Sector Equity Research Articles

Connectedness of the Sectoral Equity Returns in the GCC

Connectedness of the Sectoral Equity Returns in the GCC

Trends in rural fiscal decentralisation in India’s Karnataka state: a focus on public health

For decades, decentralisation reforms have been seen as a powerful instrument by health policy advocates to improve health sector performance in developing countries. In India, the 73rd Constitutional Amendment introduced in 1992 called for strengthening the fiscal autonomy and service delivery capacity of rural local governments. This paper explores how decentralised governance influences public health sector resource allocation, equity and efficiency in rural Karnataka. For this, the authors analysed administrative data published by the Karnataka state government to create tailored standardised performance measures that capture the degree of local governments’ fiscal discretion in implementing public health programmes from 2011–18 at the district level. The findings highlight sector-specific differences in fiscal autonomy, ranging from high local discretion over funds in the nutrition sector to very limited discretion in the medical and public health sector. They also show that decentralised public health funding is not well-targeted to areas of greatest need in Karnataka

Spillovers between the Islamic gold-backed cryptocurrencies and equity markets during the COVID-19: A sectorial analysis

This study examines the return and volatility transmission between the Islamic gold-backed cryptocurrencies (Onegram and X8X) and global Islamic equity sectors during the pre-COVID and COVID-19 periods. We also estimate the optimal weights, hedge ratios, and hedging effectiveness for all pairs of markets. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 crisis intensified the spillover effect between the selected Islamic assets. We show that investors could increase their allocations in Onegram gold-backed cryptocurrency to reduce the risk of the equity sector portfolio during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the hedging costs for all pairs have increased during the COVID-19 period in comparison to the pre-pandemic level. Finally, the analysis of hedging effectiveness suggests that investors can reduce the risk of Islamic sectorial equity portfolios by adding the Islamic Sharia-based cryptocurrencies during both sample periods.

Dependence dynamics of Islamic and conventional equity sectors: What do we learn from the decoupling hypothesis and COVID-19 pandemic?

The recent COVID-19 pandemic intensification generates a different set of challenges for global financial markets and portfolio management strategies. This paper uses network analysis to investigate the static and dynamic dependence within Islamic and conventional equity sectors. The study focuses on the decoupling hypothesis and how the dependence among sectors changes during COVID19. Empirical findings indicate a higher degree of spillover during the COVID19 sub-period. Islamic and conventional equities behave differently in terms of industry-level dependence during normal and crisis times, thus decoupling. Further, the dependence effect between conventional equity returns is stronger than Islamic equity returns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The finding of this paper has several significant implications for portfolio selection and risk management. Portfolios consisting of Islamic equity sectors including industrials, basic materials, consumer services, and technologies highlight low-diversification benefits across the entire sample period. Also, investment exposure to less connected Islamic and conventional equity sectors provides a good diversification strategy.

Forests for Fama

In this article, the author addresses Eugene Fama’s skepticism regarding the predictability of stock market bubbles. To do so, he applies two ensemble learning methods, the random cut forest and random forest algorithms, to build a model that predicts large near-term drawdowns based on patterns in stock price behavior. The model includes three predictive variables. The first factor is an anomaly score produced by random cut forest, an algorithm specifically designed to detect outliers in streaming data. The second and third factors are the standard deviation of price returns and the return convexity over specified time horizons, with return convexity defined as the difference between one-year price returns and six-month price returns. The author’s predictions are based on random forest regressions. He applies the model to a large universe of equity sectors and factors. Blocked time-series cross-validation is used to evaluate the predictive efficacy of the model. The author shows that across the sectors and factors considered, the model presented produces predictive scores that are strongly positive. Although bubble prediction is surely a multidimensional endeavor that requires input from a variety of tools and sources, the author demonstrates that a framework built upon ensemble methods can be informationally additive to the detection of bubblelike behavior across a wide array of stocks.

Asymmetric spillover and network connectedness between gold, BRENT oil and EU subsector markets

This study examines the dynamic asymmetric return spillovers between gold and oil commodity futures and 22 European equity sectors using the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) approach. The results show that gold and oil markets are the net recipients of return transmissions from the system, whereas the majority of equity sectors are the net transmitters of return spillovers in the system. Furthermore, negative spillovers are stronger than positive spillovers, suggesting asymmetry in return spillovers. Gold is the smallest recipient/transmitter of return spillovers from/to the system. The time-varying symmetric and asymmetric return spillover rises during the 2011–12 European debt crisis, 2014–15 oil crisis, 2016 Brexit referendum, and the COVID-19 crisis episodes, providing evidence of contagion. More interestingly, the COVID-19 crisis has had the biggest impact on positive and negative return transmission among the markets under study. The pairwise network connectedness analysis reveals the energy (basic resources) sector as the biggest transmitter of positive and negative return spillovers to the crude oil (gold) market. Finally, portfolio risk and downside-risk reduction analyses suggest an optimal weights-based strategy to minimize the risk for gold-stock and oil-stock-based portfolios during down markets. Overall, gold (oil) is considered to diversify the risk of all (few) European equity sectors during crisis and non-crisis periods.

Petroleum prices and equity sector returns in petroleum exporting and importing countries: an analysis of volatility transmissions and hedging

ABSTRACT This paper examines the direction and magnitude of volatility transmissions between prices of petroleum and stock sector indices of the net petroleum exporter, Mexico, and the net petroleum importer, the United Kingdom. The sector indices are self-constructed utilizing daily data of 258 unique stocks listed in eight sectors from January 2005 to September 2018 that permits implementing the same methodological framework across two markets. The study applies the VAR-GARCH model that enables to study bidirectional spillover effects. The results provide evidence of volatility spillovers between petroleum prices and sector indices. The effects are more apparent in the case of the net exporter, where the bidirectional volatility transmissions were observed. The computed optimal portfolio weights and hedge ratios considerably vary among sectors of both countries. The findings emphasize the crucial role of comprehending the heterogeneity of sectors for the management of investment portfolios.

The oil price crisis and contagion effects on the Canadian economy

ABSTRACT Using a multifactor model, this paper investigates industry-level sensitivities to oil price changes and their spillover effects on 11 economic sectors in Canada during the 2014–2016 oil price crisis through a multisector analysis of sectoral equity indices. The three-factor model proposes a benchmark for interdependence between different sectors and examines the contagion effects transmitted via a common factor, a global oil factor, and a factor specific to the domestic oil and gas (O&G) sector during the crisis period. We provide empirical evidence of a strong and positive relationship between the global oil factor and the Canadian equity market. Results show that all sectoral equity portfolios are exposed to the global oil price. Also, though most economic sectoral portfolios experience contagion effects from the global oil market during the crisis period, some sectors show resilience. Finally, we find limited evidence on the effect of shocks originating in the O&G sector on other sectors of the Canadian economy. Our findings have implications for policy makers, managers and investors.

Volatility spillover among sector equity returns under structural breaks

Recent evidence suggests that ignoring structural breaks in volatility in financial asset returns can result in overestimation of volatility spillover among markets. This paper examines volatility spillover among major US equity sectors (i.e. Financial, Technology, Energy, Health, Consumer and Industrial) with bivariate GARCH models utilizing daily data from April 2006 to March 2021 after adjusting for volatility breaks. I find significantly less volatility spillover between sector returns after adjusting for detected volatility breaks into a bivariate GARCH model. I also show that after adding volatility breaks into a model the estimated hedge ratios change significantly and show considerably less variability over time, which can result in substantial savings in portfolio rebalancing costs.

An Analysis of Co-movement in Equity Sector Indices

An Analysis of Co-movement in Equity Sector Indices

The influence of oil, gold and stock market index on US equity sectors

ABSTRACT Within a Markov regime switching perspective, we examine the spillovers between the returns of the ten most representative US equity sectors and the returns of gold, oil, and S&P 500 (GOI), on the one hand, and their implied volatilities, GVZ, OVX, and VIX, on the other hand. Our objective is to check if the implied volatilities of GOI influence the US equity sectors more than GOI returns. Single regime results show that GOI volatilities affect the equity sector returns more than GOI returns, suggesting that forward-looking volatility expectations play a more significant role in determining sector returns than current and historical GOI returns. During tranquillity periods, all three implied volatilities influence equity sector returns more than GOI returns. Moreover, VIX has the strongest effect on sectoral returns. During turmoil periods, VIX influences the sectoral returns more than S&P 500 returns. However, the returns of gold and oil influence equity sector returns more than their implied volatilities. The result may be useful to portfolio and equity risk managers for improved forecasting and hedging in the US equity markets.

Is oil price risk systemic to sectoral equity markets of an oil importing country? Evidence from a dependence-switching copula delta CoVaR approach

Is oil price risk systemic to sectoral equity markets of an oil importing country? Evidence from a dependence-switching copula delta CoVaR approach

Spillovers from tourism demand to tourism equity indices

In this article, we analyse the extent of the spillover from international tourism demand on tourism sector equity indices and find that the magnitude of the spillovers are quite dispersed across different markets, which is in line with previous studies. Novel to the literature, we examine the impact of solvency and profitability positions of the firms in the tourism equity indices on evaluating the magnitude of the spillovers from tourism demand to sector equity indices. Firms that have better solvency ratios and operated in deeper financial markets find their stock returns are affected less from the fluctuations in tourism demand. Profitability positions of the firms, however, do not have significant impact on explaining the spillovers.

Nonlinear dependence and connectedness between clean/renewable energy sector equity and European emission allowance prices

This study examines frequency volatility spillovers, connectedness and the nonlinear dependence between the European emission allowance (EUA) prices and renewable energy indices. For this purpose, we use a time-scale spillover index and different copula functions. The results show a dominance of short-term volatility spillovers between carbon prices and renewable energy indices over their long-term counterpart. More importantly, the spillover strength is high between carbon prices and both S&P clean energy and wind energy indices in the short term. Meanwhile, a strong spillover is most pronounced between the clean energy indices and the carbon price in the long term. Furthermore, the carbon price is predominantly the receiver of spillovers from the clean energy indices irrespective of the time horizon. Using dynamic copula, we show positive and dynamic dependence between the carbon prices and both clean and solar indices, whereas an asymmetric tail dependence between carbon prices and renewables, technology and wind indices.

What drives dynamic connectedness of the U.S equity sectors during different business cycles?

The study investigates (i) the time-varying and directional connectedness of nine equity sectors through intra- and inter-sector volatility spillover periods and (ii) assesses the impact of state variables on aggregate volatility spillovers. The study finds about 76% of volatility linkage is associated with cross-sector volatility transmissions. Aggressive sectors, which are sensitive to macroeconomic risk, play the net volatility transmission role. Defensive sectors that are largely immune to macroeconomic risk play the net volatility receiving role. The intensity and direction of volatility transmissions among the sectors vary with economic expansion and recession periods. Over time, some sectors switching from net transmitting to net receiving role and vice versa. Macro and financial market uncertainty variables significantly impact volatility spillover at lower volatility spillover (economic expansion period) and higher volatility (economic recession periods) volatility spillover quantiles. Political signals are seemingly more imprecise and uninformative during economic expansion or low quantiles, intensifying volatility spillover. Overall, the causal effects of macro, financial, and policy uncertainty variables on aggregate volatility spillover are asymmetric, nonlinear, and time-varying. The study's result supports the cross-hedging and financial contagion views of volatility transmission across nine US equity sectors.

The implications of COVID-19 for student equity in Australian higher education

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has both widened and exacerbated student equity issues in Australian higher education, just as it has increased economic and social disadvantage in the general population. This article identifies the immediate impacts of the pandemic on existing equity structures, mapping potential areas for research analysis and policy responses. Given the pervasive nature of COVID-19, it is proposed that a whole-of-system approach be used, and in addition to focusing on existing student equity categorisations, a holistic approach to understanding disadvantage over the university student life cycle is undertaken to ensure the response to this health crisis is both targeted and timely. The article identifies emerging repercussions of the pandemic that will drive long-term structural changes in Australian higher education, as well as the community and labour market. Based on these observations, the key challenges facing the student equity sector are identified and possible responses provided.

Nonlinear spillover and portfolio allocation characteristics of energy equity sectors: Evidence from the United States and Canada

AbstractWe investigate the nonlinear spillover and portfolio allocation characteristics of the US and Canadian energy equity portfolios. Our empirical study based on directional spillover index and non‐convex portfolio optimization show that the spillover effects in the aggregate are smaller for the US portfolio across time. However, when only the largest spillover transmitters and receivers are considered, the total spillover effects are lower for the Canadian portfolio relative to the US portfolio. These portfolio optimization results indicate lower portfolio allocation risk for the Canadian energy equities during the global financial crisis of 2008 and for the full sample period.

Insights from the (in)efficiency of Chinese sectoral indices during COVID-19

This article evaluates the effects of the crisis caused by the new Coronavirus (COVID-19) on the Chinese sectoral indices. Using the complexity–entropy plane methodology, we find that the COVID-19 crisis caused increased inefficiency in most of China’s equity sectors. We also find heterogeneous effects depending on the economic sector. Our results are useful for a better understanding the effect of global shocks on the stock markets and how their effects are distributed across economic sectors.

A Study on Risk and Return Analysis of Selected Banking Securities

In each country the banking system plays a prominent role in the development of its economy, and Indian banking sector is not exceptional. Indian financial sector is the backbone of the country’s economy development, the banking sector plays a key role in empowerment of all areas. In the capital market, the equity market plays a huge role. And it’s volatile in nature too.
 Banking sector equity market has volatility and less returns on investment in some of the banks and some of the banks have more volatility in investment also. The investors identify the minimum risk and maximum return on investment decisions through portfolio analysis. Hence, understanding the risk involved in the investment helps to maximize returns. This study helps investors to understand from the Previous Behaviour Of Selected data., to make the best decision through market volatility, the primary objective of this study is to analyse the risk and return of selected banking securities.

Frequency spillovers, connectedness, and the hedging effectiveness of oil and gold for US sector ETFs

This study uses time-frequency analysis to examine directional connectedness between US sector equity ETFs, oil, gold, stock market, and uncertainty factors over the short and long terms. Frequency-based spillover index and portfolio hedging methods are applied to develop the empirical results. In analysing directional connectedness, we find that the market's 30-day forward looking expectations of US stock market volatility (VIX) has the strongest effect on the US sector equity ETFs in both the short and long runs. This is followed by the 30-day forward looking expectations of oil price volatility (OVX). Of the uncertainty factors, US economic policy uncertainty has the smallest impact on sector ETFs. Oil has a stronger effect on sector ETFs than gold in the short and long runs. Spillovers between the sector ETFs, gold, oil, and uncertainty factors, are asymmetric for both short and long runs, stronger in the short term, and noticeably increase in times of financial turmoil and economic uncertainty. Portfolio hedging results show that oil is the most effective hedge for each sector ETF in both the short term and the long term. The highest hedging effectiveness is observed for the Consumer Staples ETF.