Linkages between gold and Latin American equity markets: portfolio implications

PurposeThe authors aim to examine the mean and volatility linkages between the gold market and the Latin American equity markets in the entire sample period and two crises periods, namely the US financial crisis and the Chinese crash.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the return and volatility spillovers, the authors employ VAR-BEKK-GARCH model on the daily data of four emerging Latin American equity markets which include Peru, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, which ranges from January 2000 to June 2018.FindingsThe results show that the return transmissions vary across the stock markets and the crises periods. The volatility transmission is found to be bidirectional between the gold and stock markets of Brazil and Chile during the US financial crisis. Furthermore, the volatility spillover is unidirectional from Brazil to gold and from gold to Peru stock market during the Chinese crash. We also calculate the optimal weights hedge ratios for gold and stock portfolio. The result suggests that portfolio managers need to increase the weight of gold for the equity portfolios of Peru and Mexico during the US financial crisis. Furthermore, during the Chinese crisis, investors may raise the investment in gold for the equity portfolios of Brazil and Chile. Finally, the cheapest hedging strategy is CHIL/GOLD during the US financial crisis, whereas MEXI/GOLD during the Chinese crash.Practical implicationsThese findings have useful insights for portfolio diversification, asset pricing and risk management.Originality/valueThe study's outcome provides policymakers and investors with in-depth insights regarding hedging, risk management and portfolio management.

Choosing the Narrative: the Shadow Banking Crisis in Light of Covid

Could experiencing a health pandemic aid in understanding the nature of financial crisis? It might, for example, help to discriminate between different narratives that claim to do so. In this spirit, two influential accounts of the near-collapse of shadow banking in the US financial crisis of 2008 are analysed: one developed by Mark Gertler and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and the other presented by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of the US Congress. Using a common two-sector framework, key features of these contrasting accounts of the market for banking services are presented, along with their corresponding diagnoses of what precipitated financial crisis. To see what the experience of Covid might imply about their relative credibility, four aspects of the current pandemic are considered: how it began from a small biological shock; how it gets spread by contagion; the significance of externalities; and how it may end with a vaccine. But the reader is left to form his or her own judgement.

An Empirical Analysis of the Volatility Spillover Effect between World-Leading and the Asian Stock Markets: Implications for Portfolio Management

This study employs the Vector Autoregressive-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (VAR-AGARCH) model to examine both return and volatility spillovers from the USA (developed) and China (Emerging) towards eight emerging Asian stock markets during the full sample period, the US financial crisis, and the Chinese Stock market crash. We also calculate the optimal weights and hedge ratios for the stock portfolios. Our results reveal that both return and volatility transmissions vary across the pairs of stock markets and the financial crises. More specifically, return spillover was observed from the US and China to the Asian stock markets during the US financial crisis and the Chinese stock market crash, and the volatility was transmitted from the USA to the majority of the Asian stock markets during the Chinese stock market crash. Additionally, volatility was transmitted from China to the majority of the Asian stock markets during the US financial crisis. The weights of American stocks in the Asia-US portfolios were found to be higher during the Chinese stock market crash than in the US financial crisis. For the majority of the Asia-China portfolios, the optimal weights of the Chinese stocks were almost equal during the Chinese stock market crash and the US financial crisis. Regarding hedge ratios, fewer US stocks were required to minimize the risk for Asian stock investors during the US financial crisis. In contrast, fewer Chinese stocks were needed to minimize the risk for Asian stock investors during the Chinese stock market crash. This study provides useful information to institutional investors, portfolio managers, and policymakers regarding optimal asset allocation and risk management.

The Economic Successes and Sources of Discontent in East Central Europe

By some measures, the European Union’s Eastern enlargement, and the attendant securitization of East Central Europe through membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have brought significant economic and welfare benefits to the former Soviet satellites or republics that have joined these organizations. All of their economies are considerably larger than in 1989. Foreign investment has helped fuel significant growth in the region, and financial linkages between East and West had a stabilizing influence during and after the US financial crisis of 2008-09. But economic success in absolute terms has not prevented a sense of disappointment from settling over the region, nor has it forestalled an illiberal backlash in a number of countries, which has had economic, political, and in some cases ethno-populist dimensions. This article examines some of the main economic trajectories around growth, consumption, investment, and finance. It explains why, despite numerous positive measures, both economic and political liberalism are under intensifying scrutiny. Growing inequality within countries, as well as continuing inequality – including power disparities between East and West Europe – have fueled discontent with the terms on which many East Central European states have integrated into the EU.

Stock Market Contagion during the Global Financial Crises: Evidence from the Chilean Stock Market

The study examines evidence for the transmission of the US and EU financial crises via investor holdings into the Chilean stock market following two global financial crises, in 2008 and 2011. The study modified the models of Bekaert et al. (2014), and Dungey and Gajurel (2015) on the 2007–2009 global financial crisis and extends the period to include the European debt crisis of 2010–2011. The study produced three main contributions. First, changes in the equity holdings of retail investors were a key source of contagion following the 2008 US financial crisis. Second, investor herding during the 2011 financial crisis is shown to be low based on the co-movement of equity holdings between the four investor groups studied. Third, investor behavior during the 2011 EU crisis differs from that of the 2008 US financial crisis, which we attribute to firms in Chile adopting international financial reporting standards (IFRS) and improving their corporate governance. We compared the findings to the prior contagion studies that rely on Chilean return data to highlight the contributions to international financial research, particularly as it relates to the functioning of emerging capital markets during financial crises.

Predicting Contagion from the US Financial Crisis to International Stock Markets Using Dynamic Copula with Google Trends

The accuracy of contagion prediction has been one of the most widely investigated and challenging problems in economic research. Much effort has been devoted to investigating the key determinant of contagion and enhancing more powerful prediction models. In this study, we aim to improve the prediction of the contagion effect from the US stock market to the international stock markets by utilizing Google Trends as a new leading indicator for predicting contagion. To improve this contagion prediction, the dynamic copula models are used to investigate the structure of dependence between international markets and the US market, before, during, and after the occurrence of the US financial crisis in 2008. We also incorporate the Google Trends data as the exogenous variables in the time-varying copula equation. Thus, the ARMAX process is introduced. To investigate the predictive power of Google Trends, we employ the likelihood ratio test. Our empirical findings support that Google Trends is a significant leading indicator for predicting contagion in seven out of 10 cases: SP-FTSE, SP-TSX, SP-DAX, SP-Nikkei, SP-BVSP, SP-SSEC, and SP-BSESN pairs. Our Google-based models seem to predict particularly well the effect of the US crisis in 2008. In addition, we find that the contribution of Google Trends to contagion prediction varies among the different stock market pairs. This finding leads to our observation that the more volatile the market time-varying correlation, the more useful Google Trends.

Corporate Cash and Employment

In the aftermath of the US financial crisis, both a sharp drop in employment and a surge in corporate cash have been observed. In this paper, based on US data, we argue that the negative relationship between the corporate cash ratio and employment is systematic, both over time and across firms. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model where heterogenous firms need cash and external liquid funds in their production process. We analyze the dynamic impact of aggregate shocks and the cross-firm impact of idiosyncratic shocks. We show that external liquidity shocks generate a negative comovement between the cash ratio and employment, as documented in the data. (JEL E24, E32, G32, J23)