scholarly journals Stock returns, oil prices and leverage: evidence from US firms

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Ruhul Amin ◽  
Andre Varella Mollick

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate how the relation between stock returns of US firms and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices is affected by leverage from 1990 to 2020.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines how the relationship between stock returns of US firms and WTI oil prices is affected by leverage from 1990 to 2020 using a fixed-effect model estimation framework.FindingsResults from the fixed-effect regression models suggest that leverage effects on stock returns are pervasive both in aggregate and cross-industry levels, while the mining industry is more sensitive. In addition to the positive oil price effects attenuated by leverage at the aggregate level, the authors observe stronger marginal effects of leverage only for the mining sector. Being more exposed to commodity prices, the positive effects of oil prices on stock returns in the mining sector are offset by large debt ratios. Asymmetries, effects of debt maturity structure and implications are also discussed.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is grounded on the contemporary cash flow claim of leverage NOT on the long-run effect of leverage considering cash flow constraints. The oil price increase is assumed to represent an advancement of the overall economy. This study does not capture the oil prices response to some other economic forces and vice-versa.Practical implicationsMining companies should therefore reduce the stock of debt with respect to their assets to make possible the “pass-through” from oil prices to the stock market.Originality/valuePreviously undocumented and the authors show that leverage reduces the total effect of oil prices on stock returns, consistent with the hypothesis. Asymmetric and debt maturity structures effects are also discussed.

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismail Olaleke Fasanya ◽  
Temitope Festus Odudu ◽  
Oluwasegun Adekoya

Purpose This paper aims to model the relationship between oil price and six major agricultural commodity prices using monthly data from January 1997 to December 2016. Design/methodology/approach The authors use both the linear autoregressive distributed lag by Pesaran et al. (2001) and the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag by Shin et al. (2014), and they also account for structural breaks using the Bai and Perron (2003) test that allows for multiple structural changes in regression models. Findings These findings are discernible from the authors’ analyses. First, the linear analysis indicates a significant positive effect of oil prices on the agricultural commodity prices, which supports evidence on the non-neutrality hypothesis. Second, oil price asymmetries seem to matter more when dealing with agricultural commodity prices, except for groundnut. Third, it may be necessary to pre-test for structural breaks when modelling the relationship between oil price and agricultural prices regardless of the commodity being analysed. Fourth, the asymmetric effect for the agricultural commodity prices is non-neutral to oil prices, except for rice in the case of structural breaks. Originality/value This paper contributes to the on-going debate on the oil–agricultural commodity nexus using the recent technique of asymmetry and also considering the role structural breaks play in the relationship between oil price and agricultural commodity prices.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amine Lahiani

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of oil price shocks on the US Consumer Price Index over the monthly period from 1876:01 to 2014:04.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses the Bai and Perron (2003) structural break test to split the data sample into sub-periods delimited by the computed break dates. Afterwards, the author uses the quantile treatment effects over the full sample and then, by including sub-periods dummies to accommodate the selected structural breaks that drive the relationship between inflation and oil price growth.FindingsThe findings include a decreased transmission effect of oil price changes on inflation in recent years; a varied elasticity of inflation to the growth rate of oil prices across the distribution; and, finally, evidence of asymmetry in the relationship between the growth rate of oil prices and inflation, with a higher transmission mechanism for decreasing rather than increasing oil prices.Practical implicationsPolicymakers should remain alert to monitoring potential inflation increases and should take precautionary measures to anchor inflation expectations, because inflation reacts differently to positive and negative oil price shocks. Moreover, authorities should consider the asymmetric reaction of inflation to oil price shocks to adopt an appropriate monetary policy strategy to achieve the price stability target.Originality/valueThe paper used a quantile regression model with structural breaks, which has not yet been used in the literature.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 578-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Probal Dutta ◽  
Md Hasib Noor ◽  
Anupam Dutta

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the crude oil volatility index (OVX) plays any key role in explaining the trend in emerging market stock returns from a global standpoint. Design/methodology/approach At the empirical stage, different forms of the GARCH-jump model have been estimated. Findings The findings confirm the effects of OVX on equity returns. In addition, the results document that there exist time-varying jumps in the stock market returns. Besides, the impacts of OVX shocks appear to be symmetric. The analysis further shows that the magnitude of OVX impact is marginally bigger than that of the conventional oil price shocks. Originality/value Since various financial assets are traded on the basis of oil and equity markets, investors, for instance, could use the findings of this study for taking proper investment decisions and gaining better portfolio diversification benefits. Additionally, policymakers could utilize the results to develop effective measures and strategies in order to minimize the oil price risk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Rodrigo A. Morales Fernández Rafaelly ◽  
Roberto J. Santillán-Salgado

This paper analyzes the relationship between the volatility of oil price and selected sectoral stock returns in Mexico (industrials, materials, financials and consumer discretionary) by implementing a Diagonal VECH-type bivariate GARCH model in order to estimate conditional covariances and correlations. The econometric results suggest that there exists a statistically significant relationship between sector indices, as well as between Mexico’s aggregate stock exchange returns, and variations in oil prices. Conditional correlations suggest that during most of the analyzed period, the relationship between oil price fluctuations and sectoral stock returns is positive. The recommendation, supported by these results, is that investors should take into consideration the interaction between the analyzed variables in order to generate more robust risk-hedge strategies. An important limitation for this work is information availability at sector level in the country. The original contribution of this paper lies mainly in the analysis of the influence of oil prices over sectoral indices of the Mexican Stock Exchange. These results provide more support to the current that suggests that a price increase in oil has a direct spillover effect on stock market performance.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anver Chittangadan Sadath ◽  
Rajesh Herolli Acharya

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess whether oil price shocks emanating from oil price increase and decrease have a different impact on the macroeconomic activity. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts the empirical analysis using structural vector auto-regressive model on Indian data for the period from 1996 to 2017. This paper uses four key macroeconomic variables, namely, real gross domestic product (GDP), the real rate of interest, real money supply, wholesale price index inflation and various linear and non-linear measures of oil price shock. Findings Empirical results confirm that oil price shock has a significant impact on various macroeconomic variables used in the study. Specifically, shocks emanating from a decline in oil price have a stronger positive impact on real GDP, whereas, a shock due to the rise in oil price has a weaker negative impact on real GDP. Impulse responses confirm that shocks due to a decline in oil prices are long-lasting compared to similar shocks due to a rise in oil prices. Therefore, this study concludes that the macroeconomic impact of oil price shock is asymmetric in India. Originality/value This paper adds the following new insights: First, this paper presents a distinct relationship between the growth rate of oil price and GDP during increasing and decreasing phases of oil price to drive home the case for this study. Second, India has adopted crucial administrative initiatives such as deregulation of the market for petroleum products and the promotion of renewable energy during the study period. Finally, previous studies have revealed specific behavioral and economic features of people in India with respect to the demand for petroleum products. In light of these factors, this paper based on Indian experience would be justified.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zulfiqar Ali Memon ◽  
Yan Chen ◽  
Muhammad Zubair Tauni ◽  
Hashmat Ali

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of cash flow volatility on firm’s leverage levels. It also analyzes how cash flow volatility influences the debt maturity structure for the Chinese listed firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors construct the measure for cash flow variability as five-year rolling standard deviation of the cash flow from operations. The authors use generalized linear model approach to determine the effect of volatility on leverage. In addition, the authors design a categorical debt maturity variable and assign categories depending upon firm’s usage of debt at various maturity levels. The authors apply Ordered Probit regression to analyze how volatility affects firm’s debt maturity structure. The authors lag volatility and other independent variables in the estimation models so as to eliminate any possible endogeneity problems. Finally, the authors execute various techniques for verifying the robustness of the main findings. Findings The authors provide evidence that higher volatility of cash flows results in lower leverage levels, while the sub-sampling analysis reveals that there is no such inverse association in the case of Chinese state-owned enterprises. The authors also provide novel findings that irrespective of the ownership structure, firms facing high volatility choose debt of relatively shorter maturities and vice versa. Overall, a rise of one standard deviation in volatility causes 8.89 percent reduction in long-term market leverage ratio and 26.62 percent reduction in the likelihood of issuing debentures or long-term notes. Research limitations/implications This study advocates that cash flow volatility is an essential factor for determining both the debt levels and firm’s term-to-maturity structure. The findings of this study can be helpful for the financial managers in maintaining optimal leverage and debt maturity structure, for lenders in reducing their risk of non-performing loans and for investors in their decision-making process. Originality/value Existing empirical literature regarding the influence of variability of cash flows on leverage and debt maturity structure is inconclusive. Moreover, prior research studies mainly focus only on the developed countries. No previous comprehensive study exists so far for Chinese firms in this regard. This paper endeavors to fulfill this research gap by furnishing novel findings in the context of atypical and distinctive institutional setup of Chinese firms.


Kybernetes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1242-1261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Can Zhong Yao ◽  
Peng Cheng Kuang ◽  
Ji Nan Lin

Purpose The purpose of this study is to reveal the lead–lag structure between international crude oil price and stock markets. Design/methodology/approach The methods used for this study are as follows: empirical mode decomposition; shift-window-based Pearson coefficient and thermal causal path method. Findings The fluctuation characteristic of Chinese stock market before 2010 is very similar to international crude oil prices. After 2010, their fluctuation patterns are significantly different from each other. The two stock markets significantly led international crude oil prices, revealing varying lead–lag orders among stock markets. During 2000 and 2004, the stock markets significantly led international crude oil prices but they are less distinct from the lead–lag orders. After 2004, the effects changed so that the leading effect of Shanghai composite index remains no longer significant, and after 2012, S&P index just significantly lagged behind the international crude oil prices. Originality/value China and the US stock markets develop different pattens to handle the crude oil prices fluctuation after finance crisis in 1998.


Author(s):  
Rui Wang ◽  
Hang (Robin) Luo

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the oil price–bank risk nexus by considering the heterogeneity of bank characters. Design/methodology/approach This paper empirically tests the effect of oil price movements on bank credit risk by using a sample of 279 banks in the Middle East and North Africa countries from 2011 to 2017. Findings Authors find robust evidence that the credit risk of bank loan portfolios is negatively associated with increased oil prices. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of asset quality improvement brought about by rising oil prices is more salient in conventional banks, and banks with small size, low liquidity and whose funding source relies on customers’ deposits. Practical implications The results favor the diversification of bank funding sources, the improvement of a country’s financial development, the adoption of explicit deposit insurance and macroprudential policies, such as countercyclical liquidity buffers, to weaken the adverse impact of oil prices declines. Originality/value The present paper enriches the literature of oil price–bank risk nexus by analyzing the heterogeneity of bank characters and advances our knowledge on the determined factors of bank riskiness and vulnerability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 1750007
Author(s):  
MUHAMMAD IRFAN MALIK ◽  
ABDUL RASHID

This paper aims to investigate the return and volatility spillover between world oil prices and the sectoral stock of Pakistan. We estimate a bivariate VAR(1)-AGARCH (1,1) model using weekly data sampled from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2015. The model results are used to estimate the optimal portfolio weights and hedge ratios. The empirical findings suggest no short-run price transmission between world oil prices and stock sectors of Pakistan Stock Exchange. Only the past unexpected shocks in world oil prices has significant effect on the volatility of sectoral stock returns of Pakistan Stock Exchange, and no volatility spillover exist between world oil price and stock sectors. The optimal portfolio weights and hedge ratios for oil/stock holdings are sensitive to sectors considered. These findings are of great interest for policy makers, hedge fund managers, [Formula: see text] investors and market participants.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aktham Maghyereh ◽  
Basel Awartani

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of oil price uncertainty on the stock market returns of ten oil importing and exporting countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The sample contains both oil importing and oil exporting countries that depend heavily on oil production and exports. Design/methodology/approach This paper intuitively applies the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH)-in-mean vector autoregression (VAR) model using weekly data over the period January 2001-February 2014. Findings The findings indicate that oil uncertainty matters in the determination of real stock returns. There is a negative and significant relationship between oil price uncertainty and real stock returns in all countries in the sample. The influence of oil price risk is more serious in those economies that depend heavily on oil revenues to grow. Practical implications The findings have important implications. For instance, managers should be aware of the linkages between oil price uncertainty and equity returns when they use oil to hedge and diversify equities, particularly in economies where oil is important for economic growth. The policymakers in oil importing countries should encourage companies to improve efficiency in the usage of energy and to resort to alternative sources to avoid fluctuations in earnings and equity prices. In the countries that heavily depend on oil efforts should focus on diversifying the domestic economy away from oil to protect against oil price fluctuations. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to study the influence of oil price uncertainty in the MENA region. The sample contains both oil importing and oil exporting countries that depend heavily on oil production and exports. The empirical findings of the paper have valuable policy implications for investors, market participants and policymakers.


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