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This study examines the dynamics of the comovement and causal relationship between conventional (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance coin) and Islamic (OneGram, X8X token and HelloGold) cryptocurrencies.

This study uses wavelet coherence approach to examine the time-varying lead-lag relationship between conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, the authors use BEKK-GARCH model to estimate the optimal weights, hedge ratio and hedging effectiveness in pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 period.

The authors find no significant comovement in pre-COVID-19. However, the authors find significant positive comovement in conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies at the beginning of the pandemic, and in most cases, conventional cryptocurrencies are leading. X8X and HelloGold have no/weak correlation with conventional cryptocurrencies, implying that investors can diversify the risk by making an Islamic and conventional cryptocurrencies portfolio. The authors also calculate the optimal weights, hedge ratio and hedging effectiveness using the BEKK-GARCH model. Based on the optimal weights, for the portfolios of conventional–Islamic cryptocurrencies, investors are suggested to increase their investment in Islamic cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 than normal period. The results of hedge ratios show that hedging costs are higher during COVID-19 than before.

The findings of the paper offer several practical policy implications for investors, portfolio manager, Shariah advisors and policymakers pertaining to asset allocation, risk management, forecasting and diversification. Specifically, investors can maximize the risk adjusted returns of their conventional cryptocurrencies portfolio by adding some portions of Islamic cryptocurrencies. Considering the comovement is time-varying, investors/manager should adjust their investment strategies frequently. For the entrepreneurs in crypto-industry, it is advised to introduce new Islamic cryptocurrencies, as it has a huge growth potential because of their distinct features and performance.

This is the first study that explores the linkages between conventional and Islamic cryptocurrencies, therefore this study extends the literature of Islamic finance, stablecoins and cryptocurrencies in pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 period. The study results provide insights to conventional crypto investor on how to manage their portfolio during normal and turbulent period.

This study aims to show the relationship between competition, financial stability and ownership structure of banks in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries.

This study uses the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators to generate research results. This study uses an unbalanced panel dynamic data set. It covers the period 2011 to 2017 in MENA banks.

This study implies that there is a significant and positive relationship between market power and the financial stability of banks in MENA countries. It explains a competitive market focus on credit risk, which turns them risky. From the bank’s ownership view, Islamic banks are in a less risky position which means Islamic banks are more stable than other ownership structures. On the other hand, government specialized institute displays their poor financial stability and risky from other ownership structures. Unfortunately, there is no significant impact of ownership structure on competition unless Islamic banks prove that they (Islamic banks) perform better in market power.

The empirical findings of this study suggest that MENA banks should improve the process of managing and monitoring the non-performing loan (loan segment business). It reduces the level of credit risk, which leads to achieving more profit. It also recommends that loan quality should improve immediately in this region for declining financial disruption. Based on the ownership structure, policymakers and stakeholders should adjust their risk and financial stability. Notably, the stakeholders can focus on Islamic banks in this region as this type of ownership structure showing superiority over other ownership structures.

This study is based on the latest data set and produced outcomes by using a GMM estimator. It also uses multiple measures of competition and risk variables to get robust results. Moreover, to the best of the knowledge, this study is the pioneer to examine the competition, risk (financial stability) and ownership structure of banks in the MENA countries.

The authors examine the volatility connections between the equity markets of China and its trading partners from developed and emerging markets during the various crises episodes (i.e. the Asian Crisis of 1997, the Global Financial Crisis, the Chinese Market Crash of 2015 and the COVID-19 outbreak).

The authors use the GARCH and Wavelet approaches to estimate causalities and connectedness.

According to the findings, China and developed equity markets are connected via risk transmission in the long term across various crisis episodes. In contrast, China and emerging equity markets are linked in short and long terms. The authors observe that China leads the stock markets of India, Indonesia and Malaysia at higher frequencies. Even China influences the French, Japanese and American equity markets despite the Chinese crisis. Finally, these causality findings reveal a bi-directional causality among China and its developed trading partners over short- and long-time scales. The connectedness varies across crisis episodes and frequency (short and long run). The study's findings provide helpful information for portfolio hedging, especially during various crises.

The authors examine the volatility connections between the equity markets of China and its trading partners from developed and emerging markets during the various crisis episodes (i.e. the Asian Crisis of 1997, the Global Financial Crisis, the Chinese Market Crash of 2015 and the COVID-19 outbreak). Previously, none of the studies have examined the connectedness between Chinese and its trading partners' equity markets during these all crises.

This study aims to examine the tail connectedness between the Chinese and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) stock markets. More specifically, the authors measure the return spillovers at three quantile levels: median (t = 0.5), lower extreme (t = 0.05) and upper extreme (t = 0.95). The connectedness at extreme upper and lower quantiles provides insightful information to investors regarding tail risk propagation, which ultimately suggests that investors adjust their portfolios according to the extreme bullish and bearish market conditions.

The authors employ the quantile connectedness approach of Ando et al. (2022) to examine the quantile transmission mechanism among the ASEAN and Chinese stock markets.

The results show significant evidence of a higher level of connectedness between Chinese and ASEAN stock markets at extreme upper and lower quantiles compared to the median quantiles, which suggests the use of a quantile-based connectedness approach instead of an average-measure-based one. Furthermore, the time-varying connectedness analysis shows that the total spillovers reach the highest peaks during the global financial crisis, the Chinese stock market crash and the COVID-19 pandemic at the upper, lower and median quantiles. Finally, the static and dynamic pairwise spillovers between the Chinese and ASEAN markets vary over quantiles as well.

This study is the first attempt to examine quantile vector autoregression (VAR)-based return spillovers between China and ASEAN stock markets during different market statuses. Besides, the COVID-19 has intensified the uncertainty in Asian countries, mainly China and ASEAN economies.

This study examines herding in Islamic bank equity markets under various market conditions (up/down, high/low trading and high/low volatility) and during events such as Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting days, Ramadan, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also look at the impact of rising and falling oil prices on herding behaviour.

This study uses the model of Chang et al. (2000) to estimate herding behaviour in the Islamic bank markets.

First, the authors estimate herding at the GCC region level, and the results reveal an absence of herding under all market conditions and during all the events considered, except for the GCC crisis of 2017. Second, the authors investigate herding in four Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates [UAE], Qatar and Kuwait) separately and find that herding is evident in all these countries during various market conditions. During Ramadan, herding appears in the Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Islamic bank equity markets. Herding is not prevalent during OPEC meeting days in any of the markets, whereas herding is evident in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait Islamic bank equity markets during the GCC crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, the rising and falling oil prices do not influence herding at either GCC region or country level.

From the practitioner's perspective, this study provides useful insights for investors in Islamic banks and policymakers, in terms of asset pricing, portfolio diversification, trading strategies and market stability.

Many studies explore herding in the equity markets of Muslim majority countries, but not specifically in the Islamic bank market. This study fills this literature gap by comprehensively examining herding in Islamic bank equity markets under various market conditions (up/down, high/low trading and high/low volatility) and during events, such as OPEC meeting days, Ramadan, the GCC crisis of 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study investigate the return and volatility spillover among agricultural commodities and emerging stock markets during various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

This return and volatility spillover is estimated using Diebold and Yilmaz (2012, 2014) approach.

The results reveal the weak connectedness between agricultural commodities and emerging stock markets. Corn and sugar are the highest and lowest transmitters, respectively, whereas soya bean and coffee are the largest and smallest recipients of spillover over time. Most equity indices are the net recipient except for India, China, Indonesia, Argentina and Mexico, during the entire sample period. Most commodities are net transmitters of volatility spillover except coffee and soya bean. At the same time, major equity indices are the net recipient of the volatility spillover except for India, Indonesia, China, Argentina, Malaysia and Korea. In addition, the return and volatility spillover increase during various crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war, but the major increase in spillovers occurs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The empirical results show a weak relationship between agricultural commodities and emerging stock markets which is helpful for investors and portfolio managers in the construction and reallocation of their portfolios under different periods, most notably under COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukrainian war.

It is an original paper.

The authors aim to examine the mean and volatility linkages between the gold market and the Latin American equity markets in the entire sample period and two crises periods, namely the US financial crisis and the Chinese crash.

To examine the return and volatility spillovers, the authors employ VAR-BEKK-GARCH model on the daily data of four emerging Latin American equity markets which include Peru, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, which ranges from January 2000 to June 2018.

The results show that the return transmissions vary across the stock markets and the crises periods. The volatility transmission is found to be bidirectional between the gold and stock markets of Brazil and Chile during the US financial crisis. Furthermore, the volatility spillover is unidirectional from Brazil to gold and from gold to Peru stock market during the Chinese crash. We also calculate the optimal weights hedge ratios for gold and stock portfolio. The result suggests that portfolio managers need to increase the weight of gold for the equity portfolios of Peru and Mexico during the US financial crisis. Furthermore, during the Chinese crisis, investors may raise the investment in gold for the equity portfolios of Brazil and Chile. Finally, the cheapest hedging strategy is CHIL/GOLD during the US financial crisis, whereas MEXI/GOLD during the Chinese crash.

These findings have useful insights for portfolio diversification, asset pricing and risk management.

The study's outcome provides policymakers and investors with in-depth insights regarding hedging, risk management and portfolio management.

This paper examines the impact of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), regulated stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets on the cryptocurrency market, following the guidelines set by the Basel Committee. This study aims to analyze the implications for secure storage, cross-border transfers and necessary investments.

The paper uses a policy analysis approach to assess the potential effects of the Basel Committee’s regulations on CBDCs, regulated stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets. It explores their impact on the cryptoasset market, strategies of central and commercial banks, payment systems and risk management.

The adoption of CBDCs, regulated stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. It raises concerns about secure storage, cross-border transfers and required investments. Central banks are likely to introduce CBDCs and authorize stablecoin issuance, aiming for efficient monetary policies and risk management. Basel III regulations may lead to asset tokenization by banks, reducing asset size and increasing fee-based income.

This paper provides insights into the potential impact of the Basel Committee's regulations on CBDCs, regulated stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets. It contributes to the understanding of the evolving cryptoasset market and the strategies of central and commercial banks in adopting these technologies. The findings offer valuable information for policymakers, regulators and market participants in navigating the changing landscape of digital assets.

This study aims to examine the hedge, diversifier and safe-haven properties of bonds against infectious disease-related equity market volatility (IDEMV), like COVID-19.

The authors apply wavelet coherence methodology on the daily data of IDEMV and bond market (US, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, China and Europe) indices from 1 January 2000 to 14 February 2021.

The results show no significant co-movement between these bond indices and IDEMV, thus confirming that they serve as a hedge against IDEMV. However, during the turbulent period like COVID-19, the authors find that the US, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, China and European bond markets act as safe-haven against IDEMV, whereas the UK, US, Japan and Canadian bond markets demonstrate an in-phase and positive co-movement with IDEMV during COVID-19, suggesting their role as a diversifier.

The study findings are important for investors and portfolio managers regarding risk management, portfolio diversification and investment strategies.

The authors contribute to the fast growing body of work on the financial impacts of COVID-19 as well as to ongoing consideration of whether a bond is a safe-haven investment.

This paper examines asymmetric multifractality (A-MF) in the leading Middle East and North Africa (MENA) stock markets under different turbulent periods (global financial crisis [GFC] and European sovereign debt crisis [ESDC], oil price crash and COVID-19 pandemic).

This study applies the asymmetric multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (A-MF-DFA) method of Cao et al. (2013) to identify A-MF and MENA stock market efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results show strong evidence of different patterns of MF during upward and downward trends. Inefficiency is higher during upward trends than during downward trends in most of the stock markets in the whole sample period, and the opposite is true during financial crises. The Turkish stock market is the least inefficient during upward and downward trends. A-MF intensifies with an increase in scales. The evolution of excessive A-MF for MENA stock returns is heterogeneous. Most of the stock markets are more inefficient during a pandemic crisis than during an oil crash and other financial crises. However, the inefficiency of the Saudi Arabia and Qatar stock markets is highly sensitive to oil price crashes. Overall, the level of inefficiency varies across market trends, scales and stock markets and over time. The findings of this study provide investors and policymakers with valuable insights into efficient investment strategies, risk management and financial stability.

This paper first explores A-MF in the MENA emerging stock markets. The A-MF analysis provides useful information to investors regarding asset allocation, portfolio risk management and investment strategies during bullish and bearish market states. In addition, this paper examines A-MF under different turbulent periods, such as the GFC, the ESDC, the 2014–2016 oil crash and the COVID-19 pandemic.