International Portfolio Management Research Articles

Integration of ESG Factors in Portfolio Management: International Trends and Practices

The promotion of the concept of sustainable development has made ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing a significant trend in today's investment landscape. This article elaborates on the relevant concepts of ESG investing, analyzes the global development of ESG investing, explores the relationship between ESG ratings and company financial and non-financial performance, and suggests the correlation between rating systems and capital costs, employee satisfaction, and more. Based on this foundation, the article discusses the specific application of ESG factors in international portfolio management, including ESG integration methods, portfolio construction strategies, and risk management. Research indicates that the consideration of ESG factors provides a more comprehensive dimension for investment decision-making, emphasizing sustainability in investment portfolios, and offering valuable insights for investors and businesses.

Senior official speeches and severe price discontinuities in the foreign exchange market

Purpose This study aims to better understand the effects of speeches as a valuable communication tool for central banks. It extends the analysis of the effects of public speeches on jumps to determine whether individual speakers matter partly because of their name, position or institution. Design/methodology/approach This study detects intraday jumps using a robust-to-jump volatility estimator that accounts for deterministic seasonality. As a result, this study removes spurious jumps that occur when volatility is high and consider the relatively small jumps that occur when volatility is low. After identifying jumps, this study examines their reactions to senior official speeches and macroeconomic news surrounding the US and European Union (EU) financial crises. Findings Despite having the most influential individual speakers, this study finds that the impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) is mitigated because the two institutions have a relatively small impact on currency jumps. This finding shows that the speaker’s name is more important than his or her institution affiliation. While the Federal Reserve Bank President and Chief Executive, as well as ECB board members, significantly reduce jump sizes, particularly during the EU crisis period, both the Fed Chairman and the ECB President increase the magnitude of the jump in both the US crisis and noncrisis periods, contributing to market instability. Practical implications The implications of the results include international portfolio management, currency derivatives pricing and hedging, risk management and market efficiency. Originality/value The findings contribute to a better understanding of the effects of senior official speech attributes on currency jumps in various economic states. The results raise questions about the speaker’s name, institution and position’s effectiveness in calming markets and reducing uncertainty.

Microstructure and asset pricing: An insight on African frontier stock markets

AbstractThis article investigates the impact of microstructure factors on asset pricing in some African stock markets. We use data on stocks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the “Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières,” and the Nigeria Stock Exchange, and we consider international portfolio management from 2000 to 2014. Generalized least square and fixed effect are estimation methods used to highlight the effect of microstructure variables on expected return. At the same time, panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) modeling is considered to identify the thresholds in this effect. The results show that liquidity and to a lesser extent the number of trading days are the most common significant microstructure variables for all the studied markets. However, other variables’ effects on the return are specific to the considered stock markets. Furthermore, the PSTR estimator reveals that the impact of indicated factors on asset pricing is not linear because it produces a double threshold between return and microstructure.

Investor sentiment and the interdependence structure of GIIPS stock market returns: A multiscale approach

<abstract> <p>The GIIPS economies are noted to suffer the most consequences of systemic crises. Regardless of their bad performance in crisis periods, their role(s) in asset allocation and portfolio management cannot go unnoticed. For effective portfolio management across divergent timescales, cross-market interdependencies cannot be side-lined. This study examines the conditional and unconditional co-movements of stock market returns of GIIPS economies incorporating investor fear in their time-frequency connectedness. As a result, the bi-, partial, and multiple wavelet approaches are employed. Our findings explicate that the high interdependencies between the stock market returns of GIIPS across all time scales are partly driven by investor fear, implying that extreme investor sentiment could influence stock market prices in GIIPS. The lagging role of Spanish stock market returns manifests at zero lags at high (lower) and medium frequencies (scales). At lower frequencies (higher scales), particularly quarterly-to-biannual and biannual-to-annual, Spanish and Irish stock markets, respectively, lag all other markets. Although portfolio diversification and safe haven benefits are minimal with GIIPS stocks, their volatilities could be hedged against by investing in the US VIX. Intriguing inferences for international portfolio and risk management are offered by our findings.</p> </abstract>

Modelling and forecasting Nifty 50 using hybrid ARIMA-GARCH Model

This study proposes an estimation technique for developing the best Öt ARIMA- GARCH model to predict the closing values of Nifty 50. The study put forward di§erent methods to resolve the issue of non-stationarity in mean as well as variance of the series before starting the estimation process. This study has applied autoregressive integrated moving- average (ARIMA), generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), ex- ponential GARCH (EGARCH) and threshold GARCH (TGARCH) model along with other estimation procedures on the daily closing prices of Nifty 50 from Jan 1, 2009 to Dec 30, 2019. Finally, the study identiÖes ARIMA(2,1,2)-EGARCH(1,1,1) as best model to predict the closing prices of Nifty 50. The Öndings indicate that the static forecast provides better results as compared to the dynamic forecast. These research Öndings will add to the tool kit of domestic as well as international portfolio managers and investors to frame suitable NIFTY trade strategies with least possible risks.

Exchange rates and the global transmission of equity market shocks

With the capacity to amplify or buffer the effect of shocks between equity markets in different countries, exchange rates play a crucial role in the transmission of shocks. By modelling the dependence structure between exchange rates and equity markets, we quantify the impact of an equity market shock on other equity markets through the cross-expected shortfall and assess the contribution of exchange rates to shock transmission. For emerging Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) and two developed markets (the EU and USA), we document (a) that the contribution of exchange rates to shock transmission is time-varying and differs across countries; and (b) that exchange rates diversify (echo) shocks from abroad for investors based in emerging (developed) economies. Our results suggest that investors need to accurately measure the diversification role of their currency when making international portfolio and risk management decisions.

Do Exchange Rates Fluctuations Influence Gold Price in G7 Countries? New Insights from a Nonparametric Causality-in-Quantiles Test

Abstract In the recent era, gold is considered an essential investment source, a source of hedging inflation, and a medium of monetary exchange. The gold and exchange rate nexus become prominent after events like sovereign debt crisis, subprime mortgage crisis, low-interest rate problem, and global financial market solvency. These events attract the attention of researchers and academician for investigating the dynamics of the relationship between gold and exchange rates, and the majority of the studies discusses the linear dynamics, but the non-linear dynamics are ignored. Therefore, the current research investigates the non-linear dynamics of gold price and exchange rate relationship in G7 countries using the new technique named the nonparametric causality approach. This study uses monthly data from the years 1995(January)-2017 (March). The empirical results show that exchange rate return causes gold prices in four out of G7, especially at the low tails. This study also gives valuable insights for monetary policymakers, gold exporter’s international portfolio managers, and hedge fund managers.

Testing for causality-in-mean and in-variance among the U.S., China, and some Africa capital markets: A CCF approach

Aim/purpose – Owing to the huge risk occasioned by negative contagion effects associ- ated with financial market linkages, markets participants and academia have continued to examine the capital market cross country interdependence at different levels. In this paper, we examined the causal relationships among the U.S., China and some top Afri- can capital market indexes. Design/methodology/approach – To examine the mean and variance causal effects, we estimated a univariate AR-EGARCH model for all capital market indexes. Then em- ployed the residual-based two-step bivariate cross-correlation function (CCF) test devel- oped by Cheung & Ng (1996). The test statistics had a well-defined asymptotic standard distribution that was robust to distributional assumptions. Findings – We detected both the feedback and unidirectional causality effects among African capital markets. These results show that African financial markets are still not fully integrated within the African continent. Expectedly, the results from our empirical analysis showed the existence of a unidirectional causality both in mean and variance from the U.S. and Chinese markets to African capital markets. This demonstrated that events in the U.S. and China are not irrelevant to African markets. Research implications – Owing to the fact that knowledge of other financial markets provides adequate information about a market situation, the results from this research paper will be helpful for the policymakers of African countries in shaping their econom- ic policies, help investors diversify investments with less risk, and international portfolio managers make portfolio allocation decisions. Originality/value/contribution – This paper examined the mean and risk dynamics of three top African, the U.S., and Chinese capital markets with their inter-dependence using the CCF approach. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no previous re- search paper on this issue exists. Keywords: causality-in-mean, causality-in-variance, capital market, cross-correlation function. JEL Classification: G10, F31, C20.

IMPACT OF EXCHANGE RATE DERIVATIVES ON STOCKS IN EMERGING MARKETS

This paper investigates the effect of derivatives on the relationship between the foreign exchange rate and the stock market. A theoretical model is used to extend the understanding of that relationship. Also, the model is tested with an empirical analysis using the GMM strategy for the Mexican and Brazilian stock markets for the period 2007 to 2019. Findings reveal that in addition to the spot exchange rate, exchange rate futures explain the currency exposure, wherein the derivative effect is the most prominent. The result implies that both risk sources should be considered in the implementation of risk management or macroeconomic policy. The theoretical results are extended by applying them to international portfolio management, proposing a strategy to mitigate foreign exchange exposure with derivatives. This study contributes to the literature by explaining why the minimum variance hedge ratio plays an essential role in the foreign exchange rate and stock market nexus.

Global Economic Factors and the Latin American Stock Markets

This study aimed to analyze the structural dependence between the stock markets of the Latin American countries – Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru and the global stock market return and volatility, the commodity prices, and the US political-economic uncertainty from 1998 to 2017. We applied the quantile regression approach under different market circumstances and the results show that global stock market return and commodity prices are the most significant influencers in Latin America. These results are of interest to stakeholders, such as international investors and portfolio managers in the Latin American stock market, due to the market’s growing dynamism after integration into global financial markets and its role in investment diversification.

Seasonal patterns and calendar anomalies in the commodity market for natural resources

This study investigates whether a wide range of 25 anomalies documented in the finance literature with regard to equities exist in nine natural resources that include precious metals and energy commodities (gold, silver, palladium, platinum, copper, zinc and energy-based resources: oil, heating oil, and natural gas). Using daily, weekly and monthly data for 1986 to 2018, we find evidence of the existence of many of these anomalies in the commodity market. The results, in many cases, are particularly significant after the earlier periods of the 2000s, during the financialization of commodities era when many international portfolio and hedge fund managers, as well as retail investors, increased their exposure to commodities. Our results are robust for different estimation procedures and subsamples.

Return and volatility spillover across equity markets between China and Southeast Asian countries

Purpose This paper aims to study the daily returns and volatility spillover effects in common stock prices between China and four countries in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia). Design/methodology/approach The analysis uses a vector autoregression with a bivariate GARCH-BEKK model to capture return linkage and volatility transmission spanning the period including the pre- and post-2008 Global Financial Crisis. Findings The main empirical result is that the volatility of the Chinese market has had a significant impact on the other markets in the data sample. For the stock return, linkage between China and other markets seems to be remarkable during and after the Global Financial Crisis. Notably, the findings also indicate that the stock markets are more substantially integrated into the crisis. Practical implications The results have considerable implications for portfolio managers and institutional investors in the evaluation of investment and asset allocation decisions. The market participants should pay more attention to assess the worth of across linkages among the markets and their volatility transmissions. Additionally, international portfolio managers and hedgers may be better able to understand how the volatility linkage between stock markets interrelated overtime; this situation might provide them benefit in forecasting the behavior of this market by capturing the other market information. Originality/value This paper would complement the emerging body of existing literature by examining how China stock market impacts on their neighboring countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Furthermore, this is the first investigation capturing return linkage and volatility spill over between China market and the four Southeast Asian markets by using bivariate VAR-GARCH-BEKK model. The authors believe that the results of this research’s empirical analysis would amplify the systematic understanding of spillover activities between China stock market and other stock markets.

Cointegration of East Asian, Indian and European Markets– A Study of Impact on Indian Bourses

With huge investments flowing from all over the world to India, FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors) and DIIs (Domestic Institutional Investors), retail investors, investment advisors, brokers and portfolio consultants keep abreast with latest research on fundamentals and technicals. Interdependence between stock markets is an important aspect of international portfolio management. In this paper, impact of Asian Indices like Hang Sang, KOSPI, SET SIT and TSEC on opening prices of Indian index Nifty was studied with various tools like Johansen Cointegration Test, VAR Granger Causality and Pairwise Granger Causality test. Similarly impact of European indices like CAC, FTSE, Euronext, DAX and SMI on Nifty closing prices were studied with same tools. The 3 months, 6 months, one year and 5 year data were subjected to experiment whether series are cointegrated. It was observed that series are cointegrated at very short-term level but for longer period they are not cointegrated, however, they influence others. VAR Granger Causality Test and Pairwise Granger Causality reveal that Hang Sang, KOSPI, SIT and TW (TSEC of Taiwan) impact Nifty Open prices. Nifty influences only TW. KOSPI influences Hang Sang and SET. SET influences KOSPI and TW. Similarly, VAR Granger Causality Test and Pairwise Granger Causality also reveal Nifty closing prices influence CAC, DAX, FTSE

The international REIT’s time-varying response to the U.S. monetary policy and macroeconomic surprises

International real estate markets and the ever increasing role of the U.S. economic and policy developments have played a central role both in international portfolio management as well as broader economic policy making. In this paper, we measure the extent of time-varying impact of the U.S. monetary policy and macroeconomic news on the international Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) stock returns. Results suggest that there has been significant variation both across time and across countries in the impact of U.S. news on the global REIT stocks. Further, the country’s stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has strong connections with the time-varying nature of the impact of the U.S. news on the global REIT stock returns.

Relationship between developed, European and South Asian stock markets: a multivariate analysis

Purpose The assessment of interdependence between stock markets is an important aspect of international portfolio management. The purpose of this paper is to examine and highlight the diversification potential of South Asian stock markets vis-à-vis developed and European stock markets. Design/methodology/approach The developed stocks markets include USA and UK, and South Asian stock markets include India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka while DJ STOXX 600 index is used to represent the European stock markets. Monthly data are used to examine long-run relationship through ARDL bound testing approach and estimates are obtained using DLOS. Short-term dynamics are captured through vector error correction-based Granger causality. Findings South Asian stock markets are closely linked with each other; similarly, developed/European markets are interlinked. US stock market not only impacts European stock markets, it also Granger cause South Asian stock markets. The findings suggest increase in comovement of South Asian stock markets with the global markets after financial crises of 2007-2008. Practical implications The diversification benefits of South Asian stock markets for international investors are still evident due to their low relationship (in both long and short run) with developed/European stock markets. Originality/value Given the emergence of South Asian stock markets, new insight on their relationship with developed stock markets can provide interesting findings for international portfolio diversification. The South Asian equity markets are an important source of investment because of their immense growth and weak correlation with international markets.

Cross-correlations between volatility, volatility persistence and stock market integration: the case of emergent stock markets

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of the two pairs of relationship, respectively volatility/market integration and volatility persistence/market integration, in the case of 20 emerging stock markets during the period 1999–2013. Employing the rolling windows approach we find that on most markets the persistent positive trend in volatility and volatility persistence is associated with the same trend in market integration. We use the detrending moving-average cross-correlation coefficients and we find positive cross-correlation that appears particularly in the long term and can only partly be attributed to the global financial crisis. The cross-section analysis shows that the markets which are more integrated display stronger volatility and volatility persistence, especially after 2005, when the level of market integration is higher. Our findings have several important implications for international portfolio management and security valuation.

Dependence between stock market and foreign exchange market in South Asia: A Copula-Garch approach

The paper studies the dependence pattern between stock market and foreign exchange market of three South Asian countries; namely Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka by using five copula functions, to reveal asymmetric dependence structure. This paper focuses South Asia because of its promise as portfolio investment destination. The dependence structure between stock market and foreign exchange market assists MNCs, private equity firms, international portfolio managers and policy makers in international investment decision making. The paper also studies tail dependence (upper and lower). Markets crash together rather boom together, which can be traced by tail dependence parameter. Correlation, Kendall’s tau and Spearman’s rho reveal linear dependence. However, Copulas reveal non-linear dependence between non-normal distributions. In this paper, Copula functions are applied between marginal distributions of stationary uni-variate return series. Using daily return series for the period of July 31, 2009 to July 31, 2013, ARMA-GARCH type model are applied to obtain marginal distributions of return series. The results from marginal models indicate that volatility dies immediately after a crisis; meanwhile positive news creates more volatility than negatives. The results from copula models indicate existence of asymmetric dependence, with upper tail dependence for all pairs, implying dependence increases in bull market situation (price increase in financial instruments). Both Bangladeshi and Indian pairs provide some diversification possibility, against no diversification for investing in Sri Lankan market. Moreover, Bangladesh and India demonstrated as promising investment destination in terms of risk –return criteria. Foreign investors are recommended to employ proper risk and investment management strategy in order to earn capital gain, by following diversification strategy. Conversely, investment recipient countries are recommended to establish a stable, well regulated stock market, with high stock market capitalization to GDP. Besides, monetary policy should stabilize the exchange rate of currency to attract foreign investors. Copula based dependence measures assist foreign investors and investment recipient countries to change their related strategies and policies; subsequently they will be able to maximize their utility functions.

Does Arab spring have a spillover effect on Dubai financial market?

In the wake of a dramatic political change, such as the so-called “Arab Spring”, the associated ramifications on the stock markets, especially the regional ones, are questionable. This study examines the impact of the Arab spring on the returns and volatility of a financial market in a stable neighboring country. Specifically, we contribute to the extant literature by investigating the spillover effect of the regional turmoil on Dubai Financial Market (DFM). Due to the domino-effect-like political changes, a major Arab Spring event is defined by the shocking regime change in Egypt during the period between the departure of the former and long-lasted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on February 11 th , 2011, and conducting the parliamentary elections there on November 30 th , 2011. Both the volatility and returns of DFM are examined around the identified period. We employ the daily returns of seven indices at DFM for the period between January 1 st , 2008 and December 31 st , 2012 using GARCH model to analyze the effects of Arab Spring sparking in the region on volatility and returns. Moreover, we use Event Study method to examine the effect of the dramatic political change on the stock market returns. The findings of the study reveal that the volatility of the overall DFM has not been impacted except for two indices at DFM; Transportation and Telecommunications. The results remain robust when TGARCH model is run. Further, the Event Study results suggest that the Arab Spring has not affected the returns of any of the DFM indices during the above period since both the cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) and the cumulative average abnormal returns (CAAR) are insignificant. There are implications to the regulators, the current and potential international and local investors and portfolio managers who are interested in DFM.

Risk management for international portfolios with basket options: A multi-stage stochastic programming approach

The authors consider the problem of active international portfolio management with basket options to achieve optimal asset allocation and combined market risk and currency risk management via multi-stage stochastic programming (MSSP). The authors note particularly the novel consideration and significant benefit of basket options in the context of portfolio optimization and risk management. Extensive empirical tests strongly demonstrate that basket options consistently have more clearly improvement on portfolio performances than a portfolio of vanilla options written on the same underlying assets. The authors further show that the MSSP model provides as a supportive tool for asset allocation, and a suitable test bed to empirically investigate the performance of alternative strategies.

Stock returns and volatility dynamics in China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of equity ownership of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) for over 2,000 listed firms in China. The paper examines both the pattern of state ownership and the dynamics of stock returns and volatility. Firms under the control of SOEs dominate the Chinese stock markets and currently account for over three-quarters of total market capitalisation. Central SOEs are focused in strategic industries, while Local SOEs concentrate on pillar industries relating to consumer goods and services. Design/methodology/approach – The authors obtain firm-level data from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets and using panel estimation techniques examine the dynamics of returns, volatility and their relationship. Findings – The authors report an increase in state control among listed firms compared to earlier reported figures. This is contradictory to the expectation of a lower state influence following China joining of the World Trade Organisation in 2001. In examining the behaviour of stock returns the authors find evidence of daily and monthly autocorrelations that are larger and of a different sign to that reported for western markets. The authors also report evidence of volatility persistence but little evidence of volatility asymmetry, again in contrast to that often reported for other markets. Finally, the authors find evidence of either no or a negative relationship between returns and volatility (risk) that differs from our usual view of risk aversion. Originality/value – It is hoped, knowledge of these dynamics will increase the understanding of the Chinese equity market, which in turn is important for those engaged in international portfolio management and micro-structure modelling.