Financ Econ Research Articles

Analyzing time–frequency connectedness between cryptocurrencies, stock indices, and benchmark crude oils during the COVID-19 pandemic

We used daily return series for three pairs of datasets from the crude oil markets (WTI and Brent), stock indices (the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500), and benchmark cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum) to examine the connections between various data during the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider two characteristics: time and frequency. Based on Diebold and Yilmaz’s (Int J Forecast 28:57–66, 2012) technique, our findings indicate that comparable data have a substantially stronger correlation (regarding return) than volatility. Per Baruník and Křehlík’ (J Financ Econ 16:271–296, 2018) approach, interconnectedness among returns (volatilities) reduces (increases) as one moves from the short to the long term. A moving window analysis reveals a sudden increase in correlation, both in volatility and return, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of wavelet coherence analysis, we observe a strong interconnection between data corresponding to the COVID-19 outbreak. The only exceptions are the behavior of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Specifically, Bitcoin combinations with other data exhibit a distinct behavior. The period precisely coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidently, volatility spillover has a long-lasting impact; policymakers should thus employ the appropriate tools to mitigate the severity of the relevant shocks (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) and simultaneously reduce its side effects.

Volatility-dependent probability weighting and the dynamics of the pricing kernel puzzle

In order to estimate volatility-dependent probability weighting functions, we obtain risk neutral and physical densities from the Pan (J Financ Econ 63(1):3–50, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-405X(01)00088-5) stochastic volatility and jumps model. Across volatility levels, we find pronounced inverse S-shapes, i.e. small probabilities are overweighted, and probability weighting almost monotonically increases in volatility, indicating higher skewness preferences and crash aversion in volatile market environments. Moreover, by estimating probabilistic risk attitudes, equivalent to the share of risk aversion related to probability weighting, we shed further light on the pricing kernel puzzle. While pricing kernels estimated from the Pan (J Financ Econ 63(1):3–50, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-405X(01)00088-5) model display the typical U-shape as documented in the literature, pricing kernels—net of probability weighting—are strictly monotonically decreasing and thus in line with economic theory. Equivalently, we find risk aversion to be positive across wealth levels. Our results are robust to alternative maturities, wealth percentiles, alternative functional forms, a nonparametric empirical setting and variations of the Pan (J Financ Econ 63(1):3–50, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-405X(01)00088-5) coefficient estimates.

Mean field portfolio games with consumption

We study mean field portfolio games with consumption. For general market parameters, we establish a one-to-one correspondence between Nash equilibria of the game and solutions to some FBSDE, which is proved to be equivalent to some BSDE. Our approach, which is general enough to cover power, exponential and log utilities, relies on martingale optimality principle in Cheridito and Hu (Stochast Dyn 11(02n03):283–299, 2011) and Hu et al. (Ann Appl Probab 15(3):1691–1712, 2005) and dynamic programming principle in Espinosa and Touzi (Math Financ 25(2):221–257, 2015) and Frei and dos Reis (Math Financ Econ 4:161–182, 2011). When the market parameters do not depend on the Brownian paths, we get the unique Nash equilibrium in closed form. As a byproduct, when all market parameters are time-independent, we answer the question proposed in Lacker and Soret (Math Financ Econ 14(2):263–281, 2020): the strong equilibrium obtained in Lacker and Soret (Math Financ Econ 14(2):263–281, 2020) is unique in the essentially bounded space.

Global energy markets connectedness: evidence from time-frequency domain.

We examine the presence of dependence across 51 energy markets classified into different regions from Jan 2007 to June 2021. In order to examine the presence of dependence across different energy markets, we apply standard and threshold dependence measures proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz, Int J Forecast 28:57-66, (2012) and Baruník and Křehlík, J Financ Econ 16(2):271-296, (2018). We highlight the presence of strong dependence between the energy markets at both regional level and across other regions. European and American energy markets are highly connected within the region over the long-run whereas Asia-Pacific and the African energy markets offer optimal diversification opportunities. Both short- and long-run dependence exists between Chinese and the Hong Kong energy markets and between the US and Canadian energy markets. We also witness substantial increase dependence across all the energy markets during different crisis periods.

Arbitrage-free smile construction on FX option markets using Garman-Kohlhagen deltas and implied volatilities

This paper addresses arbitrage-free FX smile construction from near-term implied volatility dynamics proposed by Carr (J Financ Econ, 120(1), 1–20, 2016). The approach is directly applicable to FX option market conventions. Prices of market benchmark contracts (risk reversals and butterflies) are identified as the roots of a cubic polynomial and ATM-volatility can be matched by construction. Implied volatilities are computed with respect to (non-premium adjusted) option deltas. The approach is compared to the Vanna Volga Approach, which does not guarantee arbitrage-free prices. An empirical application to a normal and a stress scenario demonstrates that arbitrage-free implied volatilities coincide with those from the Vanna Volga Approach when prices are interpolated between the Delta25-call and Delta25-put options. Differences are observed when implied volatilities are extrapolated to the wings. Empirically, these differences are particularly relevant in a stress scenario during the Coronavirus crises (2020).

Capitalization and profitability: applicability of capital theories in BRICS banking sector

The interrelationship between capitalization and profitability in banking sector of BRICS countries is studied with reference to existing five capital theories with the help of the ARDL and VECM/VAR models. These models are applied in the panel and individual settings on BRICS banking sector data from 2000 to 2020 to examine the presence of capital theories in the BRICS banking sectors. The study’s long-term empirical findings hold up the signalling and the bankruptcy cost hypothesis for the BRICS, Brazil, Russia, and India. Capitalization appears to be having a detrimental effect on profitability in China and South Africa, the agency argument is upheld. Profitability appears to have a considerable positive long-run influence on capitalization, which is consistent with Myers and Majluf’s (J Financ Econ 13:187–221, 1984) pecking order model for BRICS and Brazil. Profitability has a detrimental influence on capitalization in India and South Africa, corroborating the Modigliani and Miller (Am Econ Rev 48:261–297, 1958) and Miller (J Financ 32:1151–1168, 1977) notion. Although least significance is observed in most circumstances, the results of short-term prediction are comparable to those of long-run estimation. Both short-run and long-run evaluations of the capital-profitability link help in designing the “macroprudential” policies that demonstrate significance of our research.

Social trading: do signal providers trigger gambling?

Social trading—also referred to as copy trading—is an interactive platform-based innovation facilitating visibility and traceability of signal provider trading activities. Based on published portfolio transaction and return track records, platform users can copy one or several signal providers, i.e. delegate their investment decisions, and thereby become signal followers. Allowing signal providers to administer purely virtual portfolios, in combination with a remuneration scheme based on performance fees and high watermarks, creates convex or option-like incentives (Carpenter, J Finance 55:2311–2331, 2000; Doering and Jonen, SSRN J, 2018). We argue that the incentive structure imposed by social trading providers, including a very limited monetary downside risk for signal providers, may motivate traders to gamble. In this context, we assess the factors that have an impact on signal provider lottery-like stock transactions (Bali et al., J Financ Econ 99:427–446, 2011; Kumar, J Finance 64:1889–1933, 2009). We provide empirical evidence that signal providers tend to increase the traded relative share of lottery-like stocks when being located at an extreme end of the relative performance spectrum. Furthermore, we provide evidence that underperforming signal providers increase their net exposure towards lottery-like stocks, in turn exposing signal followers to a lottery-like return structure—triggering gambling.

Correction to: Semi-analytical prices for lookback and barrier options under the Heston model

In this note, we point out a mistake in Theorem 1 of De De Gennaro Aquino and Bernard (Decis Econ Finance 42(2):715–741, 2019) and provide some missing references where the problem of pricing barrier options under the Heston model had previously been discussed.

A fuzzy multifactor asset pricing model.

This paper introduces a new approach of multifactor asset pricing model estimation. This approach assumes that the monthly returns of financial assets are fuzzy random variables and estimates the multifactor asset pricing model as a fuzzy linear model. The fuzzy random representations allows us to incorporate bias on prices induced by the market microstructure noise and to reflect the intra-period activity in the analysis. The application of fuzzy linear regression enables the uncertainty assessment in an alternative way to confidence interval or hypothesis testing, which is subjected the binding assumption of normal distribution of returns. However, it is well known that the distribution of many asset returns deviates significantly from the normal assumption. We illustrate this estimation in the particular case of the Fama and French’s (J Financ Econ 33:3–56, 1993) three factor model. Finally, empirical studies based on Fama and French’s portfolios and risk factors, historical dataset highlight the effectiveness of our estimation method and a comparative analysis with the ordinary least square estimation shows its ability to be applied for an optimal decision decision making in the financial market.

Seasonalities in the German stock market

This paper suggests innovative investment strategies drawing on return seasonalities. By means of an out-of-sample study of the German stock market, we report that these long–short investment strategies earn on average raw returns up to 233 basis points per month throughout two decades from 1998 to 2017. On a monthly basis, this documents an outperformance of the corresponding Heston and Sadka (J Financ Econ 87(2):418–445, 2008) strategy by 66%. This outperformance is robust in magnitude even after adjusting for common risk factors along both the three-factor Fama and French (J Financ Econ 33(1):3–56, 1993) model and the four-factor Carhart (J Finance 52(1):57–82, 1997) model. Categorizing stocks into three risk profiles lets us conclude that long–short momentum portfolios of stocks with a low-risk profile generate robust investment performance.

Revisiting disposition effect and momentum: a quantile regression perspective

Behavioral finance theory stipulates that the disposition effect plays an important role in inducing momentum. Using quantile regression analysis, this research is twofold. First is to examine the relation between the unrealized capital gains and expected returns. Second is to examine the capability of disposition effect as one of the underreaction models in inducing momentum in the most extreme quantiles (0.05th and 0.95th) of expected returns. To do so, we use a sample of 5176 firms, from January 1998 to June 2015. Following Grinblatt and Han (J Financ Econ 78:311–339, 2005), the findings show that the relation between unrealized capital gains and expected returns is significantly positive and decline as the quantiles of expected returns increase from the lowest to the median expected return quantiles. However, they become significantly negative and rise with the increase of expected returns quantiles above the median expected returns quantile. This indicates that disposition-prone investors exhibit disposition behavior below the median and median expected return quantiles, but they display the opposite behavior above the median quantiles of expected returns. Our findings also suggest that the disposition effect is not a good noisy proxy for inducing momentum at the lowest quantile of expected returns (0.05th). However, the disposition effect induces contrarian behavior at the highest quantile of expected returns (0.95th).

ESG controversies and controversial ESG: about silent saints and small sinners

Based on an extensive international dataset containing Thomson Reuters environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) rating, as well as Thomson Reuters newest controversies and combined score of an average of 2500 companies in the years 2002–2018, this article contributes to the existing discourse of the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance (CFP) by examining the Fama and French (J Financ Econ 116(1):1–22, 2015) five-factor risk-adjusted performance of positive screened best and worst portfolios, based on a 10% cutoff, respectively, for equally, value- and rank-weighted strategies in the European, US and global market. Furthermore, the controversies score allows us to examine the mid-to-long-term effects of scandals on the CFP without having to rely on the event study methodology. Even though a value-weighted strategy does not show any significant abnormal returns, we examined a significant outperformance for equally weighted worst ESG portfolios and best controversies strategies. These results strongly indicate that this is, on the one hand, driven by low-rated smaller companies (“small sinners”) and clean-coated firms with regard to controversies (“silent saints”) on the other hand. The findings hold for several robustness checks such as adjusting the cutoff rates or splitting the dataset across time.

Risk-adjusted Returns from Statistical Arbitrage Opportunities in Indian Stock Futures Market

Statistical arbitrage is a trading strategy that employs time series methods to identify relative mispricing between securities based on the expected values of these assets. The Pairs Trading, one of the techniques of statistical arbitrage, is a market neutral trading strategy. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the profitability and risks of pairs trading strategy for various stocks. The daily future prices of stocks traded and listed on NSE over 2011–2017 are used on rolling basis to compute the performance based on the selection of pairs through minimizing the sum of squared deviation (distance method) and the selection based on cointegration tests (cointegration method) for identifying stocks suited for pairs trading strategies. The pairs trading strategy is performed in two stages: the formation period and the trading period. The strategy is created by long position in one stock and short position in other stock of the pair identified. To examine the risk of pairs trading and the drivers of returns, the portfolio returns are risk-adjusted using Fama and French (J Financ Econ 33:3–56, 1993) three factor asset pricing model. The study reveals that pairs trading in related stocks is significantly profitable with average annualized profitability of up to 34% including transaction costs. The evidence of pairs trading profits in stock futures supports the view that these profits reflect compensation to arbitrageurs for enforcing the law of one price in similarly related markets to ensure market efficiency. Indian financial markets are maturing and are attracting sizable retail and institutional investments. Advanced applications like the one presented in this study are of significance for the investors and investment consultants so that they can benefit from such trading strategies.

Exploring the short-term momentum effect in the cryptocurrency market

This study explores the short-term momentum effect in the cryptocurrency market. Utilising a comprehensive cryptocurrency dataset and the portfolio construction methods of Fama and French (J Financ Econ 33:3–56, 1993) and Carhart (J Finance 52:57–82, 1997), we construct cryptocurrency portfolios and examine their performance. The main findings are: (1) the cryptocurrency market portfolio significantly outperforms major stock markets globally in terms of risk-adjusted return; (2) from an asset pricing perspective, short-term momentum effects are significantly priced in the cryptocurrency market, while size effects are controlled, suggesting that the short-term momentum effect explains variations in the returns of cryptocurrency portfolios; and (3) the portfolios constructed according to the short-term momentum effect do not outperform the cryptocurrency market portfolio.

Investigating Capital Structure Speed of Adjustment (SOA) of Indonesian Companies for Corporate Value

The objective of this study is to evaluate influence of growth potential, profitability, company size, ratio between capital structure and its target, short-term loan, asset maturity, growth of GDP and inflation rate towards capital structure SOA. The study involved secondary data in the form of financial reports from manufacturing companies listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange (ISE) published in ISE website, www.idx.co.id , and National Bureau of Statistics data about Indonesian economy published in www.bps.go.id , National Bureau of Statistics. From the result of partial adjustment model estimation, significant leverage lag shows that Indonesian manufacturing companies adjust their capital structure towards target leverage with SOA of 64.73% per year. This finding confirms in Darminto and Manurung (J Bus Manag 1(1):35–52, 2008) that capital structure SOA of Indonesian companies is relatively faster than that in the developed countries like USA (30%) (Flannery and Rangan in J Financ Econ 79(3):469–506. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2005.03.004 , 2006). Capital structure SOA of manufacturing companies in Indonesia is similar to Ramjee and Gwatidzo (Medit Account Res 20(1):52–67, 2012)’s study on capital structure SOA of manufacturing companies in South Africa (between 62.3 and 65.5% per year). Originality of this study is capital structure measurement used in the study. Until recently, two major theories, trade-off theory and pecking order theory, have been used to explain capital structure of companies. Previous studies evaluated both theories separately. This study is based on “dynamic trade-off theory” in which the trade-off theory and pecking order theory are evaluated simultaneously instead of partially.

Liquidity commonality beyond best prices: Indian evidence

This paper investigates the phenomenon of liquidity commonality in the Indian market, for the 3-year period spanning 2015–2017. Principal component analysis and canonical correlation analysis are performed on a number of liquidity proxies to provide the evidence of commonality. Following the market model of Chordia et al. (J Financ Econ 56(1):3–28, 2000), we show that the level of liquidity commonality for this order-driven emerging market is higher, as compared to that reported for quote-driven markets. There is evidence to suggest that both the inventory and information asymmetry hypotheses significantly contribute to the commonality in this important emerging market. Commonality is observed even at the deeper levels beyond the best prices, indicating a significant role of information asymmetry hypothesis. The study also provides evidence of specific intraday patterns in liquidity and ‘free-entry and free-exit’ phenomenon.

Mean-variance dynamic optimality for DC pension schemes

In this paper we deal with the mean-variance portfolio selection for a defined contribution (DC) pension fund. Since this problem is time-inconsistent, a number of papers have proposed to tackle it through either a Nash equilibrium approach or a precommitment strategy. Here, we adopt the dynamically optimal approach introduced by Pedersen and Peskir (Math Financ Econ 11:137–160, 2017), and we compare the dynamically optimal strategy with the precommitment one. While it is well known that the precommitment strategy is the solution to a target-based problem, we show that the same holds for the dynamically optimal strategy. In particular, the precommitment strategy has a constant target, while the dynamically optimal strategy has a time-varying target whose expectation coincides with the constant target of the previous case. We also show that the expected wealth is the same under the two approaches. Numerical applications show that (i) the median of the risky asset’s share is lower for the precommitment than the dynamically optimal strategy; (ii) the amount of money invested in the precommitment risky portfolio is highly more volatile than in the dynamically optimal case; (iii) the variance of wealth is lower with the precommitment strategy than with the dynamically optimal one; (iv) under scenarios of extreme market returns (either good or bad), the dynamically optimal strategy allows a more effective reaction because of the continuous adjustment of the final target.

Endogenously choosing the timing of setting strategic contracts’ levels and content in a managerial mixed duopoly with welfare-based and sales delegation contracts

This paper explores the full observable delay game—which involves the timing of setting one public firm’s and one private firm’s strategic contracts’ levels and content—in a managerial mixed duopoly with a welfare-based delegation a la Nakamura (Int Rev Econ Finance 35:262–277, 2015, J Ind Compet Trade 19:235–261, 2019b, J Ind Compet Trade 19:679–737, 2019c). In this paper, we first show that both the following types of market frameworks can be equilibrium market structures: (1) a market formation in which the manager of the public firm, which has a quantity contract, is the leader and manager of the private firm, which has a price contract and is the follower, and (2) a market configuration in which the manager of the public firm, which has a quantity contract, is the follower, and the private firm, which also has a quantity contract, is the leader. Second, we demonstrate that the form of highest social welfare is achieved under market structure (2). Hence, in such a managerial mixed duopoly, from the perspective of social welfare, it is not as necessary for the relevant authority (including the government) to regulate owners’ free determination of the timing of setting public and private firms’ strategic contracts’ levels and content.

A bootstrap bias correction of long run fourth order moment estimation in the CUSUM of squares test

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to propose a bias correction of the estimation of the long run fourth order moment in the CUSUM of squares test proposed in Sansó et al. [Testing for change in the unconditional variance of financial time series. Rev Econ Financ. 2004;4(1):32–53] for the detection of structural breaks in financial data. The correction is made by using the stationary bootstrap. The choice of this resampling technique is justified by the stationarity and weak dependence of the time series under the assumptions which ensure the existence of the limiting distribution of the test statistic, under the null hypothesis. Monte Carlo experiments have been implemented to evaluate the effect of the proposed bias correction considering two particular data generating processes, the GARCH(1,1) and the log-Normal Stochastic Volatility. The effectiveness of the bias correction has been evaluated also on real data sets.

Is idiosyncratic risk ignored in asset pricing: Sri Lankan evidence?

The present study focused on one of the important South Asian nations—Sri Lanka—to examine the role of idiosyncratic volatility in asset prices. A four-factor model with idiosyncratic volatility was designed for capturing the market, size, value and idiosyncratic risk yields better than Fama and French’s (J Financ Econ 33:3–56, 1993) three-factor model and performance of the model. Fama–MacBeth’s cross-sectional regression, residual graphs and GRS test all confirm the superiority of four-factor model over 2 three-factor models. For all MC- and IVOL-based portfolios, idiosyncratic volatility is negatively related to the expected returns and positively related for all PB-based portfolios. Finally, study findings confirm that there is a high importance for idiosyncratic volatility risk factor while considering investment decision in Colombo stock exchange. Hence, investor should compensate for holding such risk factors in the portfolio.