International Equity Markets Research Articles

The impact of the Olympics on the causality between the Chinese and international equity markets

Considering the economic impact of hosting the Olympic Games, this work explores the relationship between the Chinese and international equity markets before and after the two Olympic Games hosted in China. We choose SSEC as the representative of the Chinese equity markets, and use DJI and N225 to represent the international equity markets. In addition, we compare the impacts of the summer and winter Olympics. Through the event analysis perspective, the entire sample is divided, and then the relationship between equity markets in different periods is analysed. First, the test results show that DJI affects SSEC at all times, but SSEC cannot affect DJI. Second, we cannot find a linkage between SSEC and N225. However, the Hatemi-J test revealed that there was a significant asymmetric relationship between them during the summer and winter Olympics. And this asymmetric structure could change in the later stages of the Olympic Games. Besides, the asymmetric structure is inconsistent druing the summer and winter Olympic Games. This work may therefore be of great value for improving economic efficiency, avoiding financial risks, or optimizing portfolio decisions.

Exploring the Symbiotic Link: Co-Integration Analysis of the Egyptian Stock Exchange and International Equity Markets

Exploring the Symbiotic Link: Co-Integration Analysis of the Egyptian Stock Exchange and International Equity Markets

An examination of green bonds as a hedge and safe haven for international equity markets

Green bonds are a type of fixed-income instrument that specifically designed to fund environmentally friendly projects. Investigating the performance of green bonds is essential to gain insights into the risk-return characteristics and dynamics within sustainable finance and their potential role in portfolio diversification. In this paper, we comprehensively examine the ability of green bonds to act as a hedge or a safe haven against nineteen international equity market movements (most of the G20 and Switzerland) over the 2014–2022 period. Using regression analysis, we find that green bonds had acted as a strong hedge for many countries but have lost such property for utmost after the COVID-19 outbreak, while they still provide safe haven benefit for many countries' equity indexes. By the use of a novel CAViaR-based TVP-VAR connectedness approach, we further examine the tail risk spillovers among green bond and international equities which extends the consideration in extreme loss (VaR) perspective. We show that the spillovers rapidly increased during the first wave of COVID-19 and has remained at relatively high level until recent days. In combination of all metrics, we argue that Saudi Arabia might be the only country that has received as good (or even better) protection from green bond in the post-pandemic era as (than) before. Overall, these should increase the attractiveness of green bonds as elements of a portfolio, enhancing the green transition.

Tail risk of international equity market and oil volatility

This paper employs the approach prompted by Kelly and Jiang (2014) to calculate a tail risk index for the global stock market. Our empirical results demonstrate that tail risk of the international stock market is statistically and economically informative about oil volatility. After controlling for EMV and VIX variables, tail risk of international stock market is still useful for predicting oil volatility. Our results prove that tail risk could provide incremental information for the connection between stock market and oil volatility.

The Effect of US Uncertainty Shock on International Equity Markets: The Role of the Global Financial Cycle

We contribute to the literature on the international propagation of uncertainty shocks with a Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) model that quantifies the spillover effects of uncertainty shocks in the US on to real equity prices of 32 advanced and emerging countries (besides the US). In this regard, we also account for the role of global financial market conditions in the propagation of these shocks, using high and low values of the Global Financial Cycle (GFCy) index. Using quarterly data over 1980:1 to 2019:2, our findings reveal greater response of advanced markets than emerging counterparts to an US uncertainty shock. Further, we show consistent higher negative responses during weak financial conditions than otherwise, confirming the intervening role of the GFCy index. Our results have important implications for investors and policymakers.

Modeling skewness in portfolio choice

AbstractWe seek the best skewness models for portfolio choice decisions. To this end, we compare the predictive ability and portfolio performance of several prominent skewness models in a sample of 10 international equity market indices. Overall, models that employ information from the option markets outperform models that only rely on stock returns. We propose an option‐based skewness estimator that accounts for the skewness risk premium. This estimator offers the most informative forecasts of future skewness, the lowest prediction errors, and the best portfolio performance in most of our tests.

Forecasting international equity market volatility: A new approach

AbstractWe propose a new heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model to investigate whether the novel HAR‐RV model we design exhibits superior predictive ability compared with the classical HAR‐RV model in forecasting the realized volatility (RV) of international equity markets. We reconstruct the weekly and monthly HAR components by using the exponentially weighted moving averages (EWMA) method, and the new model is therefore termed EWMA‐HAR‐RV. The in‐sample results and the out‐of‐sample analyses suggest that the EWMA‐HAR‐RV model exhibits stronger predictive power in predicting most international equity market RVs. We further analyze the source of additional predictive power for the EWMA‐HAR‐RV model and find that giving more weight to recent information and using more historical information are helpful for the predictions.

Asset allocation of Australian superannuation funds: a markov regime switching approach

We extend an observable Markov Regime Switching framework to assess the switching behaviour of asset classes of Australian superannuation funds across different fund sizes. We identify the most prominent asset class which contributes to the performance of the investment options and what factors trigger funds’ decisions on rebalancing their portfolio. We find that smaller funds tend to be more active in switching to aggressive options and the larger funds are more conservative. However, in periods of volatility, the large funds are the risk seekers and tend to switch their asset classes and hence their investment strategies. The asset classes whose values add to the performance of the investment options are equity markets and bond markets with the domestic equity market having better performance than international equity market. The switch for the larger funds is driven by volatility of the equity market.

Non-fundamental home bias in international equity markets

This paper examines the home bias in the international equity market using 1) the country-level behavioral factor and 2) the home-foreign return correlation. Specifically, we use responses to the question regarding the level of trust toward strangers as a measure for the behavioral factor that we call country-specific unfamiliarity. The empirical results based on the data from eleven developed countries suggest that country-specific unfamiliarity has a significant and positive correlation with the equity home bias. On the other hand, we find that the home-foreign return correlation is negatively correlated with the equity home bias, which goes against our hypothesis. We check for the robustness of our empirical analysis by fitting alternative specifications and using a log-transformed measure of the equity home bias.

The Correlation Risk Premium: International Evidence

In this paper we carry out a cross-country analysis of the correlation risk premium. We examine the statistical properties of the implied and realized correlation in European equity markets and relate the resulting premium to US equity market correlation risk and a global correlation risk premium. We find evidence of strong co-movement of correlation risk premiums in European and US equity markets. Our results support the existence of a strong empirical relationship between the global correlation risk premium and international equity market option returns. We document the dependence of the correlation risk premium on macroeconomic uncertainty and related variables.

Labor Protection and Corporate Misconduct: Evidence from International Equity Markets

We utilize the exogenous intertemporal variation in employment protection across countries and study the impact of employment protection on international equity markets. We find robust evidence that firms located in countries with weak labor protection regulation exhibit a low level of one-year-ahead stock price crash risk relative to those in countries with strong labor protection regulation. It is consistent with the view that, when employees face material unemployment risk, they are more incentivized to engage in information search and analysis, thereby curtailing the effectiveness of managerial bad-news-hoarding activities (i.e., the protection heightening risk hypothesis). Our finding is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests. Further evidence shows that the impact of employment protection on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with a higher proclivity to suppress bad news and for firms in countries with stronger legal enforcement. Our findings have important implications for policymakers concerning equity extreme risk and labor protection around the globe.

Do stop-loss rules add value in international equity market allocation?

ABSTRACT We consider the performance of stop-loss rules in international equity market allocation. Diversifying internationally gives the potential of larger returns but often involved higher risks, so it is a natural setting to consider these rules. Our results indicate that stop-loss rules, which involve closing positions that decline by a pre-specified percentage, are an important determinant of asset allocation in a parametric portfolio policy setting. They generate portfolios that have superior mean and risk-adjusted returns for investors. This result holds in general but is economically stronger in declining markets. The outperformance is robust to the inclusion of transaction costs.

Asset Growth and Future Stock Returns: Insight from International Equity Markets

The main purpose of this research is to examine the cross-sectional connection between asset growth and stock returns in the international equity market during 2016-2020. Firms in international equity markets, subsequently experience lower stock returns with higher asset growth rates, consistent with the United States evidence. If capital markets are well-developed stocks efficiently priced then the negative AG effect on returns is likely to be stronger, but different to country characteristics representing accounting quality, investor protection, and limits to arbitrage. The research is to examine the cross-sectional connection between the asset growth and stock return in the international equity market is likely due to optimal investment effect than due to market timing, overinvestment, or other forms of mispricing. The evidence suggests that the cross-sectional association between the AG effect and stock return is more likely due to an optimal investment effect than due to overinvestment, mispricing or market timing. The findings of the research support Copper et al (2008) however, the weakening of the accounting quality decreases the AG effect magnitude which contradicts the mispricing-based arguments.

Oil Market Factors as a Source of Commonality in Liquidity in International Equity Markets

When stock markets are less liquid or illiquid, investors are expected to require compensation for taking the risk of not being able to sell quickly. Many studies have documented the existence of the co-movements (commonality) of market liquidity in equity markets as a priced factor. The primary objective of this paper is to introduce the oil market as a potential source of commonality in liquidity. We hypothesize that conditions specific to the oil market can contribute to commonality in liquidity affecting both supply-side and demand-side factors because of its importance to the global economy in general. To this aim, a sample of firms is drawn from 50 countries spanning the period from January 1995 to December 2015. We examine two channels that transmit the effect of oil market movements to the liquidity commonality in international equity markets, namely, oil price returns and oil price volatility. Seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) are utilized to estimate the effect of oil factors on commonality in liquidity. We find that the returns and volatility of oil prices explain the commonality in liquidity in countries with higher integration with oil markets. In addition, we show that the effect of oil volatility is more pronounced for net oil exporters as opposed to net oil importers after controlling for oil sensitivity. These results are robust to controlling for possible sources of commonality in liquidity as found in the literature and alternative estimation specifications.

Carbon Momentum

A company’s long-term average carbon emission growth rate, or carbon momentum (CM), is a significant predictor of future stock market and fundamental performance in international equity markets. Investors demand significantly higher expected returns from high-CM companies than from low-CM companies that continuously reduce their carbon emissions, as high CM hurts future fundamental profitability. The observed CM premium represents a separate source of compensation that is largely unexplained by established financial risk factors of common asset pricing models in the period after the Paris Agreement. CM holds unique information about a company’s carbon emission behavior that is independent from alternative measures, such as total emissions and emission intensity. <b>TOPICS:</b>ESG investing, global markets, analysis of individual factors/risk premia, performance measurement <b>Key Findings</b> ▪ Investors demand higher expected returns from companies with high carbon momentum (CM) relative to companies with low CM in international equity markets. ▪ High CM has a negative impact on a company’s future fundamental performance. ▪ CM holds unique information about a company’s carbon emission behavior that is independent from alternative measures, such as total emissions and emission intensity.

International Review of Equity Market Structure Regulation: Phase III

International Review of Equity Market Structure Regulation: Phase III

Symmetric and asymmetric effects of crude oil price and exchange rate on stock market performance in Nigeria: Evidence from multiple structural break and NARDL analysis

This study explores the linear and non-linear impact of Nigeria's oil price and exchange rate on stock market performance from January 1995 to December 2019 using the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) method. The results from the linear ARDL show a long and short-run positive relationship between the Nigerian stock market and crude oil prices while, the exchange rate show an insignificant in the long-run effect but a significant positive relationship in the short run. The non-linear ARDL front, the tests show that the impact of positive shocks in crude oil price has a significant increasing effect on stock market performance in Nigeria, while negative shocks in crude oil prices have a significant increasing effect on stock market performance. The exchange rate has an insignificant relationship with stock market performance both in short- and long-run asymmetric test. The adjustment asymmetry from the dynamic multiplier graphs shows that the response of stock market performance to a negative change in oil price is stronger than that in response to a positive change. Overall, the result provides the need to diversify investment portfolios through the international equity market, keeping a close watch on the oil price fluctuation which is of importance in formulating risk–return portfolios of stock market performance.

Is Gold a Safe Haven in all Currencies?

This paper shows that gold’s safe haven property crucially depends on gold’s exchange rate with the respective currency for local investors. A sample of 68 international equity market indices demonstrates that currencies significantly affect the strength of the safe haven effect, enhancing or diminishing the effect. Volatile and “risk-on” currencies boost gold’s safe haven property while “risk-off” currencies weaken the safe haven effect.

How Common are Return Factors in Cryptocurrencies and Equities?

Finance research contributes to finding factors to explain the cross-sectional expected equity and cryptocurrency returns. In this paper, we implement the statistical methods to evaluate the common factor structure of these two markets and aim to identify the possible common factors across two markets. By considering the comprehensive dataset covering cryptocurrencies and the U.S. equity universe, we find that there are no common pervasive factors that govern the returns for both cryptocurrencies and equities before 2019, but there arises one common factor post-2020. The identified common factor is significantly related to the standard equity factors but not the crypto factors, which suggests that equity factors can help explain the common variations in returns across equities and cryptocurrencies. The documented pattern is robust across different U.S. equity market classifications, return specifications, and implemented statistical methods. Moreover, we find this pattern holds at the international equity market level. Our results point to the arising of common factors driving the returns on these two markets. Specifically, it's the equity factors that contribute to explaining the cross-sectional cryptocurrency returns recently.

The Belt and Road Initiative on the Comovements of International Equity Markets

The Belt and Road Initiative on the Comovements of International Equity Markets