The impact of terrorist attacks in G7 countries on international stock markets and the role of investor sentiment

We consider terrorism acts in G7 countries over the period 1998–2017 and examine their impact on a sample of stock market indices from 66 countries. Using an event-study methodology we find that stock markets decline significantly on the event day and on the following trading day. We further consider the investor sentiment following the attacks, based on the content of country-level news stories and social media sources, and find that indices in countries associated with higher declines in the post-event sentiment, exhibit significantly higher economic losses. Our data and results are robust to several settings; these include using samples of events from different studies, excluding the 9/11 terrorist attack from the sample of events, excluding stock market indices of G7 countries from the sample of equity data and utilizing more sophisticated event-study methodologies

Dynamic linkages of stock prices among G7 countries: effects of the American financial crisis

In this paper, we use the cross-correlation function developed by Cheung and Ng (1996) to investigate the dynamic linkages among G7 countries in the mean and volatility of stock prices from June 2, 2003, through July 31, 2010. In particular, we examined the impact of the American financial crisis, which erupted in the US in September 2008 as a result of the sub-prime loan losses of 2007. The sample period is divided into two—the pre- and post-crisis periods—in order to study the causal relationship in mean and volatility. Our research has shown that the international transmission of stock market indices among G7 countries weakened in the mean but became stronger in volatility through the 2007–2008 American financial crisis.G7 countries, financial crisis, stock prices, dynamic linkages, CCF approach

Shelter in Uncertainty: Evaluating Gold and Bitcoin as Safe Havens Against G7 Stock Market Indices During Global Crises

This paper investigates the hedging and safe haven capacity of gold and Bitcoin against the G7 stock market indices during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine military conflict, and the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Using a novel Quantile-VAR connectedness approach, the results show that, at the median quantile, both gold and Bitcoin act as effective hedges during normal market conditions and strong safe-haven assets during the three crises. Gold emerges as the most prominent safe haven asset, outperforming Bitcoin, especially during the war and the SVB collapse. Among the G7 stock market indices, the Japanese and the American stocks may be used as risk diversifiers during crises. As for the rest of the G7 stocks, they are regarded as “risk-on” investments.  Next, we assessed the robustness of our results at various quantiles. We found them to be generally consistent with the outcomes obtained at the median quantile, with one exception related to the S&P500.The results show that the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war are much stronger than the American banking crisis

Stock returns forecasting with metals: Sentiment vs. fundamentals

Using six prominent metal commodities, we provide evidence on the out-of-sample forecasting of stock returns for the market indices of the G7 countries, for which there is little prior evidence in this context. We find precious metals (Gold and Silver) can improve forecast accuracy relative to the benchmark and performs well compared to forecast combinations. From an economic gains perspective, forecasting returns provides certainty equivalent gains in a market-timing strategy for the G7 countries. These certainty equivalent gains are large enough to make active portfolio management attractive, even for individual investors. Gains remain after considering reasonable transaction costs

An examination of financial integration for the group of seven (G7) industrialized countries using an I(2) conintegration model

This study investigates financial cointegration of G7 equity markets. The term \u27international stock market integration\u27 refers to an area of research in financial economics that covers many different aspects of the interrelationships across equity markets. The cointegration of order tow model, 1(2), that was developed by Johansen is used to specify potential cointegration structure. The empirical validity of this economic model is investigated by employing monthly stock indexes of the Group of Seven (G7) from March 1978 through December 1997 on Morgan Stanley\u27s Capital International (MSCI) indices. This monthly time series data is used to estimate the vector error correction model of order two (VECM(2)). The joint cointegration tests show that (at p \u3c 0.05) there is one common l(2) trend and two I(i) trends in the financial equity market returns of G7 countries. Potential explanations of these results and implications for portfolio diversification strategies are discussed

An investigation on the impact of macroeconomic variables on stock market performance of G7 countries

This study intends to investigate the impact of exchange rate, interest rate and inflation rate on stock market performance of G7 countries which are United States, UK, Canada, Japan, Italy, Germany and France. The stock indices used in this study are Dow Jones Industrial stock index, FTSE all stock index, DAX stock index, SBF 250 index, Tokyo stock exchange index, Toronto stock exchange and Comit indices. This study employs annual data for 15 years which is from 2001 to 2015. The data is obtained from the Datastream database. An ordinary least square, fixed effect model, random effect model and fixed effect with robust standard error model are the tests used to achieve the objectives of the study. Empirical results of the fixed effect model with robust standard error show that inflation rate has a significant impact and positive relationship with the stock index movement. In particular, the regression result shows that for 1 percent increase in inflation rates the stock price would increase by 38 percent. The exchange rate and interest rate do not have any significant impact on the stock market index

Gold and financial assets: Are there any safe havens in bear markets?

This paper looks into the role of gold as a safe haven or a hedge against stocks. We extend the existing literature in two ways. First, we consider crisis periods successively defined by recessions and bear markets. Second, we use a bivariate ARMA-GARCH-X model to estimate conditional covariances between gold and stocks returns. The regressions are run on monthly data for gold and several stock market indices (France, Germany, the UK, the US, the G7). We find that gold qualifies as a safe haven against all these stock indexes. This result holds for crises defined as recessions or bear markets, as the covariance between gold and stocks returns is found negative or null in all cases. Gold is also able to hedge against stock losses in most cases, although results are less clear-cut.gold, stocks, safe haven.

CEE Banking Sector Co-Movement: Contagion or Interdependence?

We study the evolution of global equity market integration using US dollar denominated iShares. Designed to mimic the movements of MSCI indices, these securities provide an easy pool of international diversification products for the investor. As such they allow us to conduct an analysis of the largest equity markets comovements devoid of problems associated with trading restrictions, exchange rates fluctuations and non-synchronous trading. In contrast to most of the previous studies, we apply time varying methodology for the analysis of both short-term and long-term comovements that provide detailed evidence on the pattern and dynamics of the equity market linkages. We find evidence in favour of increasing conditional correlations for all of the markets since 2001. Time-varying and recursive cointegration tests provide somewhat weak evidence in favour of the presence of bivariate cointegration relationships, but stronger evidence in the multivariate case, suggesting limited diversification opportunities for the U.S. based investor in the long run.Stock Market Integration, G7 Stock markets, Cointegration, GARCH

Re-assessing co-movements among G7 equity markets: evidence from iShares

iShares funds are products designed to mimic the movements of MSCI stock market indices. Being devoid of problems associated with trading restrictions, exchange-rate fluctuations and non-synchronous trading, iShares data are better suited for measuring, firstly, equity-market co-movements and, secondly, diversification potential than national indices data; the latter data are used by most of the studies in the area. Applying recent time-varying methodology for the analysis of short- and long-term co-movements, a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the equity market linkages over the period 1996-2005 is provided. Evidence is found of increasing conditional correlations and significant time-varying long-run relationships between the US and the majority of other G7 markets since 2001, as measured by iShares. However, the extent of both short-term and long-term linkages between the G7 equity markets is lower for national indices data. Our findings suggest that (i) the results of earlier studies that are based on stock market indices should be interpreted with caution, since using these may overestimate the extent of available diversification benefits; and (ii) iShares funds do not represent perfect diversification products. These results appear to be robust to alternative model specifications, data frequency and conditioning bias

Investor sentiment and multi-scale positive and negative stock market bubbles in a panel of G7 countries

Firstly, we use the log-periodic power law singularity multi-scale confidence indicator (LPPLS-CI) approach to detect both positive and negative bubbles in the short-, medium- and long-term stock market indices of the G7 countries. Secondly, we apply heterogeneous coefficients panel data-based regressions to analyse the impact of investor sentiment, proxied by business and consumer confidence indicators, on the indicators of bubbles of the G7. Controlling for the impacts of output growth, inflation, monetary policy, stock market volatility, and growth in trading volumes, we find that investor sentiment increases the positive and reduces the negative LPPLS-CIs, primarily at the medium- and long-term scales for the G7, considered together, with the result being driven by at least five of the seven countries. Our results have important implications for both investors and policymakers, as the collapse (improvement) of investor sentiment can lead to a crash (recovery) in a bull (bear) market.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbefhj2023Economic