Eliza Wu

A Ratings-Based Approach to Measuring Sovereign Risk

We propose a new approach to measuring sovereign default risk. We use sovereign credit ratings and historical default rates provided by credit rating agencies to construct a measure of ratings-implied expected loss. We compare our measure of expected loss from sovereign defaults with stand-alone credit ratings and also examine its relationship with credit default swap spreads. We show that our measure is more informative for measuring sovereign risk. We re-examine the fundamental determinants of sovereign risk and find further evidence to support the debt intolerance and original sin explanations for country risk. This study contributes an improved understanding of the value of sovereign credit rating teams in assessing the long-term country risks accompanying emerging market investments. Copyright

Fear or Fundamentals? Heterogeneous Beliefs in the European Sovereign CDS Market

This paper proposes a model for credit default swap (CDS) spreads under heterogeneous expectations to explain the escalation in sovereign European CDS spreads and the widening variations across European sovereigns following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In our model, investors believe that sovereign CDS spreads are determined by country-specific fundamentals and momentum. By estimating the model we find evidence that, while some of the recent movements in sovereign CDS spreads can be explained by deteriorating fundamentals for core European Union (EU) countries, momentum has also played a destabilizing role since the GFC in all sovereign credit markets studied.

Tactical Asset Allocation: Australian Evidence

This paper evaluates the tactical asset allocation (TAA) capabilities, strategies and behaviour of Australian investment managers who invest assets across multiple asset classes. Specifically, we analyse the behaviour of balanced, growth and capital-stable fund managers with regard to their asset allocation activity across defensive (cash, domestic bonds, overseas bonds) and growth (domestic equities, international equities, property) asset classes, over the period December 1989 to February 2001. Overall, our evidence suggests that active managers have been unable to deliver investors with superior returns through tactical asset allocation. While the most successful asset class, domestic equities, has been value-enhancing, international shares and domestic fixed interest have generally detracted value. Finally, across all asset classes examined, our findings suggest that asset allocation into domestic equities is the most influenced by public economic information variables, with short-term interest rates, the term structure and dividend yield all having a significant explanatory role.

The Value of Home-Country Governance for Cross-Listed Stocks

Governance has many dimensions – corporate governance pertains to the firms management whilst sovereign-governance pertains to the firms exposure to sovereign risk, corruption, and poor regulation. We show that both are important drivers of firm value and this has serious implications for the increasing number of Chinese firms choosing to cross-list in the USA. Whilst the legal bonding hypothesis argues that firms from poor-corporate governance environments can signal their quality by issuing stock in the USA it is silent on the role of sovereign-governance. Thus, we use a sample of cross-listed firms from 48 countries between 1996 and 2008 and find that the home-countrys sovereign-governance quality, but not its corporate governance quality (as proxied by the Anti-director Rights Index) continue to influence the market values of cross-listed firms. Furthermore, cross-listed firms from strong-governance countries have higher market values than non-cross-listed firms or firms from weak governance countries. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing between the myriad types of governance when analysing the bonding hypothesis and the drivers of cross-listed stocks’ valuations, and emphasize the continued importance of sovereign-governance for cross-listed firms.

Dynamics of Bond Market Integration between Existing and Accession EU Countries

In this paper, we use a set of complementary techniques to examine the time-varying level of integration of European government bond markets. We consider daily bond returns and prices over the 1998-2003 period. Strong contemporaneous and dynamic linkages are found between individual European Union (EU) markets and the German market. However, there is no such evidence for the three accession markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The UK’s market is also considered. In general, the degree of integration for the accession markets is weak and stable, with little evidence of further deepening despite the increased political integration.

Exchange Trading Rules, Governance, and Trading Location of Cross-Listed Stocks

ABSTRACT This paper shows that stock exchange trading rules are of central importance for the trading location of cross-listed stocks. We consider various measures of sovereign governance and shareholder rights across both developed and emerging countries to assess the complementary effects of other legal and institutional drivers of trading activity. The data indicate that the proportion of trades that occurs on an exchange increases at a decreasing rate with the strength of stock exchange trading rules. The effectiveness of stock exchange rules increases with the strength of regulatory institutions in the country hosting the stock exchange. Furthermore, corroborating with our full sample findings, difference-in-difference tests indicate that the promulgation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, which strengthened trading rules within the European Union (EU), has increased the amount of trade in the EU.

Do Sovereign Re-Ratings Destabilize Equity Markets During Financial Crises?: New Evidence From Higher Return Moments

This study investigates the effects of S&Ps sovereign re-ratings on the higher moments of equity market returns over recent financial crises. Using a set of intraday stock market index prices and sovereign credit ratings for a sample of 36 countries that experienced sovereign rating changes over the period from 1996 to 2013, we find that the higher moments of stock market returns are significantly more responsive to sovereign re-ratings during financial crises, but the effects on stock markets are not the same across different financial crises. The effects during crises are, however, magnified for large downgrades and those that are associated with a loss of investment grade status. We find that there are asymmetric effects during financial crises in that downgrades are consistently more significant than upgrades in increasing realized volatility and realized kurtosis. Both upgrades and downgrades affect realized skewness in times of crises in the expected direction.

The Impact of Domestic and International Monetary Policy News on U.S. and German Bank Stocks

This paper investigates the impact of policy interest rate news from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) on stock returns and volatilities of U.S. NYSE and German DAX listed commercial banks. We find that Fed news has the most influence on both U.S. and German listed bank stocks and an unexpected policy rate increase (decrease) lowers (raises) returns and raises volatility in the majority of cases. On the other hand, ECB news generally increases bank stock volatility in the U.S. but has little impact within its own domestic banking industry. Whilst our results for the U.S. listed banks confirm that their stock prices are more responsive in bad economic times and also during periods of monetary tightening, we find disparities for German banks suggesting that U.S. and European banking industries respond heterogeneously to monetary policy news but the Global Financial Crisis increased the sensitivity of all banks to monetary policy news.

Can Momentum Factors Be Used to Enhance Accounting Information Based Fundamental Analysis in Explaining Stock Price Movements

This paper provides new empirical evidence that price-based momentum indicator variables can enhance the ability of accounting variables in explaining cross-sectional stock returns. We apply both OLS and state-space modelling to a sample of firms included in the Russell 3000 index over the period from 1999-2012 to compare the roles of the two main types of information typically used by equity investors. Empirical results reveal the importance of accounting variables over longer term horizons for particularly, small-cap stocks. Momentum variables are shown to be important in the shorter term horizons. This result remains robust to alternative methodologies used.

Sovereign credit ratings, growth volatility and the global financial crisis

Using monthly data from January 1996 to May 2010 for a panel of 76 developed and emerging economies and adopting an instrumental variable (IV) estimation technique by correcting for both heterogeneity and endogeneity with the generalized two-stage least squares (G2SLS, EC2SLS) procedure method suggested by Balestra and Varadharajan-Krishnakumar (1987) and Baltagi and Li (1995), this article provides empirical evidence that volatility of per capita GDP growth is reduced when there are positive changes in credit ratings; in other words when sovereign credit risk improves. To deal with potential simultaneity between sovereign credit ratings and output volatility, a system (3SLS) approach is undertaken, and our findings remain robust. By weakening the volatility dampening effects of ratings changes, it is found that the global financial crisis (GFC) has enhanced macroeconomic volatility. One of the channels via which sovereign rating changes affect growth volatility is the financial markets’ repricing of sovereign default risk that is reflected in sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads and its volatility.