0000000000560048
AUTHOR
Juhani Raatikainen
Commodity market based hedging against stock market risk in times of financial crisis: The case of crude oil and gold
Based on daily data from 1989-2016 we find that the correlations between some relevant commodity market futures and equity returns in the aggregate U.S. market, and specifically in the energy sector stocks have changed strongly during the stock market crisis periods. The correlation between crude oil futures and aggregate U.S. equities increases in crisis periods, whereas in case of gold futures the correlation becomes negative, which supports the safe haven hypothesis of gold. For energy sector equities, the dynamics of hedge ratios does not support using either crude oil or gold futures for cross-hedging during stock market crises.
Pricing of electricity futures based on locational price differences : The case of Finland
We find that the pricing of Finnish electricity market futures has been inefficient during the latest 10 years, when the trading volumes of Electricity Price Area Differentials (EPADs) have more than doubled. Even though the calculated futures premium on EPADs is related to some risk measures and the variables capturing the demand and supply conditions in the spot electricity markets, there has been a significant positive excess futures premium in the Finnish market, and financial market participants should have been able to utilize this also in economic terms. This finding is new and relevant for the participants of the Nordic electricity markets also in the future, because both the specul…
Haven on Earth? Dynamic Connections between Gold and Stock Markets in Turbulent Times
We find that exogenous structural shocks caused by terrorist attacks, wars, political turmoil and gold market specific events have a strong role to play in the analysis of dynamic relationships between gold and stock market returns. Our main finding is that the interaction between the gold market and stock market is much tighter than previously observed. Especially some of the gold market specific shocks have long lasting impacts also on the financial markets. Also some events, which may have been miss-interpreted as minor shocks previously, have in fact had significant impacts on both stock and gold markets. Furthermore, the dynamic correlations between all the analyzed financial sectors i…
Keep the faith in banking : New evidence for the effects of negative interest rates based on the case of Finnish cooperative banks
This paper analyses the profitability of Finnish cooperative banks during the period of negative nominal interest rates. Contrary to expectations, the continuous decline in money market interest rates between 2009 and 2014, and the following negative rate era, did not have adverse effects on the profitability of banks at the beginning of negative interest rate period. Based on especially using a risk-adjusted measure for bank profitability, these results contrast with previous findings. In our findings, the increasing wholesale funding (WSF) ratio seems to be an important factor. However, after 2017 the banks have not been able to improve especially their risk-adjusted profitability so stro…