Duc Khuong Nguyen

Oil prices and MENA stock markets:New evidence from nonlinear and asymmetric causalities during and after the crisis period

This article investigates the potential of nonlinear causal relationships between world oil prices and stock markets in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries during a black swan period that is characterized by rarity and devastating impacts. Our study is carried out using the daily data for 11 MENA countries over the period from 2 July 2007 to 27 August 2012. By using the nonlinear and asymmetric causality test of Kyrtsou and Labys (2006), we mainly find that: (i) the oil prices and MENA stock markets interact in a nonlinear manner; (ii) the signs of changes in the causing variables are important for detecting the true causality links between the variables and (iii) the nonlinear causality is more pronounced in the case of the Brent than West Texas Intermediate oil prices.

Policy uncertainty and performance characteristics of sustainable investments across regions around the global financial crisis

We analyse the performance characteristics of sustainable investments over the period 2004 to 2013. Our unconditional analysis shows that the sustainable portfolios, represented by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for the global and three regional markets, experience lower Sharpe ratios than their corresponding conventional portfolios. The conditional analysis indicates some evidence of significant effects of the recent crisis on sustainable investment return and volatility, while the US policy uncertainty only affects returns in two regions (Asia Pacific and North America) during the crisis period. We finally find a relative decoupling of sustainable investing from the overall market system during crisis times.

Time‐varying characteristics of cross‐market linkages with empirical application to Gulf stock markets

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose an empirical procedure for examining the time-varying features of cross-market correlations in selected Gulf stock markets. Design/methodology/approach - The paper directly infers the cross-market linkages from the stock data using a multivariate dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model (DCC-GARCH). The paper attempts to date the structural breaks in the time-paths of the conditional correlation indices to investigate whether the cross-market comovement encompasses significant changes in nature or not. Findings - Conditional cross-market correlations between studied markets are shown to be time-varying, past-dependent and subject to structural breaks. However, the comovements are still small within the Gulf region and insignificant between the Gulf stock markets and the world market. Research limitations/implications - Even though the paper attempted to relate the observed changes in market linkages to major economic and political events that the Gulf region experienced during the sample period, a more careful, in-depth analysis is needed since the primary objectives of this paper consist only of measuring stock market comovements and detecting their possible structure changes. Practical implications - For global investors, there is still room for international and regional diversification in Gulf markets, given the low degree of comovements documented in the study. Originality/value - The application of the DCC-GARCH model and structural change test in a linear framework appears to be suitable for studying the time-varying properties of cross-market linkages between markets in the Gulf region. It also provides information about the degree of financial integration of the studied markets with the world stock market through an analysis of the conditional correlation coefficients.

Responses of international stock markets to oil price surges: a regime-switching perspective

We propose an enhanced regime-switching model to investigate the relationships between oil price surges and stock market cycles in five oil-dependent countries. Our model accounts for the joint effects of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent oil markets and simultaneously captures asymmetry, volatility persistence and regime shifts contained in the underlying financial data. We find that stock market returns strongly exhibit a regime-switching behaviour, but they react differently to the increases in the price of oil. More precisely, the conditional volatility of studied stock markets during the bear market phases is found to be less affected by oil price surges than during the bull market phases. Whether the effects of oil shocks are positive or negative depends greatly on the degree of reliance on imported oil, the share of the cost of oil in the national income and the degree of improvement in energy efficiency of a given country. Finally, the relatively opposite effects of the WTI and Brent oil markets suggest the potential of substitution between them as well as the necessity of a diversification strategy of oil supply sources.

An international CAPM for partially integrated markets: Theory and empirical evidence

This article proposes a theoretical testable capital asset pricing model for partially segmented markets. We establish that if some investors do not hold all international assets because of direct and/or indirect barriers, the world market portfolio is not efficient and the traditional international CAPM must be augmented by a new factor reflecting the local risk undiversifiable internationally. We also introduce a suitable framework to test this model empirically. Using a sample of six emerging markets and three mature markets, we find that the degree of stock market integration varies through time and that most of the sample emerging markets have become more integrated in the recent years. The local risk premium for emerging markets represents the most important component of the total risk premium, but its relative importance has decreased recently. Differently, the total risk premium for developed countries is largely driven by global factors.

THE COMOVEMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL STOCK MARKETS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM LATIN AMERICAN EMERGING COUNTRIES

We analyse the time variations in the comovements of Latin American stock markets. Conditional correlations are estimated from the dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model. Then, Bai and Perrons (2003) structural break technique is employed to test for changing nature of market comovements. Main findings are as follows. First, the degree of cross-market comovements changed over time and has significantly increased since 1994. However, room for international diversification still remains largely possible. Second, the comovements are subjected to various regime shifts, essentially due to major economic events. Finally, stock markets move much more together in times of crisis.

Information diffusion, cluster formation and entropy-based network dynamics in equity and commodity markets

This paper investigates the dynamic causal linkages among U.S. equity and commodity futures markets via the utilization of complex network theory. We make use of rolling estimations of extended matrices and time-varying network topologies to reveal the temporal dimension of correlation and entropy relationships. A simulation analysis using randomized time series is also implemented to assess the impact of de-noising on the data dependence structure. We mainly show evidence of emphasized disparity of correlation and entropy-based centrality measurements for all markets between pre- and post-crisis periods. Our results enable the robust mapping of network influences and contagion effects while incorporating agent expectations.

Asymmetric Linkages between BRICS Stock Returns and Country Risk Ratings: Evidence from Dynamic Panel Threshold Models

This study investigates the asymmetric linkages between the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries’ stock markets and three country risk ratings (financial, economic and political risk) in the presence of major global economic and financial factors. Using the dynamic panel threshold models, we find evidence of asymmetry in most cases. However, the significance and the signs of the effects of these risk ratings on the BRICS market returns differ across the lower and upper regimes. Furthermore, improvements in the global stock, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and gold markets enhance the BRICS stock market performance. Increases in implied volatility indices lead to drops in the BRICS markets.

Business Cycle (De)Synchronization in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis: Implications for the Euro Area

Abstract The introduction of Euro currency was a game-changing event intended to induce convergence of Eurozone business cycles on the basis of greater monetary and fiscal integration. The benefit of participating into a common currency area exceeds the cost of losing autonomy in national monetary policy only in case of cycle co-movement. However, synchronization was put back mainly due to country-specific differences and asymmetries in terms of trade and fiscal policies that became profound at the outset of the global financial crisis. As opposed to previous studies that are mostly based on linear correlation or causality modeling, we utilize the cross-wavelet coherence measure to detect and identify the scale-dependent time-varying (de)synchronization effects amongst Eurozone and the broad Euro area business cycles before and after the financial crisis. Our results suggest that the enforcement of an active monetary policy by the ECB during crisis periods could provide an effective stabilization instrument for the entire Euro area. However, as dynamic patterns in the lead-lag relationships of the European economies are revealed, (de)synchronization varies across different frequency bands and time horizons.

Global financial crisis, liquidity pressure in stock markets and efficiency of central bank interventions

In this article, we investigate the hypothesis of efficiency of central bank intervention policies within the current global financial crisis. We firstly discuss the major existing interventions of central banks around the world to improve liquidity, restore investor confidence and avoid a global credit crunch. We then evaluate the short-term efficiency of these policies in the context of the UK, the US and the French financial markets using different modelling techniques. On the one hand, the impulse response functions in a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model are used to apprehend stock market reactions to central bank policies. On the other hand, since these reactions are likely to be of an asymmetric and nonlinear nature, a two-regime Smooth Transition Regression-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (STR-GARCH) model is estimated to explore the complexity and nonlinear responses of stock markets to exogenous shifts in monetary policy shocks. As expected, our findings show strong repercussions from interest rate changes on stock markets, indicating that investors keep a close eye on central bank intervention policies to make their trading decisions. The stock markets lead monetary markets, however, when central banks are slow to adjust their benchmark interest rates.