Does a Held-to-Maturity Strategy Impede Effective Portfolio Diversification for Islamic Bond (Sukuk) Portfolios? A Multi-Scale Continuous Wavelet Correlation Analysis

There is a critical gap in the literature in studying the portfolio diversification opportunities available to sukuk investors and evaluating these in light of held-to-maturity strategies usually adopted by these investors. This article has made an initial attempt to study the portfolio diversification strategies for sukuk portfolios across heterogeneous investment horizons. Our findings critically indicate that returns between local currency sukuk in different markets generally have low levels of correlations across different investor holding periods, thus enabling both short and long-run portfolio diversification benefits. However, in contrast, international currency sukuk issued in different markets exhibits high levels of correlations in the longer-term investor holding periods. Also, in the domestic market context, returns on different classes of domestic sukuk are found to exhibit strong correlations in the longer-holding periods. Our findings critically highlight the feasibility of held-to-maturity sukuk investment strategies from a portfolio diversification perspective.     

Equity-Based Sukuk： Robust Performance of Musharakah and Mudharabah Contract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the robust performance of equity-based sukuk in Malaysia, that is, Musharakah and Mudharabah contract. Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions （AAOIFI）, as an international standard-setting organization for Islamic finance, raised an issue that 85% issuances of Musharakah and Mudharabah sukuk have breached the shariah rulings and do not comply with Islamic principles （AAOIFI, 2002）. Consequently, the performance of equity-based sukuk in Malaysia was affected. This study used a secondary data for size of issuances which are gathered from Bank Negara Malaysia （BNM）＇s Bond Info website and Securities Commission （SC） website. The performance of equity-based sukuk, either Musharakah or Mudarabah, is robust in the study year period of 2000-2012 as regards their sizes of issuances.     

View from practice: Stock market reaction to sukuk credit rating changes in Malaysia

Documented evidence on conventional bond markets shows negative market reaction to bond credit rating downgrade and no reaction to credit rating upgrade. Despite the fact that sukuk issuances make up more than 58.8% of the value of outstanding bonds in the country and Malaysia issues at least half of the world's sukuk and is widely recognized as a leader in the sukuk space, there is no documented evidence on the stock market reaction to sukuk credit rating changes. This study analyzed the wealth effect of sukuk credit rating changes in Malaysia using 16 sukuk upgrades and 20 sukuk downgrades for the period 2000–2014. The evidence shows negative market reaction to downgrades and positive significant reaction to sukuk rating upgrade. This symmetrical market reaction to sukuk credit rating changes implies the market was indifferent between bonds and sukuk from the credit rating perspective. This finding supports the notion that the credit rating agencies are Shariah‐neutral when rating these capital market instruments.