portfolio diversification before and after the COVID-19 bear market

Besides great turmoil in financial markets, the COVID-19 pandemic also disrupted the global supply chain, putting the precious metal market into great uncertainty. In this study, we revisit the diversifying role of precious metals – gold, silver, and platinum – for six Dow Jones Islamic (DJI) equity index portfolios using a battery of tests: dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs), four-moment modified value at risk (VaR) and conditional VaR, and global minimum-variance (GMV) portfolio approach. Our empirical results exhibit drastically increased DCCs between sample assets during the COVID period; however, pairing gold with any of the DJI equity indices (except for the Asia-Pacific region) decreases the downside risk of these portfolios. Other precious metals (silver and platinum) do not provide such benefits. Furthermore, we find that a higher allocation of wealth in DJI Japanese equities and gold is required to achieve a GMV portfolio in the post-COVID-19 era, implying higher transaction (hedging) costs to rebalance portfolios (weights) accordingly. Our out-of-sample tests examining the global financial crisis, European debt crisis, and extended sample (2000–2020) periods yield similar findings as gold glitters across all market conditions. Overall, our findings provide notable practical implications for both domestic and international investors.     

International diversification with securitized real estate and the veiling glare from currency risk

This paper analyzes diversification benefits from international securitized real estate in a mixed-asset context. We apply regression-based mean-variance efficiency tests, conditional on currency-unhedged and fully hedged portfolios to account for systematic foreign exchange movements. From the perspective of a US investor, it is shown that, first, international diversification is superior to a US mixed-asset portfolio, second, adding international real estate to an already internationally diversified stock and bond portfolio results in a further significant improvement of the risk-return trade-off and, third, considering unhedged international assets could lead to biased asset allocation decisions not realizing the true diversification benefits from international assets.     

Correlation risk,cross-market derivative products and portfolio performance*

We consider portfolios whose returns depend on at least three variables and show the effect of the correlation structure on the probabilities of the extreme outcomes of the portfolio return, using a multivariate binomial approximation. the portfolio risk is then managed by using derivatives. We illustrate this risk management both with simple options, whose payoff depends upon only one of the underlying variables, and with more complex instruments, whose payoffs (and values) depend upon the correlation structure The question of benchmarking portfolio performance is complicated by the use of derivatives, especially complex derivatives, since these instruments fundamentally alter the distribution of returns. We use the multivariate binomial model to set performance benchmarks for multicurrency, international portfolios. Our model is illustrated using a simple example where a German institution invests a proportion of its funds in Germany equities and the remainder in UK equities. Portfolio performance is measured in Deutsche Marks and depends upon (1) the DAX index, (2) the FTSE index and (3) the Deutsche Mark-Sterling exchange rate. The output of the model is a simulation of possible outcomes from the portfolio hedging strategy. the difference in our methodology is that we are able to retain the simplicity of the binomial distribution, used extensively in the analysis of options, in a multivariate context. This is achieved by building three (or more) binomial trees for the individual variables and capturing the correlation structure with the use of varying conditional probabilities.     

Liquidity risk management and credit supply in the financial crisis

Liquidity dried up during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Banks that relied more heavily on core deposit and equity capital financing, which are stable sources of financing, continued to lend relative to other banks. Banks that held more illiquid assets on their balance sheets, in contrast, increased asset liquidity and reduced lending. Off-balance sheet liquidity risk materialized on the balance sheet and constrained new credit origination as increased takedown demand displaced lending capacity. We conclude that efforts to manage the liquidity crisis by banks led to a decline in credit supply.     

Omitted debt risk, financial distress and the cross-section of expected equity returns

The study of Ferguson and Shockley (2003) shows that, if the Merton (1974) model can reflect reality, the omission of debt claims from the market portfolio proxy may explain the poor pricing ability of the CAPM in empirical tests. We critically re-assess this argument by first reviewing existing, but also new avenues through which the Merton (1974) model can point to a systematic bias in market beta estimates. However, we also show that some avenues are diversifiable, and that they all rely on excessive economy-wide default risk to create a non-negligible bias. We then use the Merton (1974) model to proxy for the total debt portfolio, but find that its application in empirical tests cannot improve pricing performance. We conclude that there are (so far) no valid theoretical reasons to believe that omitted debt claims undermine CAPM tests.     

Funding liquidity and equity liquidity in the subprime crisis period: Evidence from the ETF market

Using index and financial exchange-traded funds (ETFs), this study explores the relation between funding liquidity and equity liquidity during the subprime crisis period. Our empirical results show that a higher degree of funding illiquidity leads to an increase in bid–ask spread and a reduction in both market depth and net buying imbalance. Such findings indicate that an increase in funding liquidity can improve equity liquidity, with a stronger effect for the financial ETFs than for the index ETFs. Our study provides a better overall understanding of the effect of the liquidity–supplier funding constraint during the subprime crisis period.     

The role of jumps and leverage in forecasting volatility in international equity markets

We analyze the importance of jumps and the leverage effect on forecasts of realized volatility in a large cross-section of 18 international equity markets, using daily realized measures data from the Oxford-Man Realized Library, and two widely employed empirical models for realized volatility that allow for jumps and leverage. Our out-of-sample forecast evaluation results show that the separation of realized volatility into a continuous and a discontinuous (jump) component is important for the S&P 500, but of rather limited value for the remaining 17 international equity markets that we analyze. Only for 6 equity markets are significant and sizable forecast improvements realized at the one-step-ahead horizon, which, nevertheless, deteriorate quickly and abruptly as the prediction horizon increases. The inclusion of the leverage effect, on the other hand, has a much larger impact on all 18 international equity markets. Forecast gains are not only highly significant, but also sizeable, with gains remaining significant for forecast horizons of up to one month ahead.     

Emerging markets and portfolio foreign exchange risk: An empirical investigation using a value-at-risk decomposition technique

The correlation between a portfolio's equity and foreign exchange components plays a role in reducing foreign exchange exposure. Investors must account for this correlation when determining the extent of foreign exchange risk in emerging market equity portfolio investments. This study employs a VaR risk factor mapping technique, under the variance–covariance VaR approach, to decompose portfolio risk in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia. For comparison purposes, the same technique is used to decompose portfolio risk in the US. The study is conducted from the perspective of a European equity investor with a portfolio of equities in each country. By employing the VaR decomposition technique, the correlation between a portfolio's equity and foreign exchange components is taken into account and portfolio foreign exchange risk is extracted from portfolio systematic risk. Our results uniquely demonstrate significant variation in foreign exchange risk in emerging markets.     

Bank capital buffer and portfolio risk: The influence of business cycle and revenue diversification

The relationship between macroeconomic developments and bank capital buffer and portfolio risk adjustments is relevant to assess the efficacy of newly created countercyclical buffer requirements. Using the U.S. bank holding company data over the period 1992:Q1–2011:Q3, we find a negative relationship between the business cycle and capital buffer. Our results offer some support for the Basel III agreements that countercyclical capital buffer in the banking sector is necessary to help the performance of the real economy during recessions. We find a robust evidence of inverse relationship between business cycle and bank default risk. Our analysis provides evidence of diversification benefits. The probability of insolvency risk decreases for diversified banks and banks with high revenue diversity achieve capital savings.