Cointegration and causality between macroeconomic variables and stock market returns

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether current economic activities in Korea can explain stock market returns by using a cointegration test and a Granger causality test from a vector error correction model. This study finds that the Korean stock market reflects macroeconomic variables on stock price indices. The cointegration test and the vector error correction model illustrate that stock price indices are cointegrated with a set of macroeconomic variables—that is, the production index, exchange rate, trade balance, and money supply—which provides a direct long-run equilibrium relation with each stock price index. However, the stock price indices are not a leading indicator for economic variables, which is inconsistent with the previous findings that the stock market rationally signals changes in real activities.     

Global integration and emerging stock market excess returns

This article studies the effects of the global integration process on emerging stock market excess returns in a dynamic context. I improve the existing literature in four main directions. First, I show that the average excess returns rise as the level of financial and real integration rises. Second, I find overwhelming evidence that the financial liberalizations (i.e. de jure integration) of the late 1980s and early 1990s have not been simultaneously accompanied by a de facto integration. Third, I find that the percentage of variation in emerging excess returns explained by non-traded global risk factors rises as the level of market openness rises. Last, at the country level, I show that the correlation coefficient does not represent a robust measure of integration. Results also suggest that there are substantial cross-country differences in the dynamics of the degree of financial integration.     

Momentum in stock returns: evidence from an emerging stock market

This study examines the presence and sources of momentum profits in the Dhaka stock exchange (DSE). Although the short-term reversal and intermediate-term momentum are found to be evident, short-term reversal is not as consistent and significant as intermediate-term momentum. Further examination shows that momentum profits in the DSE cannot be explained by the rational source like market factor but can be explained by the size factor. We argue that presence of large number of small stocks and lack of arbitrage opportunity could be the possible causes of momentum effect in the DSE.     

Category-specific EPU indices,macroeconomic variables and stock market return predictability

This paper mainly investigates whether the category-specific EPU indices have predictability for stock market returns. Empirical results show that the content of category-specific EPU can significantly predict the stock market return, no matter the individual category-specific EPU index or the principal component of category-specific EPU indices. In addition, the information of category-specific EPU indices can also have higher economic gains than traditional macroeconomic variables, even considering the trading cost and different investor risk aversion coefficients. During different forecasting windows, multi-period forecast horizons and the COVID-19 pandemic, we find the information contained in category-specific EPU indices can have better performances than that of the macroeconomic variables. Our paper tries to provide new evidence for stock market returns based on category-specific EPU indices.     

Causal relations among stock returns and macroeconomic variables in a small,open economy

We investigate to what extent important results on relations among stock returns and macroeconomic factors from major markets are valid in a small, open economy by utilizing the multivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) approach on Norwegian data. Unlike many previous studies, which use a different methodology on other European markets, we establish several significant links. Consistent with US and Japanese findings, real interest rate changes affect both stock returns and inflation, and the stock market responds accurately to oil price changes. On the other hand, the stock market shows a delayed response to changes in domestic real activity.     

The interaction between foreigners' trading and stock market returns in emerging Europe

This paper presents the first comprehensive study of foreigners' trading in European emerging stock markets, using complete data compiled at the destination. We also compare European results to Asia, to which available evidence is mainly confined. The findings provide new insight on foreigners' trading: in addition to rebalancing, risk appetite and global information are global drivers of net foreign flows. Foreigners' negative-feedback-trade with respect to local returns at longer horizons. They do so with an asymmetry: they sell following increases but do not buy following declines. Net foreign flow persistence decreases with local return volatility.     

Average correlation and stock market returns

If the Roll critique is important, changes in the variance of the stock market may be only weakly related to changes in aggregate risk and subsequent stock market excess returns. However, since individual stock returns share a common sensitivity to true market return shocks, higher aggregate risk can be revealed by higher correlation between stocks. In addition, a change in stock market variance that leaves aggregate risk unchanged can have a zero or even negative effect on the stock market risk premium. We show that the average correlation between daily stock returns predicts subsequent quarterly stock market excess returns. We also show that changes in stock market risk holding average correlation constant can be interpreted as changes in the average variance of individual stocks. Such changes have a negative relation with future stock market excess returns.     

Investor flows and stock market returns

This study simultaneously analyzes the relation between aggregate stock market returns and cash flows (net purchases of equity) from a broad array of investor groups in the United States over a long period of time from 1952 to 2004. We find strong evidence that quarterly flows are autocorrelated for each of the different investor groups. We further document a significant and positive contemporaneous relation between stock market returns and flows of Mutual Funds and Foreign Investors.     

Global economic activity as an explicator of emerging market equity returns

This paper evaluates whether global economic activity, measured by the maritime index and commodity index, is a distinct common factor in explaining equity returns in emerging markets. We document two important features of global equity markets that show that emerging market equities are a segregated part of the global stock market. First, our results show that increases in global economic activity are associated with higher emerging market equity returns. Second, companies in developed markets that have a significant exposure in emerging markets have incremental exposure to commodity returns. By allocating more capital to emerging market equities, an investor increases portfolio exposure to changes in global economic activity.     

The cross-section of stock returns in an early stock market

Using a new dataset which contains monthly data on 1015 stocks traded on the London Stock Exchange between 1825 and 1870, we investigate the cross section of stock returns in this early capital market. Unique features of this market allow us to evaluate the veracity of several popular explanations of asset pricing behavior. Using portfolio analysis and Fama–MacBeth regressions, we find that stock characteristics such as beta, illiquidity, dividend yield, and past-year return performance are all positively correlated with stock returns. However, market capitalization and past-three-year return performance have no significant correlation with stock returns.     

Time-varying correlation between stock market returns and real estate returns

Direct investment in commercial or residential real estate is found to provide valuable diversification benefits for Australian investors though this is not so evident for indirect real estate investment vehicles like listed Australian real estate investment trusts (A-REIT). Further, multivariate analysis of Australian real estate and share market quarterly returns, spanning the period from the 3rd quarter 1986 to the 3rd quarter 2009, suggest that the correlation between real estate returns and share market returns is time-varying. Finally, while all of the asset class correlation coefficients increased with the Global Financial Crisis period this broad movement in asset class correlation is not evident in during the Wall Street Crash of 1987.     

Trading of foreign investors and stock returns in an emerging market - Evidence from Vietnam

This article investigates the impact of foreign investors' trading on stock returns in Vietnam, a key emerging market. We utilize a time series data set of foreign investors' trading volume and market returns of the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange over an extended time frame before and after global financial crisis. The results indicate that foreign investors are positive feedback traders in Vietnam stock market. The findings also reveal the timing ability and trading strategy of foreign investors. The paper offers strong implications for market participants and portfolio investment.     

A model for stock market returns: non-Gaussian fluctuations and financial factors

While there are various theories to account for the large variations in stock prices, some observed statistical aspects require further analysis. A model is proposed for aggregate stock prices, based on observed data, rather than any efficient market hypothesis, and considering jumps in statistical parameters between phases of generally increasing, or generally decreasing, aggregate stock prices. The model relates a critical parameter for short-term behaviour directly to financial factors, especially interest rates, to explain large short-term variations which follow a non-Gaussian distribution. Economic fundamentals may affect changes over longer periods.      

Non-linear dynamics in international stock market returns

Recent empirical finance research has reported non-linear dynamics within asset returns. However, much of this extant research has focussed upon asset markets within the US and UK. This paper examines whether such dynamics are also present in a series of six international equity index returns. Using empirical models which are consistent that the theoretical behavioural finance noise trader motivation of non-linearity, whereby market dynamics differ between small and large returns, our results suggest these models improve the in-sample fit and out-of-sample forecast over linear alternatives. Further, the point of regime transition differs between positive and negative returns indicating that noise traders are more likely to engage in trend-chasing behaviour in up markets and anchoring behaviour in down markets. Finally, the forecast gain in the Asia-Pacific markets is greater than in the European markets suggestive that limits to arbitrage are greater perhaps as fundamental traders knowledge of market dynamics and noise trader behaviour is still evolving.     

Modelling stock returns in Africa's emerging equity markets

We investigate the behaviour of stock returns in Africa's largest markets namely, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. The validity of the random walk hypothesis is examined and rejected by employing a battery of tests. Secondly we employ smooth transition and conditional volatility models to uncover the dynamics of the first two moments and examine weak form efficiency. The empirical stylized facts of volatility clustering, leptokurtosis and leverage effect are present in the African data.     

Macro variables and the components of stock returns

We conduct a decomposition for the stock market return by incorporating the information from 124 macro variables. Using factor analysis, we estimate six common factors and run a VAR containing these factors and financial variables such as the market dividend yield and the T-bill rate. Including the macro factors does not have a significant impact in the estimation of the components of aggregate (excess) stock returns—cash-flow, discount-rate, and interest-rate news. Using the macro factors in the computation of cash-flow and discount-rate news does not significantly improve the fit of a two-factor ICAPM for the cross-section of stock returns.     

A macroeconomic hedge portfolio and the cross section of stock returns

We use a stock's returns on days when important macroeconomic news is released to form a hedge portfolio, which is long (short) in stocks which have a sensitive (insensitive) reaction to the surprise component of the macroeconomic news. This macroeconomic hedge portfolio (MHP) earns a risk premium of about 5% p.a. over time and a similar premium when used as a risk factor in an asset pricing model. This premium can be interpreted as a cost of an insurance against unexpected changes in an investor's marginal utility. We show that risk premiums associated with the MHP are estimated with a higher precision than traditional macroeconomic tracking portfolios. Furthermore, when the MHP is present in a common factor model, risk factors like high minus low lose much of their ability to explain the cross section of stock returns.     

The cross-section of stock returns in frontier emerging markets

We are the first to investigate the cross-section of stock returns in the new emerging equity markets, the so-called frontier emerging markets. Our unique survivorship-bias free data set consists of more than 1400 stocks over the period 1997 to 2008 and covers 24 of the most liquid frontier emerging markets. The major benefit of using individual stock characteristics is that it allows us to investigate whether return factors that have been documented in developed countries also exist in these markets. We document the presence of economically and statistically significant value and momentum effects, and a local size effect. Our results indicate that the value and momentum effects still exist when incorporating conservative assumptions of transaction costs. Additionally, we show that value, momentum, and local size returns in frontier markets cannot be explained by global risk factors.     

Forecasting stock market returns over multiple time horizons

In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the predictability of stock market returns and explain the nature of this return predictability. To this end, we introduce investors with different investment horizons into the news-driven, analytic, agent-based market model developed in Gusev et al. [Algo. Finance, 2015, 4, 5–51]. This heterogeneous framework enables us to capture dynamics at multiple timescales, expanding the model’s applications and improving precision. We study the heterogeneous model theoretically and empirically to highlight essential mechanisms underlying certain market behaviours, such as transitions between bull and bear markets and the self-similar behaviour of price changes. Most importantly, we apply this model to show that the stock market is nearly efficient on intraday timescales, adjusting quickly to incoming news, but becomes inefficient on longer timescales, where news may have a long-lasting nonlinear impact on dynamics, attributable to a feedback mechanism acting over these horizons. Then, using the model, we design algorithmic strategies that utilize news flow, quantified and measured, as the only input to trade on market return forecasts over multiple horizons, from days to months. The backtested results suggest that the return is predictable to the extent that successful trading strategies can be constructed to harness this predictability.