TESTING EFFICIENCY AND THE UNBIASEDNESS HYPOTHESIS OF THE EMERGING GREEK FUTURES MARKET

This paper investigates the joint hypothesis of market efficiency and unbiasedness of futures prices for the FTSE-20 blue chip index futures contract. The FTSE/ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE (ASE)-20 futures market is the first organized derivatives market established in Greece and its operation rests with the Athens Derivatives Exchange (ADEX) and the Athens Derivatives Exchange Clearing House (ADECH). The growing importance of this new market for both investors and the Greek capital market motivated this empirical examination of its efficiency, even though it is an emerging market with low liquidity, compared to other European developed futures markets, but strong growth rates. The Johansen cointegration procedure used to test the market efficiency shows that the joint hypothesis of market efficiency and unbiasedness in futures prices is rejected, indicating market inefficiency. This finding is consistent to earlier but limited studies in other European emerging futures markets, implying that, despite the significant role of an organized futures/derivatives market for a capital market and an economy more general, further necessary steps have to be taken in order to contribute to its efficiency.Market efficiency, Unbiasedness hypothesis, Athens Derivatives Exchange, FTSE/ASE-20 futures market

PRICE DISCOVERY IN THE ATHENS DERIVATIVES EXCHANGE: EVIDENCE FOR THE FTSE/ASE-20 FUTURES MARKET

The FTSE/ASE-20 futures market, as the first organised Greek derivatives market, established in August 1999 and its operation rests with the Athens Derivatives Exchange (ADEX) and the Athens Derivatives Exchange Clearing House (ADECH). Cointegration tests are used and an error correction model is developed in order to examine the relationship between price movements of FTSE/ASE-20 three-month futures index and the underlying cash market in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Ôhe investigation of its price discovery mechanism has been motivated by the existing paucity of similar research in such newly established (emerging) futures markets and the growing importance of this market for both investors and the Greek capital market. The results show the presence of a bi- directional causality between stock index spot and futures markets, indicating that the newly established ADEX can provide futures contracts that serve as a focal point of information assimilation and fulfil their price discovery.Athens Derivatives Exchange, FTSE/ASE 20 futures contract, Price discovery, Cointegration analysis, Causality

Macroeconomic factors’ influence on “new” European countries stock returns: the case of four transition economies

This paper investigates whether current and future domestic and international macroeconomic variables can explain long and short run stock returns in four “new” European countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). “Old” western European countries (U.K., France, Italy and Germany) are included in the empirical analysis, whilst USA is considered as a “foreign global influence”. Using the present value model of stock prices and a complete range of cointegration and causality tests, it is found that “new” European stock markets are not perfectly integrated with foreign financial markets, while domestic economic activity and the German factor are more influential on these stock markets than the American global factor.Stock returns; macroeconomic factors; present value model; Central-Eastern (“New”) stock markets; “Old” European stock markets; USA.

The Day of the Week Effect Patterns on Stock Market Return and Volatility: Evidence for the Athens Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the day of the week effect in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) General Index over a ten year period divided into two subperiods: 1995-2000 and 2001-2004. Five major indices are also considered: Banking, Insurance, and Miscellaneous for the first subperiod, and FTSE-20 and FTSE-40 for the second subperiod. Using a conditional variance framework, which extends previous work on the Greek stock market, we test for possible existence of day of the week variation in both return and volatility equations. When using the GARCH (1,1) specification only for the return equation and the Modified-GARCH (1,1) specification for both the return and volatility equations, findings indicate that the day of the week effect is present for the examined indices of the emerging ASE over the period 1995-2000. However, this stock market anomaly seems to loose its strength and significance in the ASE over the period 2001-2004, which might be due to the Greek entry to the Euro-Zone and the market upgrade to the developed.Day of the week effect; mean stock returns; volatility; GARCH

Hedge ratio estimation and hedging effectiveness: the case of the S&P 500 stock index futures contract

This paper investigates the hedging effectiveness of the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 stock index futures contract using weekly settlement prices for the period July 3rd, 1992 to June 30th, 2002. Particularly, it focuses on three areas of interest: the determination of the appropriate model for estimating a hedge ratio that minimizes the variance of returns; the hedging effectiveness and the stability of optimal hedge ratios through time; an in-sample forecasting analysis in order to examine the hedging performance of different econometric methods. The hedging performance of this contract is examined considering alternative methods, both constant and time-varying, for computing more effective hedge ratios. The results suggest the optimal hedge ratio that incorporates nonstationarity, long run equilibrium relationship and short run dynamics is reliable and useful for hedgers. Comparisons of the hedging effectiveness and in-sample hedging performance of each model imply that the error correction model (ECM) is superior to the other models employed in terms of risk reduction. Finally, the results for testing the stability of the optimal hedge ratio obtained from the ECM suggest that it remains stable over time.Hedging effectiveness; minimum variance hedge ratio (MVHR); hedging models; Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index futures

Contagion effects of the global financial crisis in us and European real economy sectors

This paper empirically investigates the contagion effects of the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2009) from the financial sector to the real economy by examining nine sectors of US and developed European region. We provide a regional analysis by testing stock market contagion on the aggregate level and the sector level, on the global level and the domestic/regional level. Results show evidence of global contagion in US and developed European aggregate stock market indices and all US sector indices, implying the limited benefits of portfolio diversification. On the other hand, most of the European regional sectors seem to be immune to the adverse effects of the crisis. Finally, all non-financial sectors of both geographical areas seem to be unaffected by their domestic financial systems. These findings have important implications for policy makers, investors and international organizations

Initial Performance of Greek IPOs, Underwriter’s Reputation and Oversubscription

This paper provides additional international evidence on the IPOs by examining the initial performance and two main determinants of short-run underpricing of 169 IPOs listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) over the period 1997-2002. The initial performance of the IPOs is measured by calculated two formulas: the raw returns and the excess or adjusted returns of the first, fifth and twenty first day respectively. Furthermore, we use a proxy to rank the underwriters’ prestige along with the times of oversubscription, which are introduced as explanatory variables in our model. The results of the analysis provide evidence of significant underpricing. Furthermore, the cross sectional analysis on the determinants of the IPOs shows that both the underwriters’ prestige and the times of oversubscription significantly affect the underpricing level of the IPOs over the most important and “hot” period for the Greek emerging stock market since its establishment, in terms of growth rates, acceleration of the going public process and volatility of market and stock returns.IPOs, underpricing, oversubscription, underwriters’ prestige, Athens Stock Exchange.

Individual Analysts Earnings Forecasts: Evidence For Overreaction In The UK Stock Market

This paper presents an analysis of two forms of overreaction (generalized overreaction and overreaction to prior earnings changes) in analysts earnings forecasts for the UK stock market, using a sample of individual forecasts of earning per share from a British investment bank over the period 1989-2002. Given that previous UK empirical research over 1980s and mid 90s has provided limited and contradictory findings, we investigate whether and how overreaction of analysts forecasts varies across forecast horizons, firm size (small and large) and growth opportunities (high and low P/E ratio) in order to provide further and comparable evidence. Overall, our findings support the generalized overreaction hypothesis but reject the firm size effect, the overreaction for high P/E ratio companies and the higher overreaction regarding the forecasting horizon. Keywords: Overreaction, Underreaction, Analysts forecasts, forecast horizons, size effect, price/earnings ratio

Global crises and contagion: Does the capitalization size matter?

© Duncker und Humblot GmbH. All rights reserved. This paper investigates the spread of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis (ESDC) to different market capitalization segments across countries and regions. Specifically, it tests for capitalization-specific contagion across both crises and their phases by examining large, medium and small capitalization indices of G-20 equity markets. The analysis across stable and the two crisis periods shows the existence of a stronger large-cap transmission channel for the majority of countries. On the other hand, the contagion dynamics across the phases of the two crises do not provide a clear pattern of a specific cap size-based contagion across all markets. However, there is evidence that the Pacific region and the three cap groups of some individual markets of different regions are less severely affected. Further, all three cap groups of developed markets are mostly affected during the last phase of the ESDC, while emerging and frontier markets show a more diverse pattern of contagion across the phases of both crises. Finally, the Lehman Brothers’ collapse triggers a dramatic increase of the infection rate, while the ESDC seems to be more contagious than the GFC

Opportunities for international portfolio diversification in the balkans’ markets

This paper examines long and short-run relationships among three emerging Balkan stock markets (Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia), two developed European stock markets (Germany and Greece) and United States (U.S.), during the period 2000 - 2005. We apply Johansen's (1988) cointegration methodology to test the long-run relationships between these markets and Granger's (1969) causality methodology in order to capture short-run cointegration. Our findings are mixed. We provide evidence on long-run relationships between the Bulgarian and Croatian stock markets and the developed markets. On the other hand, there is no any cointegration among the developed markets and the Romanian market. Moreover, there is no cointegrating relationship among the three regional emerging markets, while short-run relationships exist only among the region. These results have crucial implications for investors regarding the benefits of international portfolio diversification