Has 1997 Asian Crisis increased Information Flows between International Markets?

The Asian crisis started on July 2, 1997 and caused turmoil in developed as well as emerging international stock markets. The objective of this paper is to analyse the movements and dynamic relationships among stock markets, together with their implications for information flows. We use the Morgan Stanley National and International Indexes (MSCI). These indexes refer to four geographic areas (Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America) for two homogeneous and non-overlapping time intervals. The econometric techniques used in this paper include the cointegration test, vector autoregression analysis, forecast error variance decomposition and impulse-response relationships. Our results show that: i) there are no multivariate cointegration relationships across markets, ii) the leadership role played by the U.S. became stronger after the crisis, iii) the response of Asian markets to external markets is more relevant than vice versa, especially after the crisis, iv) the degree of integration, in Phylaktis (1999) sense, between Asian and the rest of the international stock markets has increased after the crisis and, finally, v) the contagion effect determines significantly the dynamic relationships between international stock markets.Asian crisis, stock market, information flow, cointegration, VAR

Cross-listing, price discovery and the informativeness of the trading process

This paper analyzes the price discovery process of a set of Spanish stocks cross-listed at the NYSE. Our methodology distinguishes between two sources of information asymmetries. Market-specific information that is revealed through the trading process and public disclosures simultaneously revealed to both markets but subject to informed judgments. We compute the information share of the Spanish and U.S. trading activity during the daily 2-hour overlapping interval. Empirical results show that the NYSE contribution to the price discovery process is not negligible. But the NYSE information is basically trade-unrelated

Would RC wide-beam buildings in Spain have survived Lorca earthquake (11-05-2011)?

Lorca earthquake (11-05-2011) is most destructive event recorded in Spain, causing nine fatalities and other severe consequences. Its important intensity was rather unexpected, and serious concern arose regarding risk of building stock in Spain. This paper analyzes performance, under Lorca earthquake, of RC buildings with one-way slabs with wide beams. This construction type is chosen for its high vulnerability and for being vastly widespread in Spain. This study is conducted on 3 and 6-story prototype representative buildings. These buildings are designed for three major seismic zones in Spain: low seismicity, moderate seismicity (as Lorca) and medium seismicity (as Granada). Seismic performance under Lorca earthquake is numerically investigated through nonlinear time-history analyses. Results show that buildings designed without any seismic provision (i.e. those in low seismicity zones) do not survive Lorca record, even with cooperation of masonry infill walls. Buildings with seismic design (i.e. those in Lorca and Granada zones) can survive Lorca earthquake only with collaboration of infill walls. To raise reliability of these conclusions, a sensitivity analysis to most influencing parameters is conducted.Postprint (author's final draft

CROSS-LISTING, PRICE DISCOVERY AND THE INFORMATIVENESS OF THE TRADING PROCESS

This paper analyzes the price discovery process of securities that trade at multiple markets with trading sessions that totally or partially overlap. Building on Hasbrouck (1995) information share approach, we introduce a methodology that distinguishes two sources of information asymmetries between markets: trade-related and trade-unrelated informative shocks. This approach determines how much of each market?s relative contribution to the price discovery process during the overlapping period is attributable to its own trading activity. We provide empirical evidence on the contribution of the NYSE in the price discovery process of the Spanish cross-listed stocks during the daily two-hour overlapping interval. Este trabajo analiza el proceso de formación del precio de acciones negociadasen varios mercados con sesiones de negociación total o parcialmente solapadas. A partirdel modelo propuesto por Hasbrouck (1995), introducimos una metodología quedistingue dos fuentes de asimetría de información entre los mercados: la inferida a partirde la negociación de cada mercado e información ajena a la negociación. El objetivo esdeterminar en qué medida la contribución relativa de cada mercado al proceso deformación del precio durante el período de solapamiento es relevante y que parte de estaes atribuible a su propia actividad de negociación. Se obtiene evidencia empírica de lacontribución del NYSE en el proceso de formación del precio de las acciones españolasdurante el intervalo de dos horas de solapamiento diario.Negociación en varios mercados, Formación del precio, Shocks de negociación, ADRs Cross-listing, price discovery, trade shocks, ADRs.

Extreme Value Theory versus traditional GARCH approaches applied to financial data: a comparative evaluation

Although stock prices fluctuate, the variations are relatively small and are frequently assumed to be normal distributed on a large time scale. But sometimes these fluctuations can become determinant, especially when unforeseen large drops in asset prices are observed that could result in huge losses or even in market crashes. The evidence shows that these events happen far more often than would be expected under the generalized assumption of normal distributed financial returns. Thus it is crucial to properly model the distribution tails so as to be able to predict the frequency and magnitude of extreme stock price returns. In this paper we follow the approach suggested by McNeil and Frey (2000) and combine the GARCH-type models with the Extreme Value Theory (EVT) to estimate the tails of three financial index returns DJI,FTSE 100 and NIKKEI 225 representing three important financial areas in the world. Our results indicate that EVT-based conditional quantile estimates are much more accurate than those from conventional AR-GARCH models assuming normal or Student’s t-distribution innovations when doing out-of-sample estimation (within the insample estimation, this is so for the right tail of the distribution of returns)