A. S. M. Sohel Azad

Low‐Frequency Volatility of Yen Interest Rate Swap Market in Relation to Macroeconomic Risk

Using ‘low-frequency’ volatility extracted from aggregate volatility shocks in interest rate swap (hereafter, IRS) market, this paper investigates whether Japanese yen IRS volatility can be explained by macroeconomic risks. The analysis suggests that this low-frequency yen IRS volatility has strong and positive association with most of the macroeconomic risk proxies (e.g., volatility of consumer price index, industrial production volatility, foreign exchange volatility, slope of the term structure and money supply) with the exception of the unemployment rate, which is negatively related to IRS volatility. This finding is fairly consistent with the argument that the greater the macroeconomic risk the greater is the use of derivative instruments to hedge or speculate. The relationship between the macroeconomic risks and IRS volatility varies slightly across the different swap maturities but is robust to alternative volatility specifications. This linkage between swap market and macroeconomy has practical implications since market makers and hedgers use the swap rate as benchmark for pricing long-term interest rates, corporate bonds and various other securities.

Business Cycles and the Impact of Macroeconomic Surprises on Interest Rate Swap Spreads: Australian Evidence

This study examines the response of Australian interest rate swap spreads to the arrival of macroeconomic news information during the economic expansion and contraction periods. We find that the impact of news announcements on swap spread change differs and largely depends on the state of the economy. The unexpected inflation rate is the only news released that has significant impact on swap spreads across all maturities during contractions and remains the important news announcement throughout the business cycles, while the unanticipated unemployment rate tends to be more relevant to 10-year swap and the unanticipated change in money supply tends to be more relevant to 4- and 7-year swaps during expansions. We also find shocks from these news surprises appear to have significant impact on the conditional volatility of the swap spread change during both economic phases. The macroeconomic shocks in general are negatively related to the conditional volatility of the swap spread change, suggesting that the newsworthy announcements tend to reduce uncertainty on the news announcement days in the swap market during expansion and contraction periods.

Investors’ Behavior in an Emerging, Tax-Free Market

ABSTRACT We provide empirical evidence on the stock market participants’ behavior in an emerging market, with a tax-free environment. Our results show that United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) investors exhibit overconfidence and home bias, and tend to sell prior winners and buy prior losers. We find that investors rely on familiarity and on their information channels to make decisions. The results indicate that investors are risk averse, especially after the global financial crisis, which has had contagion effect on UAE markets. Investors attribute this effect to the inability to manage systemic crisis and to problems of information asymmetry, insider trading, and lack of good governance during crisis.

Can Islamic Banks Have Their Own Benchmark

This paper attempts to answer whether Islamic banks can have their own benchmark rate. In so doing, the paper investigates the nature of the relationship Islamic interbank benchmark rate (IIBR) and its comparable conventional counterpart, London interbank offer rate (LIBOR). The dynamics of the two series are investigated to examine the stability of the spread between IIBR and LIBOR, referred to as ‘Islamic premium’ or ‘piety premium’. The findings suggest that there are both long-term and short-term dynamic relationships between the two rates providing significant evidence of their convergence and co-movement. Our results also show that the existence of the IIBR-LIBOR spread is a reflection of the cost of funding and profit potential of the participating IIBR rate-setters. We find that, in addition to the determinants of the credit spreads, fundamental news of the panel banks are dominant factors driving the ‘piety premium’. We argue that the Islamic banking industry is operating in a global context, where it is highly improbable that its rates can decouple from the global benchmarks. Given that Islamic banking products and their risk return profile are similar to conventional products, arbitrage activities force Islamic rates to converge with the global benchmark rates.