Felix Schindler

International Diversification Benefits with Foreign Exchange Investment Styles

This paper studies portfolio choice with popular foreign exchange (FX) investment styles such as carry trades, FX momentum and FX value strategies. We go beyond the benefits from hedging to shed more light on the speculative component of currency investments. In particular, we are interested in the magnitude of diversification benefits due to the style-based management of the currency component of well-diversified international portfolios. Our results suggest that FX investment styles generate significant improvements in the asset allocation. These findings hold after taking into account transaction costs and when controlling for the FX risk inherent in the benchmark assets. Importantly, these results are also confirmed in an extensive out-of-sample experiment mimicking investor decisions in real-time. The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2189886

Correlation structure of real estate markets over time

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the time‐varying correlation structure of international real estate stock markets and its implications for portfolio management.Design/methodology/approach – The analysis focuses on real estate markets only and examines the appropriateness of the Markowitz approach based on mean‐variance‐optimization. Therefore, the properties of the return distributions are analyzed first. Afterwards, the stability of the correlation and covariance structure over time is analyzed and statistically tested by the Jennrich test.Findings – Because of low correlation among real estate markets worldwide there exists diversification benefits from broadening the investment horizon to international real estate markets. However, using correlation coefficients as a measure for diversification benefits is limited by empirical findings: Returns are not normally distributed, correlations increase in downward moving phases and neither the correlation nor the covariance structures are st...

Testing the predictability and efficiency of securitized real estate markets

This paper conducts tests of the random walk hypothesis and market efficiency for 14 national public real estate markets. Random walk properties of equity prices influence the return dynamics and determine the trading strategies of investors. To examine the stochastic properties of local real estate index returns and to test the hypothesis that public real estate stock prices follow a random walk, the single variance ratio tests of Lo and MacKinlay (1988) as well as the multiple variance ratio test of Chow and Denning (1993) are employed. Weak-form market efficiency is tested directly using non-parametric runs tests. Empirical evidence shows that weekly stock prices in major securitized real estate markets do not follow a random walk. The empirical findings of return predictability suggest that investors might be able to develop trading strategies allowing them to earn excess returns compared to a buy-and-hold strategy.

Downside Risk Optimization in Securitized Real Estate Markets

Optimization of international securitized real estate portfolios has been a key topic for several decades. However, most previous analysis has focused on regional diversification by applying the traditional mean-variance (MV) framework suggested by Markowitz (1952) even if the limitations of this approach are well-known. Thus, we focus on a more suitable and appealing downside risk (DR) framework suggested by Estrada (2008), which applies a similar optimization algorithm as the MV framework. The analysis covers the eight largest securitized real estate markets from January 1990 to December 2009 and thus captures a more global perspective. The main findings are as follows: first, the return distributions are non-normally distributed and negatively skewed. Second, optimal portfolio weights differ substantially between the MV and DR approach. Third, portfolio weights are shifted from the U.S. and Australian market to the Dutch and the French market when applying the DR framework instead of the MV framework. Fourth, the dominance of the DR framework is well-documented by comparing out-of-sample performance. The empirical results are remarkable and emphasize the practical merit of the presented DR framework for investors and portfolio managers.

An Assessment of the Relationship between Public Real Estate Markets and Stock Markets at the Local, Regional, and Global Levels

The primary contribution of this study is to assess whether public real estate markets and stock markets are linked at the local, regional, and global levels, and to assess the evolution of their dynamic relationship and gradual integration during the last two decades. For individual pairs of real estate and stock markets, our analysis shows that the current levels of local, regional, and global correlation between real estate and stock markets are time-varying and are, at most, moderate at the respective integration levels. The real estate and stock markets are both contemporaneously and causally linked in their returns and volatilities; however the causality relationship appears weaker. In the long run, the real estate markets have slowly become more integrated with the global and regional stock markets; while less integrated with the local stock markets. In addition, the extracted common factors allow for a direct assessment of the dynamic relationships between the real estate and stock markets as a group, and thereby complement the individual results. Finally, there appears to be a declining real estate and stock return dispersion and differential at the local, regional, and global levels for all nine economies, indicating a tendency of return convergence between real estate and stock market in an international environment.

Linkages Between International Securitized Real Estate Markets: Further Evidence from Time-Varying and Stochastic Cointegration

This paper analyzes long-run co-movements between international real estate stock markets and between regions based on bivariate and multivariate tests for cointegration. While the topic has been analyzed in previous studies such as Gallo and Zhang (2009) and Yunus (2009) among others, this paper is of significant contribution to existing studies since we compare results from different cointegration methodologies and explicitly control for instability in cointegration relationships and deviations from normality. Furthermore, the analyzed time period is longer than in previous studies and ranges from 1990 to 2009 covering 20 years. In line with previous studies, the empirical results indicate several cointegration relationships between national real estate stock markets. However, it is also shown that most cointegration relationships are unstable and that the results from cointegration methodologies suggested by Engle and Granger (1987) and Johansen (1988) might be misleading in that common long-run comovements appear to be stronger when structural breaks are considered. Thus, the results indicate that investors would benefit from broadening their investment horizon from their domestic continent to international markets. This particularly applies for the European securitized real estate markets.

Long-Term Benefits from Investing in International Real Estate

This paper analyses long- and short-term co-movements between 14 international real estate stock markets based on bivariate testing for cointegration and correlation analysis. The results indicate that there exist strong long-term relationships within economic and geographical regions, but less long-run linkages between real estate markets in different continents. Thus, investors would benefit from broadening their investment horizon from their domestic continent to Australia, Europe, and Northern America. Furthermore, it is shown that within each region there are one or two key markets influencing neighbouring markets like Australia in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. in the Anglo-Saxon area, and France and the Netherlands in the EMU. Therefore it is implied, from an investor’s point of view, that it should be sufficient to focus only on these central markets. With respect to the efficient market hypothesis, the findings by cointegration analysis put some further doubt on its validity for securitized real estate markets.

Market Efficiency in the Emerging Securitized Real Estate Markets

This paper tests the random walk hypothesis and market efficiency for twelve emerging as well as for four developed securitized real estate markets from 1992 to 2009. Random walk properties of equity prices influence return dynamics, and market efficiency is often considered an essential criterion in the assessment of the functionality of markets and the asset pricing process, which is of significant relevance for emerging markets in particular. The analysis is based on autocorrelation tests as well as both single variance and multiple variance ratio tests. Furthermore, non-parametric runs tests are conducted. Empirical evidence shows that the efficient market hypothesis in its weak form is not rejected by any statistical test for seven of the twelve analyzed emerging securitized real estate markets. This result is surprising since all four developed securitized real estate stock markets analyzed in this study do not follow a random walk. The results are confirmed by the analysis of excess returns following from technical trading rules.

Dynamic Linkages between Hedge Funds and Traditional Financial Assets: Evidence from Emerging Markets

This paper analyses the short- and long-term relationships between hedge funds and traditional financial assets using multivariate cointegration analysis in order to investigate if the fees charged by hedge funds are justified for the kind of exposure they provide to investors. We therefore create an emerging market composite hedge fund index as well as region specific indices based upon a unique and large sample of 404 emerging market hedge funds obtained from the merger of two different databases. As to whether diversification benefits arise from adding emerging markets hedge funds to an emerging markets bond/equity portfolio, our results show that the advantages are significantly less for Eastern Europe than for the other emerging market regions of Asia and Latin America during the period January 1998 through May 2006. In summary, we find evidence that emerging market hedge funds in general are redundant securities for long-term investment horizons.

The Sources of Risk Spillovers among U.S. REITs: Financial Characteristics and Regional Proximity: Sources of Risk Spillovers among U.S. REITs

In this article, we estimate the risk spillovers among 74 U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) using the state�?dependent sensitivity value�?at�?risk approach. This methodology allows for the quantification of the spillover size as a function of a companys financial condition. We show that the size of risk spillovers is more than twice as large when REITs are in financial distress and find evidence for the impact of geographical proximity. Our results provide new insights concerning the relevance of geographical diversification for REITs and have important implications for the investment and risk management decisions of real estate investors, mortgage lenders, home suppliers and policy makers.