Predicting Financial Distress in a High-Stress Financial World: The Role of Option Prices as Bank Risk Metrics

The current financial crisis offers a unique opportunity to investigate the leading properties of market indicators in a stressed environment and their usefulness from a banking supervision perspective. One pool of relevant information that has been little explored in the empirical literature is the market for bank's exchange-traded option contracts. In this paper, we first extract implied volatility indicators from the prices of the most actively traded option contracts on financial firms' equity. We then examine empirically their ability to predict financial distress by applying survival analysis techniques to a sample of large US financial firms. We find that market indicators extracted from option prices significantly explain the survival time of troubled financial firms and do a better job in predicting financial distress than other time-varying covariates typically included in bank failure models. Overall, both accounting information and option prices contain useful information of subsequent financial problems and, more importantly, the combination produces good forecasts in a high-stress financial world, full of doubts and uncertainties.Financial distress ; Financial system oversight ; Market discipline ; Options ; Implied volatility ; Survival analysis

Preparing for the tax reform: the risky French households' portfolio in 2018

Between 2004 and 2014, the number of shareholders in France fell by approximately 50%. The over-cautiousness of savers observed after the crisis now seems less topical, especially since 2017 was marked in France by a tax reform designed to support shareholding: the implementation of a flat tax and the abolition of wealth tax, replaced by property wealth tax. We therefore analyze the risky portfolios of French households from the last two waves (2014-2015 and 2017-2018) of the INSEE's "Life History and Wealth" survey, which have the advantage of being panelized. Although the 2017-2018 survey comes a little early to analyze the full impact of these reforms, this paper provides an original analysis of the dynamics of households' risky portfolios over the last three years, just before (and shortly after) the implementation of these policies. We show first that the demand for risky assets depends strongly on the level of household wealth and expectations of returns on the stock market, two variables that have likely been affected by the recent reforms. These data also make it possible to assess the extent to which the announcement of the recent tax reform has led to changes in securities holdings.Entre 2004 et 2014, le nombre d'actionnaires en France a diminué d'environ 50%. Cette frilosité des épargnants observée après la crise de 2008 semble cependant aujourd'hui moins d'actualité, d'autant plus que l'année 2017 a été marquée par une réforme fiscale visant à soutenir l'actionnariat:mise en place d'une flat tax et suppression de l'ISF, remplacé par l'impôt sur la fortune immobilière. Nous analysons ici les portefeuilles risqués des ménages français à partir des deux dernières vagues (2014-2015 et 2017-2018) de l'enquête «Histoire de vie et patrimoine» de l’INSEE, qui présentent aujourd’hui l'avantage d'être pénalisées. Bien que l'enquête 2017-2018 arrive un peu tôt pour étudier l’impact de ces réformes, cet article propose une analyse originale de la dynamique des portefeuilles risqués des ménages sur les trois dernières années,juste avant (et peu après) la mise en œuvre de ces politiques. Nous montrons tout d'abord que la demande d'actifs risqués dépend fortement du niveau de richesse des ménages et des anticipations de rendement sur le marché boursier, deux variables qui ont vraisemblablement été affectées par les récentes réformes fiscales. Ces données permettent également d'évaluer si l'annonce de ces réformes a eu une incidence sur la demande d’actions

La dynamique des patrimoines des ménages selon l’âge et la génération en France et dans la zone euro

International audienceLe vieillissement démographique, conséquence conjointe de la baisse de la fécondité et de l’allongement de la durée de vie, est susceptible d’influencer en amont les comportements d’épargne des ménages, notamment dans un contexte de réforme du système de retraite public et d’une politique « d’activation » des individus. Par ailleurs, le patrimoine d’une population vieillissante aura une structure particulière, vraisemblablement moins axée sur les actifs risqués. Une question sous-jacente concerne alors la disponibilité de ce patrimoine pour financer l’économie : c’est le sens de la réforme voulue par la récente loi Pacte, visant en particulier à orienter l’épargne retraite vers les produits de fonds propres (actions) plutôt que vers des produits de taux (fonds euros). Aussi, convient-il d’étudier en quoi le niveau et la structure du patrimoine diffèrent en fonction de l’âge et de la génération des ménages. Dans la mesure où ces choix sont également susceptibles de dépendre de l’environnement institutionnel (système de retraite notamment) et du corpus fiscal, portant à la fois sur les plus-values, les produits financiers mais aussi les successions, il importe d’inscrire cette réflexion dans un contexte international. Ce texte porte un éclairage particulier sur la France, mais propose donc des comparaisons avec les principales économies européennes. Les données montrent que la distribution du patrimoine, total ou financier, s’est déformée depuis 30 ans au profit des vieilles générations. Par ailleurs, depuis 2008, la structure de l’épargne des Français est de plus en plus prudente, de moins en moins tournée vers les actifs risqués. D’un point de vue macroéconomique, ces éléments appellent à une meilleure allocation de l’épargne des particuliers vers des produits davantage susceptibles de financer l’économie, un des objectifs de la récente loi Pacte

Wealth and indebtedness of French households in 2015 Lessons from the European HFCS survey and international comparisons

International audienceThe success of Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book, Capital in the 21st Century, has put the theme of inequality at the heart of economic policy debates. In addition, the financial crisis of 2008 has changed the behavior of savers, who now favor prudence in their portfolio. Spatio-temporal comparisons of the distribution of wealth and its composition therefore appear essential for analyzing these public policy issues.The European Household Finance and Consumption Survey collects information on household wealth, revenue and consumption habits. Those data enable a better understanding of savings and indebtedness behaviors, as well as an evaluation of financial weaknesses and monetary policy effects.The 2014-2015 wave shows that the concentration of financial assets is higher than that of real estate. Risky and long-term savings are essentially held by wealthy households, but stockholdings remain low.On average, French households claim to have 268,000 euros of assets gross. Half are indebted, on average up to 37,000 euros. The decile of the richest French holds about 46% of the total wealth, the richest percentile, about 15%. Increasing indebtedness essentially concerns wealthy people. Hence, the household situation does not reveal any major risk on financial stability in France

Household preferences and demand for stocks in the Crisis: France 2004-2014

International audienceIn this paper, we assess how the factors explaining stockholdings have evolved through the financial crisis. We rely on the data collected in surveys conducted among French households during the period 2004-2014. There are three main modes for investing in stocks: buying shares directly; purchasing them through mutual funds; and finally taking out unit-linked life insurance. Obviously, these three ways to invest in stocks do not involve the same investment behaviours since, besides the risk and return characteristics, they differ in their transaction costs, management fees and taxation. As a result, there is no a priori reason to consider that portfolio choice decisions by households on these modes of stockownership are equivalent and correspond to the same individuals’ characteristics.We show that the holding of risky assets and of individual direct shares decreased during the period, and especially between 2009 and 2014.The estimation of a simultaneous model shows the specific characteristics of stockholders depending on the chosen support (direct, indirect or on life insurance): those who invest directly in stocks are richer, more educated and less risk averse; those who hold mutual funds are a little richer but more risk averse and do not appear the most educated; finally, for ownership in stocks on life insurance contracts, the position in the life cycle plays an important role as well as the social category

Demand For Stocks in the Crisis: France 2004-2014

In this paper, we assess how the factors explaining the holdings of stocks have evolved through the financial crisis. We rely on the data collected in surveys conducted among French households during the period 2004-2014. There are three main modes for investing in stocks: buying shares directly; purchasing them through mutual funds; and finally taking out unitlinked life insurance. Obviously, these three ways to invest in stocks do not involve the same investment behaviours since, besides the risk and return characteristics, they differ in their transaction costs, management fees and taxation. As a result, there is no a priori reason to consider that portfolio choice decisions by households on these modes of stockownership are equivalent and correspond to the same individuals’ characteristics.We show that the holding of risky assets and of individual direct shares decreased during the period, and especially between 2009 and 2014. At the end of the period, the profile of direct equity holders was refocused towards profiles with greater risk tolerance. Other factors of direct stockholdings include: better education, gifts and inheritances, parents holding securities, singles, high-wealth households and high-income groups. Conditionally on holdings, the proportion of risky assets increases with risk tolerance and the holding of securities by parents. It also decreases at the end of the period. Our paper also shows that shareholders have gradually moved towards preferential ownership of shares in life insurance rather than direct share ownership, especially between 2009 and 2014.The estimation of a simultaneous model shows the specific characteristics of stockholders depending on the chosen support (direct, indirect or on life insurance): those who invest directly in stocks are richer, more educated and less risk averse; those who hold mutual funds are a little richer but more risk averse and do not appear the most educated; finally, for ownership in stocks on life insurance contracts, the position in the life cycle plays an important role as well as the social category

Two-way interplays between capital buffers and credit growth: Evidence from French banks

International audienceWe assess the extent to which bank capital buffers exacerbate the cyclical behavior of credit. We empirically study the relationships between GDP growth, capital buffers and loan growth with firm-level data for French banks over the period 1993–2009. Based on panel data simultaneous equations and Granger causality tests, our findings point to mutually reinforcing mechanisms between capital buffers and loan growth, all the more as better quality capital is considered. Overall, those empirical results lend support to a countercyclical financial regulation focused on high-quality capital and loan growth smoothing