COVID-19 and tail risk contagion across commodity futures markets

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on tail risk contagion across commodity futures markets using a copula-based network method. We document a significant increase in the lower and upper tail contagiousness of commodities following the COVID-19 outbreak. Contagion shows an obvious clustering characteristic, that is, there is higher tail risk connectedness between commodities in the same category. Agricultural commodities are significantly less contagious than metals and energy commodities; soft commodities in particular can offer investors significant diversification benefits. There are several hub commodities in the contagion network, chief among them copper, which are good transmitters of shocks and should be treated with caution by investors and regulators. Although tail risk and contagiousness of individual commodities increase together during the pandemic, we find a negative cross-sectional relationship between tail risk and contagiousness, that is, commodities with high tail risk are not necessarily highly contagious and may even be less so.     

The market quality of commodity futures markets

To study the market quality of commodity futures markets, we construct a commodity futures market quality index from the perspective of liquidity, efficiency, and volatility. Based on the market quality index, the Chinese commodity futures market operates steadily. The metal futures market is more efficient and stable than the market for agricultural futures. The Chinese commodity futures market is less liquid and more volatile than the U.S. market. We examine the determinants of market quality and find that macroeconomic variables and futures market contracts are significantly related to the market quality of Chinese commodity futures.     

Dependence between the global gold market and emerging stock markets (E7+1): Evidence from Granger causality using quantile and quantile‐on‐quantile regression methods

This study examined the dependence between gold and stocks during 2002–18 in seven emerging countries. The study combined the bivariate cross‐quantilogram introduced recently with quantile‐on‐quantile regression (QQR) approaches to conduct comprehensive and complementary analyses. The QQR results for the full sample revealed a weak positive dependence in all the quantiles of gold and stock returns across all the countries selected during mild market conditions. The results for pre and post‐crisis periods largely were consistent with those obtained for the full sample, except for Turkey (pre‐crisis), and China and Indonesia (post‐crisis). The results of the causality test‐in‐mean (return) and that of the causality test‐in‐variance revealed no causal relation between stock and gold in the pre‐crisis period, while causality ran only from gold to some stocks in the post‐crisis period. Further, while there was volatility causality running only from gold to stocks during the pre‐crisis period, the volatility causality between the two markets was very high during the post‐crisis period. Therefore, we suggest that gold may have been a hedge for stocks during the pre‐crisis compared to the post‐crisis period. Further, international risk factors should be considered in optimal investment decisions between domestic and global markets' assets (stocks and gold).     

Forecasting equity returns: The role of commodity futures along the supply chain

This paper examines equity return predictability using the returns of commodity futures along the supply chain in China's financial market. We find that a considerable number of commodities exhibit significant in‐sample forecasting ability at the daily horizon, especially for supplier‐side equity returns. The macroeconomic risk premium effect, captured by the aggregate commodity prices, is an important source for this predictability. The out‐of‐sample results show that for most commodities, the predictability remains both statistically and economically significant, and the forecasting performance improves substantially during recessions or with economic constraints.     

Hedging performance analysis of energy markets: Evidence from copula quantile regression

This study investigates hedging performance with respect to different market structures for energy-related commodities, including West Texas Intermediate crude oil, Brent crude oil, Chinese crude oil, and Heating oil. Copula quantile regression functions and the generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroscedasticity model are combined to analyze the nonlinear impact of dependence and the heterogeneous impact of market structure changes on hedging performance. Results show that hedging performance presents nonlinearity and market structure changes have surprisingly strong heterogeneous effects on the quantile hedge ratio, where bearish and bullish have lower hedge ratios than normal markets, which is captured better by Clayton copula quantile regression. Additionally, the trend of hedging effectiveness over different market structures also shows an inverted U shape. After changing data frequency or the types of futures contracts, the conclusions remain the same. Our empirical findings imply that hedgers are supposed to adjust the hedging number of futures according to market structure changes to hedge price risk effectively.     

The time-to-maturity pattern of futures price sensitivity to news

This paper examines the effect time-to-maturity has on how sensitive futures prices are to news flows. Unscheduled daily news flows that relate to the underlying asset of a futures contract are related to the daily realized volatility of futures to calculate a price-news sensitivity ratio. The observed pattern follows an inverted U-shape relationship and has a bearing on whether the maturity effect will be noticeable in a futures contract. This paper also shows that by examining the peak-to-maturity of the price sensitivity to news pattern, it is possible to better identify which contracts are more likely to yield higher volatility.     

The untold story of commodity futures in China

We investigate the behavior of commodity futures risk premia in China. In the presence of retail-dominance and barriers-to-entry, the term structure and momentum premia remain persistent, whereas hedging pressure, skewness, volatility, and liquidity premia are distorted by time-varying margins and strict position limits. Furthermore, open interest, currency, and inflation premia are sensitive to institutional settings. The observed premia cannot be attributed to common risks, sentiment, transactions costs, or data-snooping, but are related to liquidity, anchoring, and regulation-induced limits-to-arbitrage. We highlight the distinctive features of Chinese futures markets and assess the challenges posed to theories of commodity risk premia.     

The tail risk of emerging stock markets

We investigate tail risk in emerging stock markets at the country, regional and world levels, by comparing the investable and non-investable segments in terms of the expected shortfall of standardized returns and tail dependence on the world market. Employing the skewed Student-t GJR-GARCH model and the SJC copula, we show that most investable portfolios have lower tail risk but higher tail dependence than non-investable ones; emerging markets are likely more dependent on the world market during large joint losses than large joint gains; and tail dependence of the aggregate and investable markets on the world market varies across countries and regions.     

Financial integration and banking crisis. A critical analysis of restrictions on capital flows

We investigate the effect of financial integration on a banking crisis. In contrast to existing works, we allow for capital restrictions while studying the impact of financial integration on a banking crisis. Using firm-level lending and borrowing information in the global market of syndicated loans; we generate aggregate measures of financial integration and examine how countries with capital flow restrictions thrive in the wake of a banking crisis. We concentrate on basic network measures of integration for a panel of 62 countries that allow for capital restriction at any time within the sample period. Financial integration increases the incidence of a banking crisis, and capital restrictions worsen a banking crisis. However, capital restrictions reduce the negative impact of financial integration on the incidence of a banking crisis. Thus, financial integration becomes beneficial when countries allow for some forms of capital control.     

外部因素对中国商品流通影响的长期性分析——以需求为例

改革开放以来,外部因素对我国国内需求以及商品流通都产生了深远影响,特别以东南亚金融危机以及本轮全球金融危机为最。外部因素对国内需求及商品流通的作用具有典型的阶段性特点,并随着开放经济的进一步发展呈现长期性。外部因素可经由数量、价格、全球化与国内市场互动以及渠道变革四个途径影响我国国内需求,进而影响商品流通的整个过程。鉴于外部因素作用于商品流通的长期性特点,在流通领域的理论和政策研究与实践中,需借助动态分析方法,从内生化层次讨论外部因素对我国商品流通的影响,按照外部因素内生化的基本观点,改进和丰富有关流通领域的贸易政策和产业政策。     

The cross-predictability of industry returns in international financial markets

This article finds evidence of return cross-predictability among trading partners in international financial markets. We show that the predictability of international customers dominates the predictability of domestic customers, and the predictability of international intra-industry customers dominates the predictability of international inter-industry customers. This return cross-predictability decreases with two country characteristics: financial sophistication and size.     

When trading options is not the only option: The effects of single-stock futures trading on options market quality

We use the 2008 short-selling ban to examine the impact of single-stock futures (SSFs) trading on options market quality. We show that there is a substitution effect between options trading and SSFs trading during the ban period. In addition, our results show that SSFs trading had a significant effect in narrowing the bid-ask spreads of options contracts. Moreover, compared to stocks without SSFs, stocks with SSFs were less likely to violate put-call parity during the ban period. Our results suggest that SSFs trading helps mitigate the negative effect of the short-selling ban on options market quality documented in the literature.     

网上商品热销的影响因素探析——基于分位数回归的实证研究

本研究从网上销售的影响因素出发,采用搜索程序获取了淘宝网的4059个货架1周的销售数据,通过分位数回归方法对不同热门程度产品的价格、信誉、保障标记以及口碑的需求弹性进行了实证分析。研究结果表明,随着产品热门程度的提高,信誉的需求弹性不断增强,而价格、保障标记以及口碑的需求弹性却不断减弱。由此表明,产品的价格降低,保障标记级别和口碑的提升都能使销售趋于分散,而提高商家的信誉却能加速销售向热门产品集中,使得"热门更热"。     

国际热钱与国际资产价格波动

对冲基金规模与主要证券市场指数及代表性商品价格变动的相关度具有时变性特征,相关度的聚集意味着资产价格泡沫发起;国际热钱与国际资产价格之间基本上不存在长期均衡关系,数月间的短期冲击与运动作战是国际热钱的主要运行模式;金融危机高潮之后,国际热钱开始聚集能量,对冲基金规模开始回升,石油与黄金成为其投机的重点,这意味着国际资产价格已经从底部抬头.因此,监测以对冲基金为代表的国际热钱,有助于我们监测国际资产价格走势和泡沫的形成,结合国内实体经济的供需状态,可以监测通货膨胀的抬头.     

Who buys from farmers’ markets and farm shops: The case of Germany

In this article, we analyze the influence of sociodemographic factors and consumer attitudes toward direct marketing products and sources (outlets) on the frequency of buying food from farmers’ markets and farm shops. By conducting an intercept survey with pedestrians in 2011 and 2012, we interviewed a total of n = 550 consumers. The target regions of the study were the Eastern German federal states. The study uses two ordered logit regression models to investigate consumers’ shopping behaviour at farmers’ markets and farm shops separately. We find that different factors significantly influence consumers’ buying behaviour at the two direct marketing outlets. Specifically, both a more favorable view toward the freshness of directly marketed foods and the intention to support local producers are positively related to consumers’ purchase frequency from farmers’ markets. In contrast, consumers’ purchase frequency from farm shops is significantly influenced by their perception of the cost of the products, confidence in food producers of directly marketed products, perception of the safety of the food and perception of the accessibility of farm shops. The study results indicate that considering consumer behaviour separately for different direct marketing channels for food rather than considering the entire category of local food outlets may provide new and valuable insights.     

The impact of the US stock market opening on price discovery of government bond futures

We examine price discovery in sequential markets for the 10-year US Treasury note, German bund, and UK gilt futures over the period 2010–2017. We find that price discovery increases after the opening of the US stock market. Order flows in the bond futures markets are more informative for permanent price changes in the 30-min period after the US stock market opens. A placebo test using US statutory holidays confirms our findings. A cross-market analysis suggests that the increased price discovery in the bond futures is related to returns and net order flows of the US stock market.     

美国次贷危机对我国商业银行监管的警示

美国次贷危机产生的主要原因是全球性的流动性过剩,对次贷及其相应衍生品的风险认识不足、金融当局监管不力等。我国商业银行监管应从美国次贷危机中得到警示:需进一步完善内部控制和风险管理制度,严格控制创新型业务的投资规模,加强创新型业务的研究,加强海外投资人才的培养。     

银行危机传导机制的理论分析

了解传导机制可以为阻断危机蔓延提供科学依据,本文从危机传导的基本内涵入手,分析了银行危机传导的诱因——银行脆弱性,提出金融脆弱性是银行危机传导的根本原因。本文在银行危机传导传统定义的基础上重新界定了该概念,分析了银行危机传导的途径,认为金融脆弱性是银行危机传导的重要媒介,防止银行危机传导的根本措施是提高银行的稳健性。     

The impact of economic downturns on marketing

The Great Recession of 2008–2010 affected the global and U.S. economies and its companies more universally than any economic downturn since the Great Depression. This study explores how the Great Recession influenced the marketing decisions of firms and the resulting long-term effects on marketing within business-to-business companies. Empirical evidence from previous recessions suggests that companies should focus on their customers and increase their marketing efforts during a recession. However, many companies typically slash their marketing budgets during economic downturns. Authors found that during the Great Recession, companies reacted differently than in previous recessions with their marketing responses. Authors conclude their analysis by proposing that the Great Recession will have three long-term effects on marketing in business-to-business companies.