Expected inflation and U.S. stock sector indices: A dynamic time-scale tale from inflationary and deflationary crisis periods

This paper analyses the co-movement between changes in expected inflation and U.S. stock sector returns utilizing a wavelet local multiple correlation approach, which records temporal evolution and potential correlation dynamics at various frequencies. Using daily data from January 2, 2003 to December 30, 2022, we find insignificant correlations in the short term but heterogeneous correlations in longer time periods. After the deflationary GFC period, quantitative easing has turned the long-term correlation negative in some sectors, and since COVID-19, the correlation has been positive. However, energy and materials are pro-inflation sectors in the medium and long term. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.

Higher-order moments and co-moments' contribution to spillover analysis and portfolio risk management

Unlike volatility, the skewness and kurtosis of asset returns are often neglected in the analysis of spillovers and risk management, although they capture the return asymmetry and fat-tailedness, respectively, arising from the non-normality of returns. In this paper, we provide evidence of the relevance and utility of considering spillovers in volatility and higher-order moments (skewness, and kurtosis) and co-moments (covariance, co-skewness, and co-kurtosis), and their implications for hedging. Using high-frequency data on the US stock, crude oil, and gold markets, a time-varying spillover approach and portfolio analysis, we reveal the following results. Firstly, besides volatility and covariance, co-skewness and co-kurtosis are relevant spillover transmitters across the stock, crude oil, and gold markets. Secondly, the level of total spillover increases when including not only covariance but also co-skewness and co-kurtosis, suggesting the relevance of considering higher order co-moments beyond volatility when studying spillovers. Thirdly, the inclusion of co-moments in the spillover analysis generates a significant improvement in hedging for all pairs, which is reflected in the significant increase in the utility function when co-skewness and co-kurtosis are considered. This result is noted when the COVID-19 sub-period is considered separately, except for oil‑gold. Overall, the findings matter for the system of interconnectivity across various assets and emphasize the implications and contributions of higher-order moments and co-moments to portfolio allocation and financial risk management. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Spillovers and tail dependence between oil and US sectoral stock markets before and during COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This paper examines the extreme dependence and asymmetric risk spillovers between crude oil futures and ten US stock sector indices (consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financials, health care, industrials, information technology, materials, telecommunication and utilities) before and during COVID-19 outbreak. This study is based on the rationale that stock sectors exhibit heterogeneity in their response to oil prices depending on whether they are classified as oil-intensive or non-oil-intensive sectors and the possible time variation in the dependence and risk spillover effects. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ static and dynamic symmetric and asymmetric copula models as well as Conditional Value at Risk (VaR) (CoVaR). Finally, they use robustness tests to validate their results. Findings: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, crude oil returns showed an asymmetric tail dependence with all stock sector returns, except health care and industrials (materials), where an average (symmetric tail) dependence is identified. During the COVID-19 pandemic, crude oil returns exhibit a lower tail dependency with the returns of all stock sectors, except financials and consumer discretionary. Furthermore, there is evidence of downside and upside risk asymmetric spillovers from crude oil to stock sectors and vice versa. Finally, the risk spillovers from stock sectors to crude oil are higher than those from crude oil to stock sectors, and they significantly increase during the pandemic. Originality/value: There is heterogeneity in the linkages and the asymmetric bidirectional systemic risk between crude oil and US economic sectors during bearish and bullish market conditions;this study is the first to investigate the average and extreme tail dependence and asymmetric spillovers between crude oil and US stock sectors. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The US-China trade war and the volatility linkages between energy and agricultural commodities

Any disruptive changes in the competitive environment, such as the U.S.-China trade war, may influence the price volatility of crude oil and agricultural commodities. This study examines the volatility linkage between crude oil and agricultural commodity markets in the context of the U.S.-China trade war and compares the impact of the trade war with that of other exogenous shocks. The results show that the volatility of soybeans exhibits the highest level of responsiveness to the U.S.-China trade war - which is not surprising given that the U.S. agribusiness trade to China is dominated by soybeans - followed by coffee and cotton. The sizes and dynamics of the impacts of shocks are largely commodity-specific. Notably, the trade war impacts most agricultural commodities more extensively than other exogenous shocks, including the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession. These findings matter not only for the decision-making of investors and portfolio managers but also for commodity-exporting and importing countries because changes in the volatility dynamics of crude oil and agricultural commodities often impact export revenues and import expenditures and consequently feed through exports to the global supply chain under exogenous shocks such as the U.S.-China trade war. © 2023 The Authors

The effect of oil implied volatility and geopolitical risk on GCC stock sectors under various market conditions

The importance of crude oil volatility and geopolitical risk for stock pricing is well known in both developed and emerging economies, but is relatively understudied in major oil-exporting countries at the sectoral level of stock indices and under various market conditions. Using daily data on eight Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) stock sector indices over the period February 2010–30 June 2022, we capture the effect of two global risk factors, namely oil implied volatility and geopolitical risk, on stock returns and volatility while accounting for bull/bear markets and low/high volatility regimes. The analysis indicates the following results. Firstly, the effect of oil implied volatility is stronger than that of geopolitical risk, notably for Consumer Discretionary and Staples. Secondly, the effect on both returns and volatility is generally positive during bull markets, but it is stronger for volatility;the response of the returns of Energy, Materials, Industrials, and Financials is negative in bear markets and positive during bull markets. Thirdly, the effect of oil implied volatility on stock sector volatility is slightly higher during the COVID-19 outbreak for some cases and is prominent during bull markets. Our findings matter for the predictability of GCC stock sector returns and volatility and for the design of hedging strategies under various market states. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Volatility spillovers during normal and high volatility states and their driving factors: A cross-country and cross-asset analysis

Understanding the transmission of volatility across markets is essential for managing risk and financial stability, especially under crisis periods during which an extreme event occurring in one market is easily transmitted to another market. To gain such an understanding and enrich the related literature, we examine in this article the system of volatility spillovers across various equity markets and asset classes using a quantile-based approach, allowing us to capture spillovers under normal and high volatility states. The sample period is 16 March 2011–10 November 2020 and the employed dataset comprises 12 implied volatility indices representing a forward-looking measure of uncertainty of global equities, strategic commodities and the US Treasury bond market. The results show that the identity of transmitters and receivers of volatility shocks differ between normal and high volatility states. The US stock market is at the centre of volatility spillovers in the normal volatility state. European and Chinese stock markets and strategic commodities (e.g. crude oil and gold) become major volatility transmitters in the high volatility state, after acting as volatility receivers during normal periods. Furthermore, we study the drivers of implied volatility spillovers using regression models and find that US Default spread contributes to the total volatility spillover index in both volatility states, whereas TED spread plays a significant role in the normal volatility state. As for the role of short rate and risk aversion, it is significant in the high volatility state. These findings matter to the decision-making process of risk managers and policymakers. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hedge and safe-haven properties of FAANA against gold, US Treasury, bitcoin, and US Dollar/CHF during the pandemic period

The sudden market crash around 20 February 2020 on the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of all human communication and revived the interest for risk mitigation during stress periods. Interestingly, FAANA (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet) stocks exhibited positive returns with remarkable resilience throughout the pandemic period, suggesting a change in their investing risk. In this paper, we take a different step from the existing literature and examine the hedging, diversifying, and safe haven properties of FAANA stocks against four alternative assets, namely gold, U.S. Treasury bonds, Bitcoin, and U.S. Dollar/CHF. Our analysis covers an extended sample period comprising the heightened uncertainty during the recent pandemic period. It involves conditional correlations, optimal weights, hedge ratios, and hedging effectiveness for the pairs of FAANA stock and alternative asset during the full sample period and the COVID-19 pandemic period. The results show that the majority of FAANA stocks serve as weak/strong safe havens against gold, Treasury bonds, Bitcoin, and Dollar/CHF in the full sample period. Further, few FAANA stocks serve as strong safe havens against the U.S. Treasury and Dollar/CHF during the pandemic. Our findings suggest that FAANA, once thought as risky high growth tech stocks, have gained maturity and became a safe blanket during the latest turbulent period. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Which is leading: Renewable or brown energy assets?

This study examines the relationship between crude oil, a proxy for brown energy, and several renewable energy stock sector indices (e.g., solar energy, wind energy, bioenergy, and geothermal energy) over various investment horizons. Using daily data from October 15, 2010, to February 23, 2022, we apply a combination of methods involving co-integration, wavelet coherency, and wavelet-based Granger causality. The results show that the relationship between crude oil and renewable energy indices is non-linear and somewhat multifaceted. Firstly, there are sectorial differences in the intensity of the relationships. Notably, the relationship intensity between the wind and crude oil is lower than that involving geothermal energy or bioenergy. Secondly, the relationship evolves with time. For example, the COVID-19 outbreak seems to have increased the relationship between crude oil and renewable energy markets, notably for solar, bioenergy, and geothermal. Thirdly, the relationship varies across scales. When controlling for the VIX (volatility index), a proxy of the sentiment of market participants, and EPU (economic policy uncertainty index), the relationship seems strong in the long term but weak in the short term. This result is confirmed using a Granger causality test on the wavelet-decomposed series. These findings have important implications for long-term investors, short-term speculators, and policymakers regarding the co-movement between brown and renewable energy markets. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Network Topology of Dynamic Credit Default Swap Curves of Energy Firms and the Role of Oil Shocks

Using network analysis on the connectedness of default factors in a credit default swap (CDS) dataset of U.S. and European energy firms, we provide the first evidence of differences in the shape and dynamics of the interconnectedness of the level, slope, and curvature, representing long-, short-and middle-term default factors, respectively. The interconnectedness of the three default factors increases during the European sovereign debt crisis (ESDC), whereas only the interconnect-edness of the level factor increases during the oil price crash, and the interconnect-edness of both level and slope factors spikes during COVID19. European firms contribute more to the transmission of long-term and short-term default risk from early 2011 till the beginning of the 2014–2105 oil price crash;afterwards, U.S. firms are major default transmitters despite some periods of parity with European firms. The impacts of oil demand and supply shocks on the various interconnect-edness are quantile-dependent and more pronounced in the long term for the credit risk of the energy firms. © 2022 by the IAEE. All rights reserved.

From pandemic to systemic risk: contagion in the U.S. tourism sector. (Special Issue: COVID-19 and tourism.)

This paper investigates the interconnectedness among 95 tourism firms in the U.S. over the 2018-2020 period with a focus on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The results using tail risk spillover analysis show that the level of risk contagion significantly increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Small tourism firms become more systemically important during the Covid-19 pandemic while the level of bad risk contagion has a negative impact on the stock performance of US tourism firms.

Connectedness among major cryptocurrencies in standard times and during the COVID-19 outbreak

The cryptocurrency markets are perceived as being dominated by Bitcoin leading the overall system dynamics. Although the previous empirical evidence points towards strong connections among selected cryptocurrencies or, from the other side, weak dependence between Bitcoin and traditional financial assets, a focused study on the dynamics of return and volatility connectedness among a wider range of cryptocurrencies is lacking, and more so, one directed towards the very first actual critical period of the global economy coinciding with relevant crypto-markets. Using data for the 10 most capitalized cryptocurrencies between 1st October 2017 and 5th January 2021, we examine how cryptocurrencies interact and whether they have a clear leader, with a special focus on differences with respect to investment horizons and how the relationship structure evolves in time. We uncover a structural change in the connectedness evolving in 2020 as the market restructures in reaction to the unprecedented monetary injections as a counter to the COVID-19-induced economic standstill. The structural change is shown not only for cryptocurrencies considered separately but also when we jointly examine them with traditional assets. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Modelling extreme risk spillovers in the commodity markets around crisis periods including COVID19

In this paper, we examine extreme spillovers among the realized volatility of various energy, metals, and agricultural commodities over the period from September 23, 2008, to June 1, 2020. Using high-frequency (5-min) price data on commodity futures, we compute daily realized volatility and then apply quantile-based connectedness measures. The results show that the connectedness measures estimated at the lower and upper quantiles are much higher than those estimated at the median, implying that realized volatility shocks circulate more intensely during extreme events relative to normal periods, which endangers the stability of the system of volatility connectedness under extreme events such as the COVID19 outbreak. There is evidence of a strong asymmetry between the behaviour of volatility spillovers in lower and upper quantiles, given that the connectedness measures estimated at the upper quantile are the highest. The main results are robust to rolling window size and other alternative choices. Our analyses matter to investors and policy makers who are concerned with the stability of commodity markets.

Dynamics and Determinants of Market Integration of Green, Clean, Dirty Energy Investments and Conventional Stock Indices

We examine market integration across and clean and green investments, crude oil, and conventional stock indices covering technology stocks, and United States and European stocks. Using daily data covering the period December 1, 2008-October 8, 2020, we first apply the dynamic equicorrelation (DECO) model and make inferences regarding the time-varying level of market integration. Then, we use several regression models and uncover the driving factors of market integration under lower and upper quantiles of the distribution of the equicorrelation. The results show that return equicorrelation varies with time and is shaped by the COVID19 outbreak. Various uncertainty measures are the main drivers of market integration, especially at high levels of market integration. During the COVID-19 outbreak period, the United States Dollar index, the term spread, and the Chinese stock market index have significantly increased market integration.

Rare earth and allied sectors in stock markets: extreme dependence of return and volatility

This study examines the dynamics of return and volatility connectedness between the rare earth stock index and the indexes of clean energy, consumer electronics, telecommunications, healthcare equipment, and aerospace & defence. Using daily data from 25 March 2010 to 25 August 2020, a quantile-based connectedness approach is applied to uncover both average and tail-based connectedness while considering the full sample period and the COVID-19 pandemic days. The results suggest that the interdependence among these indexes changes dramatically at the lower and upper quantiles, suggesting a strong influence of extreme market scenarios on both returns and volatility connectedness dynamics. Higher integration of sectoral indexes is observed during 2010-2012 and the COVID-19 pandemic period. Health care and telecommunication indexes have been consistent transmitters of return and volatility spillovers to other indexes during the full sample period. Consumer electronics and clean technology indexes switch their roles from a net receiver to a net transmitter during pandemic days. The rare earth remains on the recipient's side consistently. The findings indicate that the ongoing U.S.-China trade embargo has not impacted the return and volatility dynamics of the five sectoral indexes superseding the demand-driven dynamics for rare earth.

The hedge asset for BRICS stock markets: Bitcoin, gold or VIX

We compare the weak/strong hedging abilities of three alternative assets, namely bitcoin, gold and US VIX futures, against the downside movements in BRICS stock market indices. Results from the cross-quantilogram approach indicate that bitcoin and gold are weak hedges. Analysis from the recursive sampling shows that each of bitcoin, gold and VIX futures has a time-varying hedging role in some BRICS countries, which has been shaped by the COVID-19 outbreak. Results from the conditional diversification benefits show appealing roles for the three alternative assets for investors in BRICS stock markets. However, gold appears to have higher and more stable diversification benefits in China, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak. Conversely, VIX futures offer higher diversification benefits in Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa during the abrupt of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Systemic risk spillover across global and country stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic

Uncovering the tail risk spillover among global financial markets helps provide a more comprehensive understanding of the information transmission in extreme market conditions such as the COVID-19 outbreak. In this paper, we examine systemic distress risk spillover between the global stock market and individual stock markets in the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using two important measures of tail dependence risk: conditional value at risk (CoVaR) and delta conditional VaR (ΔCoVaR), we apply the bivariate dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) conditional autoregressive heteroscedastic (GARCH) model. The empirical results reveal that bivariate systemic risk contagion between the global stock market and each individual stock market evolved during the sample period and intensified as COVID-19 spread worldwide. During the COVID-19 period, the developed markets in Europe and North America transmitted and received more marginal extreme risk to and from the entire global market than Asian stock markets. Further analysis involving the connectedness among the value at risk (VaR) series of the sampled stock market indices and the global stock index, shows a high degree of integration in the extreme downside risk of the stock market system, especially during the COVID-19 period. These findings offer practical implications for regulators, policymakers, and portfolio risk managers during the unprecedented uncertainty period provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland