Impact of volatility and equity market uncertainty on herd behaviour: evidence from UK REITs

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omokolade Akinsomi ◽  
Yener Coskun ◽  
Rangan Gupta ◽  
Chi Keung Marco Lau

PurposeThis paper aims to examine herding behaviour among investors and traders in UK-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) within three market regimes (low, high and extreme volatility periods) from the period June 2004 to April 2016.Design/methodology/approachObservations of investors in 36 REITs that trade on the London Stock Exchange as at April 2016 were used to analyse herding behaviour among investors and traders of shares of UK REITs, using a Markov regime-switching model.FindingsAlthough a static herding model rejects the existence of herding in REITs markets, estimates from the regime-switching model reveal substantial evidence of herding behaviour within the low volatility regime. Most interestingly, the authors observed a shift from anti-herding behaviour within the high volatility regime to herding behaviour within the low volatility regime, with this having been caused by the FTSE 100 Volatility Index (UK VIX).Originality/valueThe results have various implications for decisions regarding asset allocation, diversification and value management within UK REITs. Market participants and analysts may consider that collective movements and market sentiment/psychology are determinative factors of risk-return in UK REITs. In addition, general uncertainty in the equity market, proxied by the impact of the UK VIX, may also provide a signal for increasing herding-related risks among UK REITs.

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Loudon

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the effect of global financial market uncertainty on the relation between risk and return in G7 stock markets. Design/methodology/approach Market uncertainty is quantified using a probability-based measure derived from a regime-switching model in which the state transition probabilities are time-varying in response to leading economic indicators. Time variation in the risk return relation is estimated using a GARCH-M model. Findings While the regime-switching model successfully distinguishes between crisis and normal states, there remains substantial variability through time in the level of uncertainty about which state prevails. Results show that a strong negative relation exists between this uncertainty and the reward-to-variability ratio across all G7 stock markets. This finding is qualitatively consistent at both monthly and weekly horizons. Originality/value Extant evidence on the risk-return relation is conflicting. Most papers assume the relation is time constant. Allowing the reward-to-variability ratio to vary through time in response to return regime uncertainty increases the understanding of asset pricing. It also has important implications for asset allocation decisions by investors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mobeen Ur Rehman ◽  
Nicholas Apergis

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of sentiment shocks based on US investor sentiments, bearish and bullish market conditions. Earlier studies, though very few, only consider the effect of investor sentiments on stock returns of emerging frontier Asian (EFA) markets.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the application of regime switching model because of its capability to explore time-varying causality across different regimes unlike traditional linear models. The Markov regime switching model uses regime switching probabilities for capturing the potential asymmetries or non-linearity in a model, in this study’s case, thereby adjusting investor sentiments shocks to stock market returns.FindingsThe results of the Markov regime switching method suggests that US sentiment, bullish and bearish market shocks act as a main contributors for inducing variation in EFA stock market returns. The study’s non-parametric robustness results highlight an asymmetric relationship across the mean series, whereas a symmetric relationship across variance series. The study also reports Thailand as the most sensitive market to global sentiment shocks.Research limitations/implicationsThe sensitivity of the EFA markets to these global sentiment shocks highlights their sensitivity and implications for investors relying merely on returns correlation and spillover. These findings also suggest that spillover from developed to emerging and frontier equity markets only in the form of returns following traditional linear models may not be appropriate.Practical implicationsThis paper supports the behavioral aspect of investors and resultant spillover from developed market sentiments to emerging and frontier market returns across international equity markets offering more rational justification for an irrational behavior.Originality/valueThe study’s motivation to use the application of regime switching models is because of its capability to explore time-varying causality across different regimes unlike traditional linear models. The Markov regime switching model uses regime switching probabilities for capturing the potential asymmetries or non-linearity in a model, in the study’s case, thereby adjusting investor sentiments shocks to stock market returns. It is also useful of the adjustment attributable to exogenous events.


ILR Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 760-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Silva ◽  
Luis Filipe Martins ◽  
Helena Lopes

The authors investigate the impact of a change in employment protection laws in Portugal that increased the maximum legal duration of fixed-term contracts. They find that this reform led to a reduction in the probability that a worker on a fixed-term contract would be converted to a permanent contract. In addition, those workers who had their contracts converted experienced a significantly higher hourly wage growth at the time of conversion and faced a lower reduction in wage growth during the years in which the changed legislation was in force. Consequently, the implementation of this law led to a 27% increase in the wage-growth differential between the two contracts. The findings are based on an endogenous regime-switching model using rich administrative linked employer–employee data.


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka Chun Cheung ◽  
Hailiang Yang

In this paper, we study the optimal asset allocation problem under a discrete regime switching model. Under the short-selling and leveraging constraints, the existence and uniqueness of the optimal trading strategy are obtained. We also obtain some natural properties of the optimal strategy. In particular, we show that if there exists a stochastic dominance order relationship between the random returns at different regimes, then we can order the optimal proportions we should invest in such regimes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 621-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vika Koban

This paper investigates the impact of market coupling on (1) electricity prices of Hungarian and Romanian markets and (2) the influence of renewable generation on price regimes by employing the Markov regime-switching model with time-varying transition probabilities. The study provides the evidence of the changes in regimes since market coupling. The results show that the persistence and occurrences of Hungarian price drops are significantly increased. Meanwhile, Romanian prices exhibit less and shorter living price jumps. Considering time-varying transition probabilities as functions of wind power production in Romania, the study also reveals that market coupling changed the influence of wind power production on the regime-switching mechanism of electricity prices.


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