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The purpose of this paper is to show that the level of herding in an industry can be the basis for a profitable investment strategy.

The authors apply three different herding measures in the paper, including cross-sectional standard deviation, cross-sectional absolute deviation and non-linear model – state–space model.

The authors find that industries that experience a high level of herding yield higher subsequent returns regardless of their past performance. Consequently, the authors show that a herding-based investment strategy generates significant profits, even after adjusting for risk. The findings also show that the herding effect when combined with past performance as part of a conditional investment strategy yields significant profits regardless of the formation and holding periods. The findings suggest that the level of herding could serve as a systematic driver of returns and could be exploited for profitable investment strategies.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the literature to show that herding by itself can serve as a determinant of returns regardless of past performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine intentional herding among institutional investors with a particular focus on the technology sector that was the driver of the “New Economy” in the USA during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s.

Using data on technology stockholdings of 115 large institutional investors, the authors test the presence of herding by examining linear dependence and feedback between individual investors’ technology stockholdings and that of the aggregate market. Unlike other models to detect herding, the authors use Geweke (1982) type causality tests that allow authors to disentangle spurious herding from intentional herding via tests of bidirectional and instantaneous causality across portfolio positions in technology stocks.

After controlling information-based (spurious) herding, the tests show that 38 percent of large institutional investors tend to intentionally herd in technology stocks.

The findings support the existing literature that investment decisions by large institutional investors are not only driven by fundamental information, but also by cognitive bias that is characterized by intentional herding.

This study aims to explore the oil–stock market nexus from a novel angle by examining the predictive role of oil prices over the excess returns associated with the market, size, book-to-market and momentum factors via bivariate cross-quantilograms.

This study makes use of the bivariate cross-quantilogram methodology recently developed by Han et al. (2016) to analyze the predictability patterns across the oil and stock markets by focusing on various quantiles that formally distinguish between normal, bull and bear as well as extreme market states.

The study analysis of systematic risk premia across the four regions shows that crude oil returns indeed capture predictive information regarding excess factor returns in stock markets, particularly those associated with market, size and momentum factors. However, the predictive power of oil return over excess factor returns is asymmetric and primarily concentrated on extreme quantiles, suggesting that large fluctuations in oil prices capture markedly different predictive information over stock market risk premia during up and down states of the oil market.

The findings have significant implications for the profitability of factor- or style-based active portfolio strategies and suggest that the predictive information contained in oil market fluctuations could be used to enhance returns via conditional strategies based on these predictability patterns.

This study contributes to the vast literature on the oil–stock market nexus from a novel perspective by exploring the effect of oil price fluctuations on the risk premia associated with the systematic risk factors including market, size, value and momentum.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the international diversification benefits of Islamic bonds (Sukuk) for equity investors in conventional stock markets. The authors compare the diversification benefits of these securities with their conventional alternatives from advanced and emerging markets. Compared to conventional bonds, Sukuk are backed by tangible assets and carry both bond and stock-like features. Furthermore, the Sharia-based limitations limit the risk in these securities as a result of ethical investing rules. The regime-based model provides insight to possible segmentation (or integration) of these securities from global markets during different market states.

Risk spillover effects across conventional and Islamic stock and bond markets are examined using a Markov regime-switching GARCH model with dynamic conditional correlations (MS-DCC-GARCH). Weekly return series for conventional (advanced and emerging) and Islamic stock and bond indices are examined within a regime-dependent specification that takes into account low, high, and extreme volatility states. The DCC are then used to establish alternative diversified portfolios formed by supplementing conventional and Islamic equities with conventional and Islamic bonds one at a time.

Asymmetric shocks are observed from conventional stocks and bonds into Islamic bonds (Sukuk). Compared to emerging market bonds, Sukuk are found to display a different pattern in the transmission of global market shocks. The analysis of dynamic correlations suggests a low degree of association between Islamic bonds and global stock markets with episodes of negative correlations observed, particularly during market crisis periods. Portfolio performance analysis suggests that Islamic bonds provide valuable diversification benefits that are not possible to obtain from conventional bonds.

This study provides comprehensive analysis of volatility interactions and dynamic correlations across Islamic and conventional markets within a regime-based framework and provides insight to whether these securities could serve as safe havens or diversifiers for global investors. The findings have significant implications for global diversification strategies, particularly during market crisis periods.

This study examines herding behaviour in commodity markets amid two major global upheavals: the Russo–Ukraine conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.

By analysing 18 commodity futures worldwide, the study examines herding trends in metals, livestock, energy and grains sectors. The applied methodology combines static and dynamic approaches by incorporating cross-sectional absolute deviations (CSAD) and a time-varying parameter (TVP) regression model extended by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling to adequately reflect the complexity of herding behaviour in different market scenarios.

Our results show clear differences in herd behaviour during these crises. The Russia–Ukraine war led to relatively subdued herding behaviour in commodities, suggesting a limited impact of geopolitical turmoil on collective market behaviour. In stark contrast, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly amplified herding behaviour, particularly in the energy and livestock sectors.

This discrepancy emphasises the different impact of a health crisis versus a geopolitical conflict on market dynamics. This study makes an important contribution to the existing literature as it is one of the first studies to contrast herding behaviour in commodity markets during these two crises. Our results show that not all crises produce comparable market reactions, which underlines the importance of the crisis context when analysing financial market behaviour.

This study comprehensively aims to review the key influential and intellectual aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

The study uses the bibliometric and content analysis methods using the VOSviewer software to analyse 52 academic documents derived from the Web of Sciences (WoS) between 2015 and June 2022.

The results demonstrate the influential aspects of spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets, including the leading authors, journals, countries and institutions and the intellectual aspects of literature. These aspects are synthesised into four main streams: research between stock indexes; studies between stock indexes, oil and precious metal; works between Sukuk, bond and indexes; and empirical studies review. The authors also propose future research directions in spillovers between Islamic and conventional financial markets.

Our study is subject to several limitations. Firstly, the authors only used the WoS database. Secondly, the study only includes papers and reviews written in English from the WoS. This study assists academic scholars, practitioners and regulatory bodies in further exploring the suggested issues in future studies and improving and predicting economic and financial stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no extant empirical studies have been conducted in this area of research interest.