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This paper investigates the predictive impact of Financial Stress on hedging between the oil market and the GCC stock and bond markets from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2020. The authors also compare the hedging performance of in-sample and out-of-sample analyses.

For the modeling purpose, the authors combine the GARCH-BEKK model with the machine learning approach to predict the transmission of shocks between the financial markets and the oil market. The authors also examine the hedging performance in order to obtain well-diversified portfolios under both Financial Stress cases, using a One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (1D-CNN) model.

According to the results, the in-sample analysis shows that investors can use oil to hedge stock markets under positive Financial Stress. In addition, the authors prove that oil hedging is ineffective in reducing market risks for bond markets. The out-of-sample results demonstrate the ability of hedging effectiveness to minimize portfolio risk during the recent pandemic in both Financial Stress cases. Interestingly, hedgers will have a more efficient hedging performance in the stock and oil market in the case of positive (negative) Financial Stress. The findings seem to be confirmed by the Diebold-Mariano test, suggesting that including the negative (positive) Financial Stress in the hedging strategy displays better out-of-sample performance than the in-sample model.

This study improves the understanding of the whole sample and positive (negative) Financial Stress estimates and forecasts of hedge effectiveness for both the out-of-sample and in-sample estimates. A portfolio strategy based on transmission shock prediction provides diversification benefits.

This study analyses the impact of the Covid-19 on stock market performance of BRICS nations together. BRICS countries comprise almost 30% of the global GDP and around 50% of the world’s economic growth. As BRICS nations have gained the attraction as financial investment destinations, their financial markets have apparently been as potential opportunities for foreign portfolio investors. While there is extensive research on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on individual economies and global financial markets, this paper is among the first to systematically investigate the dynamic connectedness of these emerging economies during the pandemic using the Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregressions (TVP-VAR) approach.

We categorise our data into two distinct periods: the pre-Covid period spanning from January 1, 2018, to March 10, 2020, and the Covid crisis period extending from March 11, 2020, to June 4, 2021. To achieve our research objectives, we employ the Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregressions (TVP-VAR) approach to assess dynamic connectedness.

Our findings reveal that among the BRICS nations, Brazil and South Africa serve as net transmitters of shocks, while China and India act as net receivers of shocks during the Covid crisis. However, the total connectedness index (TCI) has exhibited a notable increase throughout this crisis period. This paper makes several notable contributions to the academic literature by offering a unique focus on BRICS economies during the Covid-19 pandemic, providing practical insights for stakeholders, emphasising the importance of risk management and investment strategy, exploring diversification implications and introducing advanced methodology for analysing interconnected financial markets.

The results have important implications for the investors, the hedge funds, portfolio managers and the policymakers in BRICS stock markets. The investors, investment houses, portfolio managers and policymakers can develop investment strategies and policies in the light of the findings of this study to cope up the future pandemic crisis.

This study is one of its kind that examines the dynamic connectedness of BRICS with recently developed TVP-VAR approach across pandemic crisis.

This study examines the value implications of oil price uncertainty for investors in diversified firms using a sample of 922 USA firms from 2001 to 2019.

Our study employs a panel dataset to examine the value implications of oil price uncertainty for diversified firm investors. We consider several alternative specifications to account for unobserved factors and measurement errors that could potentially bias our results. In particular, we use alternative measures of the excess value of diversified firms and oil price uncertainty, additional control variables, fixed-effects models, the Oster test, impact threshold for confounding variable (ITCV) analysis, two-stage least square instrumental variable (2SLS-IV) analysis and the system-GMM model.

We find that the excess value of diversified firms, relative to a benchmark portfolio of single-segment firms, increases with high oil price uncertainty. The impact of oil price uncertainty is asymmetric, as corporate diversification is value-increasing for diversified firm investors only when the volatility is due to positive oil price changes and amidst supply-driven oil price shocks. The excess value increases irrespective of diversified firms’ financial constraints and oil usage. Diversified firms become conservative in their internal capital allocations with high oil price uncertainty. Such conservatism is value-increasing for diversified firm investors, as it supports higher performance in response to oil price uncertainty.

Our study has three important implications: first, they are relevant to investors in understanding the portfolio value implications of oil price uncertainty. Second, they are helpful for firm managers while comprehending the value-relevant implications of internal capital allocations. Finally, our findings are policy relevant in the context of the future of diversified firms in developed markets.

This study aims to examine the impact of the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war and the Wagner Group’s attempted military coup against Putin’s regime on the European defense sector, consisting of weapons manufacturers.

The authors use the event study methodology to quantify the impact. That is, the authors assume that markets are efficient, and abnormal stock returns around the event dates capture the magnitudes of the impacts of the two events studied on European defense sector companies. The authors use the capital asset pricing model and two different multifactor models to estimate expected stock returns, which serve as the benchmark necessary to obtain abnormal returns.

The start of the war on February 24, 2022, when the Russian forces invaded Ukraine, was followed by high positive abnormal returns of up to 12% in the next few days. The results are particularly strong if multiple factors are used to control for the risk of the defense stocks. Conversely, the authors find a negative impact of the rebellion initiated by the mercenary Wagner Group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 23, 2023, on the abnormal returns of defense industry stocks on the first trading day after the event.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on the defense sector. Furthermore, this is the first study to measure the financial implications of the military coup initiated by the Wagner Group. The findings contribute to a rapidly growing literature on the financial implications of military conflicts around the world.

This paper aims to explore current trends in how companies disclose climate-related risks and opportunities in their financial statements. As part of the authors’ analysis, they examine: whether forward-looking assumptions and judgements are typically considered in reporting climate-related risks/opportunities; whether there are differences in the reporting practices of firms in carbon-intensive industries versus non-carbon-intensive industries; and whether negative media reports have an influence on the levels of disclosure a firm makes.

The authors chose content analysis as their methodology and examined the financial statements published by firms listed on the UK’s FTSE 100 between 2016 and 2020. This analysis is framed by Suchman’s three dimensions of legitimacy, being pragmatic, cognitive and moral.

Climate-related disclosures in the notes and financial accounts of these firms did increase over the period. Yet, overall, the level the disclosures was inadequate and the quality was inconsistent. From this, the authors conclude that pragmatic legitimacy is not a particularly strong driving factor in compelling organisations to disclose climate-related information. The firms in carbon-intensive industries do provide greater levels of disclosure, including both qualitative and quantitative (monetary) content, which is consistent with cognitive legitimacy. However, from a moral legitimacy perspective, this study finds that firms did not adapt responsively to negative media coverage as a way of reflecting their accountability to broader public norms and values. Overall, this analysis suggests that regulatory enforcement and a systematic reporting framework with adequate guidance is going to be critical to developing transparent climate-related reporting in future.

This paper contributes to existing studies on climate-related disclosures, which have mainly examined the ‘front-half’ of annual reports. Conversely, this study aims to shed light on these practices in the “back-half” of these reports, exploring the underlying reasons for reporting climate-related risks and opportunities in financial accounts. The authors’ insights into the current disclosure practices make a theoretical contribution to the literature. Practitioners can also draw on these insights to improve how they report on climate-related risks and opportunities in their financial statements.

The study measures the total systemic risks and connectedness across commodities, stocks, exchange rates and bond markets in Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study uses the Diebold-Yilmaz spillover and connectedness measures in a generalized VAR framework. The author calculates the net transmitters or receivers of shocks between two assets and visualizes their strength using a network analysis tool.

The study found low systemic risks across all assets and countries. However, we found higher systemic risks in the forex market than in the stock and bond markets, and in South Africa than in other countries. The dynamic analysis found time-varying connectedness return shocks, which increased during the peak periods of the first and second waves of the pandemic. We found both gold and oil as net receivers of shocks. Overall, over half of all assets were net receivers, and others were net transmitters of return shocks. The network connectedness plot shows high net pairwise connectedness from Morocco to South Africa stock market.

The study has implications for policymakers to develop the capacities of local investors and markets to limit portfolio outflows during a crisis.

Previous studies have analyzed spillovers across asset classes in a single country or a single asset across countries. This paper contributes to the literature on network connectedness across assets and countries.