Fresh evidence on connectedness between prominent markets during COVID-19 pandemic.

Various empirical studies have examined the nexus between financial markets, but this study focused on the comovement among prominent markets. Our study examines the interrelationship among main financial markets, i.e., stock, oil, and commodity during the recent pandemic. The interconnections among the selected markets are investigated using a battery of wavelet coherence tools and the Granger causality test. From the wavelet coherence analysis, our findings indicate strong co-movements among the VIX, oil volatility, and commodity prices during pandemic and localized in all scales and over the sample period. The dependency strength among the considered economies is noted to increase in pandemic, which implies increased short- and long-term benefits for the investors. Moreover, Our result exhibits a feedback causality between OVIX and crude oil, VIX and S&P 500, and gasoline and VIX. Interestingly, a unidirectional causality exists between VIX and crude oil, S&P 500 and crude oil, Brent and crude oil, gasoline, crude oil, and VIX and OVIX. We advocate that the findings will be helpful for portfolio managers, investors, and officials around the world.

Revisiting efficiency in MENA stock markets during political shocks: evidence from a multi-step approach.

In this paper, we attempt to investigate the efficiency of emerging stock markets by considering the advent of dramatic country-specific events. In other words, we analyze and rank the weak-form efficiency levels of emerging stock markets based on a multi-step approach. Our findings support evidence of multifractality and anti-persistent movements of returns, implying a departure from the weak-form efficiency hypothesis. We also show that the political events adversely affect the efficiency degree of most markets. The empirical results clearly display the dynamic behavior of market efficiency. These findings are in line with the implications of the Adaptive Market Hypothesis.