Search results

This paper investigates potential safe haven assets for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) stock markets during the uncertainty period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study applies the dynamic conditional correlation–generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (DCC-GARCH) model and the Diebold–Yilmaz spillover index for ten MENA stock markets, three precious metals and Bitcoin for the period 2013–2021.

Empirical results show, on the one hand, that the COVID-19 crisis risk has been transmitted to MENA stock markets through volatility spillover across markets. This has increased the conditional volatility for all markets. On the other hand, findings point out that the dynamic correlation between the precious metals/Bitcoin and stock markets is not stable and switches between low positive and negative values during the period under studies. Extending analysis to portfolio management, results reveal that investors should include precious metals/Bitcoin in their portfolio of stocks in order to reduce the risk of the portfolio. Finally, for the period of COVID-19, the analysis concludes that gold preserves its traditional role as a safe haven for MENA stock markets during the pandemic, while Bitcoin fails to provide this property.

These results have several implications for international investors, risk managers and financial analysts in terms of portfolio diversifications and hedging strategies. Indeed, the exploration of the volatility connectedness between financial, commodity and cryptocurrency markets becomes an essential task for all market participants during the COVID-19 outbreak. Such analysis can help investors and portfolio managers to evaluate the risk of investments in the MENA stock markets during the crisis period and to achieve the optimal diversification strategy and hedging instruments.

The paper interests MENA stock markets that experienced the last decade a substantial development in terms of market capitalization and number of listed firms. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the dynamic correlation between MENA stock markets and four potential safe haven assets, including three precious metals and Bitcoin. In addition, the paper employs two types of models, namely the DCC-GARCH model and the Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the volatility and forecast accuracy of the Islamic stock market for the period 1999–2017. This period is characterized by the occurrence of several economic and political events such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack and the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.

This study constructs a new hybrid generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-type model based on an artificial neural network (ANN). This model is applied to the daily Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index during the period June 1999–January 2017.

The in-sample results show that the volatility of the Islamic stock market can be better described by the fractionally integrated asymmetric power ARCH (FIAPARCH) approach that takes into account asymmetry and long memory features. Considering the out-of-sample analysis, this paper has applied a hybrid forecasting model, which combines the FIAPARCH approach and the ANN. Empirical results reveal that the proposed hybrid model (FIAPARCH-ANN) outperforms all other single models such as GARCH, fractional integrated GARCH and FIAPARCH in terms of all performance criteria used in the study.

The results have some implications for Islamic investors, portfolio managers and policymakers. These implications are related to the optimal portfolio diversification decision, the hedging strategy choice and the risk management analysis.

The paper develops a new framework that combines an ANN and FIAPARCH model that introduces two important features of time series, namely, asymmetry and long memory.

This paper aims to investigate the dynamic linkage between stock prices and exchange rate changes for the Gulf Arab countries (Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates [UAE]).

The author uses the Markov-switching autoregression to detect regime-shift behavior in the stock returns of the Gulf Arab countries and Markov-switching vector autoregressive (MS-VAR) model to capture the dynamic interrelatedness between exchange and stock returns over the period 2000–2018.

This study’s analysis finds evidence to support the persistence of two distinct regimes for all markets, namely, a low-volatility regime and a high-volatility regime. The low-volatility regime illustrates more persistence than the high-volatility regime. Specifically, exchange rate changes do not have an influence on the stock market returns of the Gulf Arab countries, regardless of the regimes. On the other hand, stock market returns have a substantial impact on exchange markets for all countries, except Saudi Arabia, and it is more noticeable during the regime of high volatility.

The findings shed light on the interconnectedness between two of the most important financial markets in the complex international financial environment. They are thus of particular interest for economic policymakers and portfolio investors.

The author distinguishes this study from previous studies in several ways. First, while previous empirical studies of the dynamic linkage between stock prices and foreign exchange markets are primarily devoted to developed markets or emerging markets, this study’s interest is concentrated on four Gulf Arab financial markets (Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE). Second, unlike most investigations in the literature that only estimate this link for the whole period, this study attempts to estimate during the good and bad period by using a two-regime MS-VAR model. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study of the Gulf Arab countries on the stock and foreign exchange markets to apply this model.

This paper analyzes the connectedness with network among the major cryptocurrencies, the G7 stock indexes and the gold price over the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic period, in 2020.

This study used a multivariate approach proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012 and 2014).

For a stock index portfolio, the results of static connectedness showed a higher independence between the stock markets during the COVID-19 crisis. It is worth noting that in general, cryptocurrencies are diversifiers for a stock index portfolio, which enable to reduce volatility especially in the crisis period. Dynamic connectedness results do not significantly differ from those of the static connectedness, the authors just mention that the Bitcoin Gold becomes a net receiver. The scope of connectedness was maintained after the shock for most of the cryptocurrencies, except for the Dash and the Bitcoin Gold, which joined a previous level. In fact, the Bitcoin has always been the biggest net transmitter of volatility connectedness or spillovers during the crisis period. Maker is the biggest net-receiver of volatility from the global system. As for gold, the authors notice that it has remained a net receiver with a significant increase in the network reception during the crisis period, which confirms its safe haven.

Overall, the authors conclude that connectedness is shown to be conditional on the extent of economic and financial uncertainties marked by the propagation of the coronavirus while the Bitcoin Gold and Litecoin are the least receivers, leading to the conclusion that they can be diversifiers.

本文分析於2020年2019冠狀病毒病肆虐期間、主要的加密貨幣、七國集團 (G7) 股價指數與黃金價格三者之間在網絡上的連通性。

分析使用迪博爾德和耶爾馬茲 (Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012, 2014)) 提出的多變量分析法。

就一個股票指數投資組合而言,靜態連結的結果顯示、在2019冠狀病毒病肆虐期間,股票市場之間有更高的獨立性。值得我們注意的是:一般來說,加密貨幣在股票指數投資組合起著多元化投資作用,這可減低不穩定性,尤其是在危機時期。動態連結的結果與靜態連結的結果沒有顯著的分別。我們剛提到、比特幣黃金已成為純接收者。除了處於先前水平的達世幣和比特幣黃金外,就大部分的加密貨幣而言,連通的範圍在衝擊後都得以維持。事實上,在這危機時期,比特幣一直是波動性連結或溢出的最大淨傳播者。掛單者 (Maker) 是從全球系統中出現的最大波動淨接收者。至於黃金,我們注意到在危機時期、它仍然是在網絡接收方面擁有顯著增長的淨接收者,這確認其為安全的避難所。

總的來說,我們的結論是:連通性被確認為取決於標誌著受廣泛傳播的冠狀病毒影響下的經濟和金融欠缺穩定的程度,而比特幣黃金和萊特幣則是最小的接收者,這帶出一個結論、就是:比特幣黃金和萊特幣、可以成為多元化投資項目。

This study investigates the spillover effects between exchange rate changes and stock returns in China. The authors find that no significant interconnections exist between stock returns and exchange rates changes.

Although the conventional structural VAR (SVAR) approach fails to examine the contemporaneous effects, the Markov switching SVAR model captures the volatile structure of the Chinese financial market. The regime-switching estimates indicate that volatile structure tends to be significant during two financial crisis periods.

Notwithstanding the fact that exchange rate changes cannot Granger-cause stock returns in the long run, its contemporaneous spillover effects on stock returns are found to be statistically significant.

This study aims to shed light on the spillover effects between exchange rate changes and stock returns in China, as the Chinese currency is becoming flexible and China’s stock market has undertaken important reforms. The spillovers between the two markets are of topical importance due to the increasing connections between China and the global economy.

This study aims to examine the dynamics between exchange rate and equities contextualizing the current liberal currency regime in China. This investigation also extends the analysis to explore the potential important factors influencing the interactions between these two markets. After exchange rate reforms, currency issue has emerged as a new dimension in portfolio decisions and diversification strategies in Chinese equity markets.

This research uses the dynamic conditional correlation generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model proposed by Engle (2002) to explore the dynamic interactions between the currency and stock markets. Further, the paper uses regression analysis to explore the explanatory channels of the correlation. The sample comprises 1,265 listed companies over the period 2005-2012 with daily, weekly and monthly observations. To make analysis robust, the study also considers different exchange rates and equities belonging to different industries.

The findings suggest that exchange rate and stock price are related negatively. This conduit increases during the financial crisis period. This association is more prominent at monthly frequency than that of daily and weekly frequencies, which may refer to the noise factor in the high-frequency data. For a portfolio diversification point of view, currency may be considered an alternative diversifier against equity in China. The results also suggest a weak influence of market forces on the association between the currency and stock markets.

Much of the related past research is based on co-integration approaches and limited to the relationship between currency and equity markets without exploring the determining channels of this important connection. This study uses a more suitable approach to examine the topic and also investigates the determinants. Besides, previous studies take index data which may be poor to depict the overall market outlook. This paper proceeds with firm-level data which are more appropriate to expose the overall market outlook and investor behavior. This research also draws valuable implications.