CAPITAL MARKET INTEGRATION OF ASEAN-5 COUNTRIES : AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

The financial integration of South East Asian markets has been an important research topic. Due to the recent global developments in financial markets, the behaviours of these emerging markets are gaining much interest. This research paper empirically analyzes stock market integration of international portfolio diversification across the South East Asian countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test has been used to verify the static properties of the market return of ASEAN countries. An analysis of the co-integration among these countries' market return has been done using the Johansen Co-integration Approach. The co-movements between the ASEAN economies were analyzed through the Granger Causality test. The results of the Granger causality tests indicate the interdependence between ASEAN-5 market returns. This suggests a co-movement among ASEAN capital markets, but not all of these ASEAN capital markets were fully integrated. This study also found that the Malaysia Stock Exchange, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the Singapore Stock Exchange and the Philippines Stock Exchange were fully integrated, but Indonesia Stock Exchange was not. Essentially, this study provides insight for policymakers, portfolio managers, domestic and international investors, risk analysts, and financial researchers to diversify their investment portfolios by combining assets from each ASEAN-5 country.

Analysing portfolio diversification opportunities in selected stock markets of North and South America and their impact on the textile sector: An empirical case study

This empirical study investigates the financial integration linkages among the sample stock markets of Canada, Mexico,United States (for both New York Stock Exchange, i.e. NYSE and NASDAQ), Panama, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela,Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago during the period from January 2001 to April 2019. This research study also examinesthe impact of selected stock market dynamics on the textile sector. International portfolio diversification has been animportant subject of research in financial fraternity since the emergence of Modern Portfolio Theory in 1952. This studyexamines the portfolio diversification opportunities in the 11 stock markets of Americas.International diversificationamong stock market indices has proven to be fruitful in the past. Certain tests have been used to determine opportunitiesfor diversification are correlation test, pairwise co-integration test, multiple co-integration test and granger causality test.The empirical results show that stock market indices share low correlation among other and they are not highlyco-integrated whereas results of Granger causality test exhibit an unidirectional relationship among few stock marketsin short run.

Impact of Brexit on Islamic stock markets: employing MGARCH-DCC and wavelet correlation analysis

Purpose This paper aims to study the co-movement dynamics of Islamic equity returns to explain international portfolio diversification opportunities for investors having a heterogeneous stock holding period in light of Brexit. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the following three recent methodologies: the multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic-dynamic conditional correlations, continuous wavelet transforms and maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform. Dow Jones Islamic country-based indexes are used from 2 September 2013 to 31 December 2019. Findings There is a high correlation between the United Kingdom (UK) Islamic stock market return with the Canadian, USA, Malaysian and Indian implying lesser diversification benefits for the investors. However, the results tend to indicate that UK Islamic stock market investors who have allocated their investment in Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Japan and Turkey have enjoyed diversification benefits. Besides, there is a declining correlation between UK Islamic stock markets and other selected markets aftermath of Brexit. Turkey seems the most volatile stock over the period, appealing to risk-lover investors to gain from price changes. When the shock occurs in the financial sector, the volatility is mean-reverting faster than other markets in Sri Lanka. On the other hand, Malaysia appears to have the least volatility implying a stable financial sector. Research limitations/implications The results tend to shed light on effective portfolio diversification benefits in light of the recent shock (Brexit) between the UK Islamic stock index and other selected indexes that vary from country to country depending on investment horizons. This critically confirms the significance of heterogeneity in investment horizons and provides significant inferences for portfolio diversification strategies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study investigating the Brexit effect on Islamic stocks, guiding Shariah sensitive investors in their diversification strategies, providing information to investors to consider the implications of this incident on Islamic stocks for future shocks.

INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TURKEY AND DEVELOPED STOCK MARKETS IN THE PANDEMIC PERIOD: ARDL BOUND TESTING APPROACH

The integration of stock markets is an essential issue for international investors who aim to make short and long term investments. This paper examines Turkey and developed stock markets co-movements during the pandemic. International portfolio diversification advantages are investigated for Turkish investors who have a portfolio in developed markets. For this purpose, the long-term relationship between stock markets is analyzed using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound test. The study covers January 2019 and April 2021, and this period is divided into two separate periods, pre-pandemic and pandemic. The results of ARDL bounds tests have not found a cointegration relationship between stock markets in both the pre-pandemic period and the pandemic period. Granger causality test results show that NIKKEI 225 (Japan), DAX (Germany), FTSE 100 (United Kingdom) and CAC 40 (France) are the cause of BIST 100 (Turkey) in the pre-pandemic period. However, Granger causality test results show that there is no causality relationship during the pandemic period. Turkish stock market investors investing in developed stock markets will benefit from portfolio diversification in the long term.

Measuring contagion during COVID-19 through volatility spillovers of BRIC countries using diagonal BEKK approach

PurposeThe outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented shock to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economy and their financial markets have plummeted significantly due to it. This paper adds to the recent literature on contagion due to spillover by uniquely examining the presence of pairwise contagion or volatility transmissions in stock markets returns of India, Brazil, Russia, China and USA prior to and during COVID-19 pandemic period.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) by Bollerslev (1986) under diagonal parameterization is used to estimate multivariate GARCH framework also known as BEKK (Baba EngleKraft and Kroner) model on stock market returns of BRIC nations and the US.FindingsThe empirical results show that the model captures the volatility spillovers and display statistical significance for own past mean and volatility with both short- and long-run persistence effects. Own volatility spillovers (Heatwave phenomenon) have been found to be highest for the US, China and Brazil compared to Russia and India. The coefficients indicate persistence of volatility for each country in terms of its own past errors. The highest and long-term spillover effect is found between US and Russia. The results recommend that Russia is least vulnerable to outside shocks. Finally after examining the pairwise results, it is suggested that the BRIC countries stock indices have exhibited volatility spillover due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe study may be extended to include other emerging market economies under a dynamic framework.Practical implicationsResearchers and policymakers may draw useful insights on cross-market interdependencies regarding the spillovers in BRIC countries' stock markets. It also helps design international portfolio diversification strategies and in constructing optimal portfolios during COVID and in a post-COVID world.Originality/valueCOVID-19 has been an improbable event in the history of the world which can have a large impact on the financial economies across the emerging countries. This event can be deemed to be informative enough to measure the co-movements of the equity markets amongst cross-country return series, which has not been investigated so far for BRIC nations.

International portfolio diversification and genetic relatedness

The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on how relatedness between counterparties can explain investment behavior, specifically how much can investor’s inherited traits influence the exchange of capital. We use the genetic distance index and regress it against the foreign bias measure on pairs from 40 countries on a time period from 2001-2016. We identify that the prior exerts a significant impact on foreign investment decision, even when controlling for previous documented determinants of foreign bias. These findings reflect that international portfolio allocation is obstructed by the cultural wedge created between source and destination country, since relative difference in these characteristics disturb the flow of equity investments across markets, which ultimately hinder diversification.

Are Strategies for International Diversification by Country, Industry and Region Equivalent?

In this study, we examine whether international portfolio diversification still matters despite an increase in the cross-country correlations of assets returns. More specifically, we explain why an increase in global return correlations does not necessarily imply a reduction in the benefits of international portfolio diversification. We also propose to compare empirically two traditional strategies of international diversification (by country and industry) in addition to a new strategy (by region) using two different methodological approaches, namely the mean variance spanning and multivariate cointegration analysis. Over the full sample period (1994- 2008), our results suggest that the three strategies of international diversification remain effective despite the secular increase in the cross-country return correlations. When we divide the sample into two different sub-periods (1994-2000 and 2000-2008), the findings indicate that the strategy based on regional diversification proved to be a new competing strategy during the second period in comparison to the other two traditional strategies.

Does Economic Integration Affect the Co-movement between Financial Markets? Evidence from Pakistani equity market with its global partners

The study investigates the impact of bilateral trade, economic fundamentals and financial crisis on the equity market integration (EMI) of Pakistan’s equity market with its major global trading partners (China, India, USA and UK) for the period 1998 to 2016. The findings of the study indicate that bilateral trade and economic conditions have a significant impact on EMI, the export dependence of two economies may increase the EMI and import dependence reduces the EMI of two economies. Moreover, inflation differential and volatility in the bilateral exchange rate have a negative impact on EMI. It implies that inflation rates in Pakistan’s equity market are higher as compare to other markets and volatility in bilateral exchange rate may reduce trade flows and its tendency to follow other market (Bracker, Docking , & Koch, 1999). Furthermore, the financial crisis in an economy may reduce the EMI with its trading partners and EMI between different markets is affected by their bilateral economic fundamentals. The results imply that financial integration between different markets is affected by their bilateral economic fundamentals. The study has strong implications for international investors who need to assess risks and benefits associated with international portfolio diversification.

Market frictions and the geographical location of global stock exchanges. Evidence from the S&P Global Index

PurposeWe examine the impact of market frictions in the form of trading costs on investor average holding periods for stocks in the S&P global 1200 index to examine constraints on international portfolio diversification.Design/methodology/approachWe determine whether it is appropriate to pool stocks listed in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Japan, Asia and Australia into investigations using the same empirical specification. This is very important because the pooled effects may not provide consistent estimates of the average.FindingsWe report overwhelming econometric evidence that it is not valid to pool stocks in all the underlying regional equity indices for our investigation, indicating that the effect of frictions varies between markets.Research limitations/implicationsWhen we pool the stocks within markets, we discover that for companies listed in the USA, Europe, Canada and Australia, market frictions do not significantly influence holding periods and hence are not a barrier to portfolio rebalancing. However, companies listed in Latin America and Asia face market frictions, which are significant in terms of increasing holding periods.Practical implicationsWe ascertain that taking into account the properties of stock markets in different geographical locations is vital for understanding the limits on achieving international portfolio diversification.Originality/valueUnlike prior research, we overcome the problems caused by contemporaneous correlation, endogeneity and joint determination of investor average holding periods and trading costs by employing the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) system panel estimator. This makes our empirical estimates robust and more reliable than the previous empirical research in this area.