Diversification in euro area stock markets: Country versus industry

The harmonization of fiscal and economic policy within the European Monetary Union (EMU) has had a considerable impact on the economies of member countries. In particular, several studies indicate that the proceeding economic integration among euro area countries has important consequences for the factors driving asset returns in financial markets. However, these studies rely on one specific methodology [Heston, S.L., Rouwenhorst, K.G., 1994. Does industrial structure explain the benefits of international diversification? Journal of Financial Economics 36, 3–27; Heston, S.L., Rouwenhorst, K.G., 1995. Industry and country effects in international stock returns. Journal of Portfolio Management Spring, 53–58], that has recently been criticized as too restrictive. This study adopts a mean–variance approach instead. Using recent euro area stock markets data, we find strong evidence that diversification over industries yields more efficient portfolios than diversification over countries.     

Forecasting aggregate stock market volatility with industry volatilities: The role of spillover index

In this paper, we aim to improve the predictability of aggregate stock market volatility with industry volatilities. The empirical results show that individual industry volatilities can provide useful predictive information, while the predictive contribution is limited. We further consider the spillover index between industry volatilities and find it displays strong predictive power for stock market volatility. Based on the portfolio exercise, we find that a mean-variance investor can achieve sizeable economic gains by using volatility forecasts of the spillover index. In addition, we conduct three extended analyses and further demonstrate the superior performance of the spillover index. Also, our results show robustness to a series of alternative settings. Finally, we investigate why the spillover index performs better and answer what information it contains. The results show that the spillover index can reflect and explain investor sentiments that are related to stock market volatility.     

On the volatility spillover between lslamic and conventional stock markets: A quantile regression analysis

This paper aims at analyzing the degree and structure of interdependencies in terms of volatility (transmission, contagion) between Islamic and conventional stock markets on calm periods and at times of financial fragility and crisis. We focused on the recent financial instability periods and used the Quantile Regression-based GARCH model. Main results lead to very interesting conclusions. First, it has been found that Islamic stock markets are not totally immune to the global financial crisis. Second, a very strong interdependence is sensed from the conventional to the Islamic stock markets, especially, from the conventional developed markets to the Islamic Emerging and Arab markets and to the Islamic developed markets. Finally, it has been proved that the interdependencies from conventional to Islamic markets are propagated between Islamic markets. Our findings suggest that the Islamic finance industry does not seem able to provide cushion against economic and financial shocks that affect conventional markets.     

Returns,volatility and investor sentiment: Evidence from European stock markets

In this study, we show that patterns in returns behave as if investors, influenced by their level of optimism, selected stocks according to their volatility. Our goal is to confirm the contribution of behavioral finance while showing that investor sentiment can be profitably used by practitioners. We incorporate volatility in the relationship between investor sentiment and future returns, this is the main originality of our approach. Our methodology consists in comparing returns, volatility and higher-order moments of portfolios managed with investor sentiment against those obtained either with passive (buy and hold) portfolio management or with a minimum variance portfolio. Portfolios managed with investor sentiment have better returns and involve less risk under certain conditions.     

An investigation of the benefits of portfolio investment in Central and Eastern European stock markets

This paper: (i) examines the potential benefits from diversifying into eight stock markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE); and (ii) quantifies the importance of country, industry and time factors in CEE equity returns. The findings suggest that substantial benefits exist from investing in CEE stock markets and that they accrue more from the geographical spread than from the industrial mix of the equities included in the portfolio. However, the returns earned by CEE equities vary dramatically over time. This variability may hamper the efforts of investors attempting to exploit the diversification “free lunch”.     

European equity markets volatility spillover: Destabilizing energy risk is the new normal

While energy risk is increasingly recognized as a systemic risk, there is limited comprehensive analysis of the risk propagation in regional contexts. In this study, we examine oil and natural gas price changes and shocks in relation to equity market returns and volatility for 24 European Economic Area (EEA) countries. In addition to traditional panel regressions, we also deploy the Diebold-Yilmaz (2014) spillover index for a closed network analysis. We differentiate in the cross-section across the core EU block, PIIGS countries, EU enlargement countries joining after 2004, and other non-EU countries, to provide insights into the ongoing debates on the European energy market stability. While we find evidence of the manifestation of energy risk throughout the sample period, we find that until 2019 the primary sources of volatility spillover in the EEA economic network arose from economic or political uncertainty. Energy risks, measured by large crude oil and natural gas price shocks also significantly contributed to equity market volatility, with increasing volatility risk arising from natural gas, a green labelled energy source after 2019. Last, we show that CEEC equity markets are more sensitive to oil and natural gas price shocks when domestic currencies depreciate against the Euro.     

Causality in volatility and volatility spillover effects between US, Japan and four equity markets in the South China Growth Triangular

In examining co-movement across international stock markets, previous researchers usually pre-determine the direction of causation and neglect the Chinese equity markets. In this study, we examine the spillover effects of volatility among the two developed markets and four emerging markets in the South China Growth Triangular using Chueng and Ng's causality-in-variance test. Several findings deserve mention: (1) the Japanese stock market affects the US stock market and there is a feedback relationship between the Hong Kong and US stock market. (2) Markets of the SCGT are contemporaneously correlated with the return volatility of the US market. (3) Econometric models constructed according to the results of variance-in-causality tests have greater explanatory power than the conventional GARCH(1,1) model. (4) Using the return volatility of foreign exchange as a proxy for informational arrival can explain excess kurtosis of a stock return series, especially for the less open emerging market. (5) Geographic proximity and economic ties do not necessarily lead to a strong relationship in volatility across markets.     

Long-run equilibrium, short-term adjustment, and spillover effects across Chinese segmented stock markets and the Hong Kong stock market

This paper adopts a novel FIVECM-BEKK GARCH approach to examine the bilateral relationships among the A-share and B-share stock markets in China and the Hong Kong stock market. The evidence shows that these stock markets are fractionally cointegrated. Analyses of the spillover effects across these markets indicate that the A-share markets are most influential. The relaxation of government restrictions on the purchase of B shares by domestic residents accelerates the market integration process of A-share markets with the B-share and Hong Kong markets. The effects of the Asian crisis on the stock-return dynamic correlations vary across these markets.     

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     

Common influences,spillover and integration in Chinese stock markets

The Chinese stock market features an interesting history of divided market segments: domestic (A), foreigners' (B) and overseas (H). This puts forth questions of market integration as well as cross-divisional information transmission. We address these issues in a structural DCC framework, an econometric technique capable of identifying common factor influences from (bi-directional) spillovers as constituents of contemporaneous correlations. We find initial dominance of transmission from A to B and to a lesser extent from H to B and A to H. However, since the opening of the B-market for Chinese citizens in 2001, common factors have largely replaced direct spillovers.     

Responsible investment in the Chinese stock market

This paper provides insights into the current development of responsible investment in the Chinese stock market. We find that responsible investment can bring portfolio benefits to investors, and institutional investors have a holding preference for stocks in responsible investment indexes. By using a national air pollution proxy, we find that investors’ pessimistic mood on days with heavy air pollution has a negative influence on the stock return of A-shares, while stocks in responsible investment indexes display improved performance over the same time period. We use aggregated trading data to study the trading preference of Chinese retail investors on days when they are influenced by air pollution, and find that their total trading ratio shows a negative influence for both A-shares and responsible investment indexes. Moreover, there is more seller-initiated trading of the whole sample but more buyer-initiated trading of stocks in responsible investment indexes on air pollution days. This finding is consistent with the different stock return performances of these two samples. Our finding extends the studies of responsible investment to emerging markets and presents new evidence about the influence of environmental factors on trading behavior and return performance.     

Further evidence on the efficiency of the Chinese stock markets: A note

This paper examines the efficiency of the Chinese A-share and B-share markets following the deregulation of the B-share market which widened ownership to include domestic investors. Applying parametric and non-parametric variance ratio tests to the daily data of 370 shares over 1996–2005, the paper finds that A-shares are more efficient than B-shares, although the efficiency of both markets has improved following the regulatory change. Overall, the results suggest that the Chinese stock markets are characterised by information asymmetry, although the timely access to high quality information that domestic investors enjoy has improved the efficiency of the B-share market.     

我国股指期货与现货市场信息传递与波动溢出关系研究

股指期货与现货市场关系是监管者关注的重点问题。本文采用我国股指期货上市以来1分钟级高频数据,应用向量误差修正模型、方差分解、多元T-GARCH等,考察期现两市信息传递、波动溢出效应的影响。实证结果表明,尽管股指期货和股票市场之间短期内存在相互引导关系,但股票市场价格变动更多来自于自身影响,起主导作用,而且两市长期均衡收敛也是以股票市场占主导地位;两市存在显著的双向波动溢出,期货市场的波动溢出效应强于股票市场的波动溢出效应;两市场存在明显的非对称效应,期货市场对坏消息更为敏感,而现货市场对好消息更为敏感。     

Sources of the stock price fluctuations in Chinese equity market

This paper proposes a latent factor approach based on a state–space framework in order to identify which factor, if any, dominates price fluctuations in the Chinese stock markets. We also illustrate the connection of such stock price decomposition with several general equilibrium asset pricing models and show that the decomposition results can potentially offer useful insights with regard to the empirical relevance of asset pricing models. We use quarterly data of the Chinese A-Share equity market over the period 1995Q3–2011Q1 and find that the estimates of the state–space model suggest that the expected return is the primary driving force behind price fluctuations in the Chinese stock market. We show that the time-varying expected returns appear to be counter-cyclical and this result seems to be consistent with the habit formation model of Campbell and Cochrane [1999. By force of habit: A consumption-based explanation of aggregate stock market behavior. Journal of Political Economy 107, no. 2: 205–51.]. However, we also note that there is a great deal of uncertainty with respect to this variance decomposition due to the resulting small signal-to-noise ratio in the estimated state–space model.     

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.

Determinants and features of voluntary disclosure in the Chinese stock market

This paper offers in-depth analysis of the determinants and features of voluntary disclosure based on information in the annual reports of 1066 Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. This extensive sample represents about 80% of all public companies in China. Our findings suggest that voluntary disclosure in China is positively related to firm size, leverage, assets-in-place, and return on equity and is negatively related to auditor type and the level of maturity or sophistication of the intermediary and legal environments. We also find some evidence to suggest a quadratic convex association between state ownership and voluntary disclosure. However, our analysis provides no evidence that extensive disclosure benefits public companies in China in the form of a lower cost of equity.     

The pricing of sentiment risk in European stock markets

This paper studies whether sentiment is rewarded with a significant risk premium in the European stock markets. We examine several sentiment proxies and identify the Economic Sentiment Indicator from the EU Commission as the most relevant sentiment proxy for our sample. The analysis is performed for the contemporaneous excess returns of EA-11 stock markets in the period from February 1999 to September 2015. We apply a conditional multi-beta pricing model in order to track the variation of the sentiment risk premium over time. The results demonstrate a positive significant relationship between sentiment and contemporaneous excess returns which is consistent with previous studies. The calculated sentiment risk premium is significant as well but negative implying that an investment in EA-11 countries over the examined time period – that is bearing sentiment risk – would have been unattractive to the investors on average.     

Volume,volatility and information linkages in the stock and option markets

This paper examines the relationship between option trading activity and stock market volatility. Although the option market is uniquely suited for trading on volatility information, there is little analysis on how trading activity in this market is linked to stock price volatility. The bulk of the discussion tends to focus on whether trading activity in the stock market is informative about stock volatility. To analyze the information in option trading activity for stock market volatility, a sample of 15 stocks with the highest option trading volume is selected. For each stock, it is noted that the trading activities in the put and call option markets have significant explanatory power for stock market volatility. In addition, the results indicate that the call option trading activity has a stronger impact on stock volatility compared with that of the put options. Our results demonstrate that information and sentiment in the option market is useful for the estimation of stock market volatility. Also, the significance of the effects of option trading activity on stock price volatility is observed to be comparable to that of stock market trading activity. Furthermore, the persistence and asymmetric effects in the volatility of some stocks tend to disappear once option trading activity is taken into account.     

Computing the market price of volatility risk in the energy commodity markets

In this paper, we demonstrate the need for a negative market price of volatility risk to recover the difference between Black–Scholes [Black, F., Scholes, M., 1973. The pricing of options and corporate liabilities. Journal of Political Economy 81, 637–654]/Black [Black, F., 1976. Studies of stock price volatility changes. In: Proceedings of the 1976 Meetings of the Business and Economics Statistics Section, American Statistical Association, pp. 177–181] implied volatility and realized-term volatility. Initially, using quasi-Monte Carlo simulation, we demonstrate numerically that a negative market price of volatility risk is the key risk premium in explaining the disparity between risk-neutral and statistical volatility in both equity and commodity-energy markets. This is robust to multiple specifications that also incorporate jumps. Next, using futures and options data from natural gas, heating oil and crude oil contracts over a 10 year period, we estimate the volatility risk premium and demonstrate that the premium is negative and significant for all three commodities. Additionally, there appear distinct seasonality patterns for natural gas and heating oil, where winter/withdrawal months have higher volatility risk premiums. Computing such a negative market price of volatility risk highlights the importance of volatility risk in understanding priced volatility in these financial markets.     

An analysis of trading strategies in eleven European stock markets

Abstract

In recent years, the validity of the weak form efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been called into question as several studies have uncovered evidence that technical trading rules have predictive ability with respect to both developed and emerging stock market indices. This study analyses the forecasting power of 2 of the most popular trading rules using index data for a selection of 11 European stock markets over the January 1991 to December 2000 period. The findings indicate that the emerging markets included in this paper are informationally inefficient; these markets displayed some degree of predictability in their share returns, although the developed markets did not. Furthermore, the results point to large differences in the performance of the rules examined; while small size filters consistently outperformed the buy-and-hold strategy in the emerging markets examined even after the consideration of transaction costs, the performance of the moving average rules was erratic and varied dramatically from market to market.