Exchange Traded Funds Prices Research Articles

Price discovery in carbon exchange traded fund markets

In this study, we analyze the price discovery in four carbon exchange-traded funds (ETF) markets: (i) VanEck Low Carbon Energy ETF (Vaneck), (ii) iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF (iShare), (iii) SPDR MCSI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned ETF (SPDR), and (iv) Xtrackers Emerging Markets Carbon Reduction and Climate Improvers ETF (Xtrackers) using daily closing prices of the four carbon ETFs from December 6, 2018, to November 30, 2022. All four ETF prices are found to have a single unit root implying the efficiency of these ETF markets (LeRoy 1989). However, Johansen's (1991) cointegration test reveals that these four ETFs are driven by not one but three common stochastic trends. Further Analysis reveals that iShares and SPDR markets are driven by the same market force (common stochastic trend). Based on the generalized information share (GIS), we find that approximately 57.89% and 42.11% of the price discovery occurs in the iShares and SPDR markets, respectively. We further analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by dividing the whole sample into pre-COVID and COVID subsamples. In the pre-COVID period, the GIS measures for the iShares and SPDR are 88.69% and 11.31%, respectively. However, GIS measures for the iShares and SPDR are 1.04% and 98.96%, respectively, in the COVID period indicating a significant impact of COVID-19 on price discovery.

Does an Exchange-Traded Fund Converge to its Benchmark in the Long Run? Evidence from Ishares MSCI in Asia-Pacific Countries

This study examines the linkages between exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and their benchmark indices from 2013 to 2019 using iShares MSCI of ten Asia-Pacific countries. Our results show, first, that there is a long-run causality running from the benchmark index to ETFs. These findings imply that ETFs may replicate the performance of the benchmark index over the long run. Second, there is a unidirectional causal relationship from ETFs to the benchmark index in the short run, which indicates that benchmark index prices respond to the short-run changes in the ETF prices when new information is available. Third, there is a significant tracking error between ETFs and the benchmark index. This finding justifies the existence of stock selection and market timing abilities among the ETF managers. Lastly, fund managers add value to the ETFs and generate better than the market returns. This paper provides new evidence to support this new stylized fact of ETFs.

Multiscale Decomposition and Spectral Analysis of Sector ETF Price Dynamics

We present a multiscale analysis of the price dynamics of U.S. sector exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Our methodology features a multiscale noise-assisted approach, called the complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD), that decomposes any financial time series into a number of intrinsic mode functions from high to low frequencies. By combining high-frequency modes or low-frequency modes, we show how to filter the financial time series and estimate conditional volatilities. The results show the different dynamics of the sector ETFs on multiple timescales. We then apply Hilbert spectral analysis to derive the instantaneous energy-frequency spectrum of each sector ETF. Using historical ETF prices, we illustrate and compare the properties of various timescales embedded in the original time series. Through the new metrics of the Hilbert power spectrum and frequency deviation, we are able to identify differences among sector ETF and with respect to SPY that were not obvious before.

Risk Mitigation and Return Resilience for High Yield Bond ETFs with ESG Components

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of ESG components on financial products by using high yield bond exchange traded funds (ETFs). For the objective, we propose a new price correlation and volatility model between an existing financial market such as conventional high yield bond ETFs and a new financial market such as ESG high yield bond ETFs, in which the former affects the latter. Empirical studies show that ESG factors have hedging effects to the downside risk of conventional high yield bond ETF prices in the Covid-19 shocks of March, 2020 from the positive impacts of conventional high yield bond ETF prices on the correlations with ESG ones by using ESG high yield corporate bond ETFs of the Nuveen and the iShares compared with a conventional high yield bond ETF of the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays. Additionally, high yield bond ETFs that take ESG into account are observed to reduce risk compared to a conventional high yield bond ETF. Results also show that ESG high yield bond ETF returns are higher than conventional high yield bond ETF returns in the Covid-19 shocks. The implication from these results is that the value of ESG investing lies in the mitigation of risks and the resilience of expected returns.

Price Discovery in Emerging Market ETFs

Over the last two decades, exchange traded funds (ETFs) have become a preferred investment vehicle to make directional market bets due to their low costs and high liquidity. Moreover, due to the arbitrage activities of authorized participants, prices of ETFs do not deviate materially from the prices of their underlying securities. As a result, ETFs may play a price discovery role such that systematic information is first reflected in these instruments and then transmitted to their underlying securities. We test this hypothesis by investigating the predictive relation between the returns of emerging market ETFs traded in the US and the returns to the emerging market equity indices that they track. In a sample that covers 18 countries, we find that ETF returns can predict one-day-ahead returns of their underlying indices. This relation is robust after controlling for the non-synchronicity between markets, serial correlation in index returns, and various determinants of aggregate returns. Moreover, the predictive relation is stronger during periods of higher volatility. We also find that an out-of-sample rolling window strategy outperforms investing in the market index several-fold in the majority of the markets.

The Pricing of Exchange Traded Funds and the Roles of Primary and Secondary Market Participants

We study the pricing of exchange traded funds (ETFs) and the associated arbitrage trading of them in the primary and secondary markets. We find a direct relation between primary and secondary market trading that is consistent with market-makers using the primary market to hedge their inventory risk in the secondary market, as well as to facilitate arbitrage. Such trading in both markets keeps ETF prices in line with their net asset value. We conclude that the existence of the primary market enhances secondary market efficiency.

Pricing efficiency of Saudi exchange traded funds (ETFs)

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the pricing efficiency of Saudi Sharia-compliant (i.e. Islamic) exchange-traded funds (ETFs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper adheres to a positivist research philosophy with a deductive research approach where data is collected, analyzed and interpreted to examine a hypothesis. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions are applied to investigate pricing efficiency and persistence.FindingsThe results show that Saudi ETFs do not currently offer proper diversification for investors, possibly due to their low trading volumes and the delays of market prices in reflecting net asset value (NAV). On average, ETFs trade at a premium to their NAVs. Moreover, the authors find that the deviations of ETF prices from their NAVs (i.e. premiums or discounts) do not disappear in one day. The results reveal a significant positive relationship between the trading volume of Saudi ETFs and volatility, a significant positive correlation between ETF returns and contemporaneous deviations and a significant negative relationship between returns and lagged deviations. These findings can be interpreted as evidence against the market efficiency of Saudi ETFs.Practical implicationsIndividual and institutional investors can use Saudi ETFs, especially as their efficiency improves with increased trading volume (liquidity). Saudi regulators must increase their efforts to educate market participants and expand the availability of information to enhance transparency and awareness of the benefits of investing in ETFs, which will positively affect liquidity and pricing efficiency in the future.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to perform empirical tests on Saudi ETFs. Saudi Arabia deserves further attention because it is the most significant stock market in the Gulf Cooperation Council and only recently allowed foreigners to participate.

Price formation in Indian gold market: Analysing the role of gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) against spot and futures markets

The paper examines the relative efficiency of gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) against spot gold and gold futures in the Indian scenario, using a series of conventional and threshold cointegration statistics. The results reveal that gold ETFs and spot gold, as well as gold ETFs and gold futures, converge together in the long run. Also, movements in spot prices and futures prices are found to lead those in ETF prices, thus, providing scope for executing profitable trading strategies in ETFs. The study further explores the probable reasons that might account for the relative inefficiency observed in ETF prices.

Testing Moving Average Trading Strategies on ETFs

This paper tests the technical trading rule of moving average (MA) in a long-only portfolio using exchange traded funds (ETFs). We also propose a quasi-intraday version of the MA strategy (QUIMA) that allows investors to trade immediately upon observing MA crossover signals. We find that 1) this QUIMA strategy outperforms the traditional version of the MA strategy that only trades at the close of a trading day, when the long-term MA lag length is not too long, 2) the documented profitability of MA strategy on indices is greatly reduced on ETFs, mainly due to more frequent and larger opening gaps on ETF prices than those on indices, and 3) relative to the buy-and-hold strategy, MA strategies have lower return, but better risk-adjusted performance measures such as the CAPM alpha. In addition, we find that among various long-term MA lengths, the 10-day MA turns out to be overly exploited by investors as its performance is significantly lower than those of surrounding MA lengths. Overall, our findings indicate that profitability of the MA trading rule reduces on tradable ETFs than on non-tradable indices.

(In)Efficiencies in Latin American ETFs

Este estudio evalúa empíricamente la eficiencia en la valoración de varios ETFs latinoamericanos, expresada en desviaciones de sus precios de mercado frente a los valores liquidativos subyacentes. Se cuantifican tales ineficiencias y se implementa una estrategia de negociación verificada por regresiones basadas en el CAPM y el Modelo Fama-French. Los resultados discrepan con la Hipótesis de los Mercados Eficientes y son mejor explicados por aspectos de las finanzas comportamentales. Finalmente, se examina cómo las desviaciones influyen sobre la decisión de creación o redención de ETFs, mediante un análisis de regresión logística. Los resultados evidencian que los participantes autorizados reaccionan ante las ineficiencias realizando transacciones en el mercado primario.

Inefficiencies in the Pricing of Exchange-Traded Funds

The prices of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can deviate significantly from their net asset values (NAVs), in spite of the arbitrage mechanism that allows authorized participants to create and redeem shares for the underlying portfolios. The deviations, typically within a band of about 200 bps, are larger in funds holding international or illiquid securities. To control for stale pricing of the underlying assets, I introduce a novel approach that uses the cross section of prices on a group of similar ETFs. The average pricing band remains economically significant at about 100 bps, with even larger mispricings in some asset classes. Active trading strategies exploiting such inefficiencies produce substantial abnormal returns before transaction costs, providing further proof of short-term mean reversion in ETF prices.

Analysis and Forecast of Tracking Performance of Hong Kong Exchange-Traded Funds: Evidence from Tracker Fund and X iShares A50

This study examines the tracking performance of two Hong Kong exchange-traded funds (ETFs): Tracker Fund and X iShares A50. The turnover of these two ETFs was more than half the total turnover of the 141 ETFs in the Hong Kong market during 2005–2013. Tracking performance is assessed using pricing deviation, which is found to be nonzero and predictable. This indicates that the premium paid by investors is of considerable economic interest. The significant differences in the tracking performance of physical ETFs and synthetic ETFs highlight the relative inability of synthetic ETF to track the market. Additionally, we document the existence of co-integration between the ETF prices and stock market prices. An econometric model is estimated to forecast the pricing deviation, which shows different price dynamics between the two ETFs, but an absence of arbitrage opportunities. The time series regression model of pricing deviation is significantly influenced by market value, dividend yield, trading volume, bid-ask spread, and market risk. The size of the regression coefficients indicates that synthetic ETFs have relatively poor ability to track the market during market fluctuations.

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

Over two decades, ETFs have become one of the most popular investment vehicle among retail and professional investors due to their low transaction costs and high liquidity, taking market share from traditional investment vehicles such as mutual funds and index futures. Research has shown that in addition to the benefits of enhanced price discovery, ETFs add noise to the market: prices of underlying securities have higher volatility, greater price reversals, and higher correlation with the index. Arbitrage activity is a necessary component in minimizing the price discrepancy between ETFs and the underlying securities. During turbulent market episodes, however, arbitrage is limited and ETF prices diverge from those of the underlying securities.

Physical versus Futures-Based Replication: The Case of Commodity ETFs

This article examines various issues concerning the performance of commodity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by taking into account whether these funds adopt a physical or a synthetic replication technique. The analysis first demonstrates that the physically backed ETFs perform better than their futures-based counterparts but they are riskier than them. Moreover, it is shown that the pricing of commodity ETFs, and especially the pricing of futures-based commodity ETFs, is somehow affected by developments in the equity market. The return of commodity ETFs is further affected by the implied and contemporaneous volatility of equity market as well as daily changes in the exchange rates of USD with such basic currencies as EUR and JPY. The tracking error of commodity ETFs is influenced by these market factors too. Finally, it is revealed that the tracking error of futures-based commodity ETFs is significantly higher than the tracking error of commodity ETFs that invest in the underlying commodities directly. This pattern applies both to bear and bull markets. In addition, the tracking error of the majority of commodity ETFs displays a mean-reverting behavior.

Application of data envelopment analysis on Indian gold ETFs

This research article investigates efficacy of five gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) vis-a-vis four index ETFs during 2009 to 2013. The objective is to analyse the performances of commodity-based funds. The prices of ETFs are collected from their respective websites and were selected based on the time period of analysis. The analysis is done with the help of data envelopment analysis (DEA). The standard deviation (risk) and maximum drawdown has been taken as input variable; annual return and risk adjusted return has been taken as output variables. The analysis clearly identified that index funds are performing better in compare to gold funds. Index ETFs are efficient in reducing the risk, whereas gold ETFs are efficient in increasing the returns.

On the Trading Behavior of Emerging Market ETFs

Emerging market exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are the subject of the current article. In particular, a sample of 40 iShares listed in the United States and exposed to several emerging stock markets in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and South Africa is employed to study several issues surrounding the trading behavior of emerging market ETFs. The issues examined concern the behavior of their return and volatility during trading and nontrading hours; their performance relative to market performance; the correlation of emerging ETF returns with the stock market of the United States; their tracking error and the persistence in tracking error; the pricing inefficiencies in terms of deviations between the trading prices and net asset values of ETFs; the persistence in these inefficiencies, which may or may not be arbitrageable; the reaction implications for the pricing of ETFs due to the existence of these inefficiencies; and finally, the determinants of ETFs’ trading activity. The results are comprehensive and indicative of the trading behavior of U.S. ETFs invested in emerging market indexes covering the Americas, Europe, Asia, and South Africa.

Price Dynamics and Liquidity of Exchange-Traded Funds

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have grown substantially in diversity and size in recent years, reflecting a broader shift towards passive, index investing. As a consequence, there is increased interest by practitioners in the pricing and liquidity of ETFs. This paper develops and estimates a model of ETF price dynamics emphasizing the creation/redemption mechanism unique to ETFs. We use the framework to analyze a number of questions concerning price discovery, the dynamics of premiums and discounts, return autocorrelations, performance and tracking relative to benchmark, and transaction costs. We estimate the model for all US-domiciled ETFs in the period 2005-2014, and apply the results to practical issues concerning price efficiency and intrinsic value.

Overreaction of country ETFs to US market returns: Intraday vs. daily horizons and the role of synchronized trading

In this paper we study the intraday price formation process of country Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). We identify specific parts of the US trading day during which Net Asset Values (NAVs), currency rates, premiums and discounts, and the S&P 500 index have special effects on ETF prices, and characterize a special intraday and overnight updating structure between these variables and country ETF prices. Our findings suggest a structural difference between synchronized and non-synchronized trading hours. While during synchronized trading hours ETF prices are mostly driven by their NAV returns, during non-synchronized trading hours the S&P 500 index has a dominant effect. This effect also exceeds the one that the S&P 500 index has on the underlying foreign indices and suggests an overreaction to US market returns when foreign markets are closed.

Intraday pricing of ETFs and certificates replicating the German DAX index

The market for the leading German equity index DAX comprises electronically traded futures contracts, fully replicated and swap-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and certificates. This paper reveals that DAX futures contracts contribute an economically and statistically significant proportion to contemporaneous price quotes of ETFs and certificates. This finding is surprising because the prospectus of ETFs and certificates claim to follow the stock index solely, but not the index futures contract. Exploring further the short-run dynamics, our results suggest that fully replicated ETFs cope better with adjusting their prices to the DAX index than swap-based ETFs and certificates.

Inefficiencies in the Pricing of Exchange-Traded Funds

The prices of exchange-traded funds can deviate significantly from their net asset values, on average fluctuating within a band of about 200 basis points, in spite of the arbitrage mechanism that allows authorized participants to create and redeem shares for the underlying portfolios. The deviations are larger in funds holding international or illiquid securities where net asset values are most difficult to determine in real time. To control for stale pricing of the underlying assets, I introduce a novel approach using the cross-section of prices on a group of similar ETFs. Nevertheless, the average pricing band remains economically significant at about 100 basis points, with even larger mispricings in some asset classes. Active trading strategies exploiting such inefficiencies produce substantial abnormal returns before transaction costs, providing further proof of short-term mean-reversion in ETF prices.