|
|
Is ESG a resiliency factor for company stock returns during a crisis? Evidence from Europe during the covid-19 pandemic
Krameš, David ; Novák, Jiří (advisor) ; Kurka, Josef (referee)
The goal of this thesis was to examine whether high ESG performance serves as a resiliency factor for company stock returns during times of crisis. Using a DID estimator for 3 different regions and treatment timings, I find that high ESG performance did serve as a resiliency factor for company stock returns in the short term during the covid-19 pandemic, with high-ESG firms having 1.125-4.785% higher stock excess log returns compared to low-ESG firms over a 15 day period. This is probably a result of their lower perceived riskiness. I also find this effect is primarily driven by the S pillar and for European companies, by firms belonging to the Financial and Healthcare industries. In the long term, I find that the effect reverses and ESG becomes a negative factor, which I believe is caused by investors starting to seek riskier investments again. Finally, for European and American firms, I find the effect of a high score in the G pillar is negative even in normal times.
|
|
|
Climate Change Risk Premium, Stock Returns and Volatility Analysis in Relation to ESG Score
Barotov, Timur ; Baruník, Jozef (advisor) ; Vácha, Lukáš (referee)
The purpose of this study is to provide the evidence in regards to how the ESG score integration in the investment strategies affects the stock portfolio performances. The 10 year long panel data on European stocks were used to test how does the corporate ESG score correlate with returns and volatility on corporate stocks and does it (if at all) hold any explanatory power if added to popularly used asset pricing models. Data sample was divided in two based on long and short ESG reporting periods, where on each the analysis was performed separately. Furthermore, both the single sort and double sort analyses were performed to isolate size and ESG effects. Using Fama-MacBeth regression the results seem to suggest that investors are already pricing in the climate related risks as shown by the negative risk premium associated with high ESG firms. Returns and volatility of corporate stocks tend to be lower with higher ESG score, although not uniformly nor very significantly. Comparing Leaders portfolio showed that high (European) ESG scorers underperfomed S&P 500 index both in terms of return and volatility.
|
|
|
Gold as a Stable Asset in Economic Recession: An Econometric Analysis
Petrželka, Václav ; Baruník, Jozef (advisor) ; Kukačka, Jiří (referee)
Due to its reliability, durability and rarity, gold has been seen for centuries as a safe haven investment that should prevent large losses during financial crises. However, the question arises whether this characteristic is still relevant for gold. In our thesis, we distinguish between two main aspects of a safe haven asset, namely the degree of volatility and the ability to predict as accurately as possible the evolution of the volatility of a given asset. The major economic crises of the 20th century show us that the volatility of gold during them was lower than that of other assets. We therefore follow up with a detailed analy- sis comparing the volatility of daily returns for gold, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies over the period 2006-2021. We find that gold volatility was indeed lowest during the Great Recession after 2007 and after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We also confirm an asymmetric response to negative returns for stocks and commodities, which is not the case for gold and cryptocurrencies. We test the ability to predict assets by comparing predicted daily volatilities and realized daily volatilities over more than a six-month inter- val in 2014 and 2021. We find no relationship to confirm that gold has higher predictability than other assets. Our findings...
|
|
|
Momentum in Stock Returns: Analysis for European Countries
Drmotová, Kristýna ; Kukačka, Jiří (advisor) ; Maršál, Aleš (referee)
This thesis investigates one of the most pervasive anomalies in the behaviour of stock returns, the momentum. We analyse whether there is momentum in European stock returns that would generate profitable investment strategies. First, we compute the average monthly returns on strategies built in accordance with the existing literature. Next, we compare returns on momentum strate- gies between markets with different levels of capitalization and development. Further, we test whether these returns can be explained as the compensation for risk exposures through the Capital Asset Pricing Model. We find that even though the underlying risk has perceptible predictive power for stock re- turns, there still remains a substantial part of abnormal returns unexplained by this model. Therefore, we extend it with additional explanatory variables that might have a predictive power for stock returns according to the Fama & French (1993) three-factor model and Fama & French (2015) five-factor model. We find that stocks that performed best over the short-term past tend to con- tinue to outperform other stocks and stocks that performed worst tend to have one of the lowest returns in subsequent months. We find that strategies based on buying past winners yield statistically significant positive abnormal returns. Furthermore,...
|
|
|
Stock Return Predictability and Model Uncertainty: A Frequentist Model Averaging Approach
Pacák, Vojtěch ; Havránek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Špolcová, Dominika (referee)
The model uncertainty is a phenomenon where general consensus about the form of specific model is unclear. Stock returns perfectly meet this condition, as extensive literature offers diverse methods and potential drivers without a clear winner among them. Relatively recently, averaging techniques emerged as a possible solution to such scenarios. The two major averaging branches, Bayesian (BMA) and Frequentist (FMA) averaging, naturally deal with uncertainty by averaging over all model candidates rather than choosing the "best" one of them. We focus on FMA and apply this method to our data from U.S. market about S&P 500 index, that I help to explain with the set of eleven explanatory variables chosen in accordance with related literature. To preserve a real-world applicability, I use rolling window scheme to regularly update data in the fitting model for quarterly based re- estimation. Consequently, predictions are obtained with the use of most recent data. Firstly, we find out that simple historical average model can be beaten with a standard model selection approach based on AIC value, with variables as Dividend Yield, Earnings ratio, and Book-to-Market value proving consistently as most significant across quarterly models. With FMA techniques, I was not able to consistently beat the benchmark...
|
|
|
Relationship between Stock Returns and Net Income: Evidence from U.S. Market
Kolář, Michal ; Kočenda, Evžen (advisor) ; Krištoufek, Ladislav (referee)
It is important to know if earnings variables influence stock returns. This is important not just for investors who want to know what drives stock returns, but also for the overall economy as stock returns and stock markets are also considered to be significant indicators of its performance. Many studies were conducted in the past but with inconclusive results. The aim of the thesis is to examine the relationship between net income and stock returns using two approaches, namely panel data model and multiple linear regression. We utilize a dataset of companies selected from the S&P500 Index. We also analyse possible heterogeneity in cross section and time. Moreover, we incorporate additional factors which have been proven to have significant explanation power for stock returns. Our findings from the panel data estimation suggest that there is no relationship between scaled net income and stock returns. We find there are random effects present between the companies and three structural breaks in time. Furthermore, we explore the significance of the consumer sentiment index and the percentage change in the book value per share variables in the panel estimation. We do not confirm the debt to equity ratio and the GDP growth news factors in the panel estimation as significant. Results concerning the...
|
|
|
Momentum in Stock Returns: Analysis for European Countries
Drmotová, Kristýna ; Kukačka, Jiří (advisor) ; Maršál, Aleš (referee)
This thesis investigates one of the most pervasive anomalies in the behaviour of stock returns, the momentum. We analyse whether there is momentum in European stock returns that would generate profitable investment strategies. First, we compute the average monthly returns on strategies built in accordance with the existing literature. Next, we compare returns on momentum strate- gies between markets with different levels of capitalization and development. Further, we test whether these returns can be explained as the compensation for risk exposures through the Capital Asset Pricing Model. We find that even though the underlying risk has perceptible predictive power for stock re- turns, there still remains a substantial part of abnormal returns unexplained by this model. Therefore, we extend it with additional explanatory variables that might have a predictive power for stock returns according to the Fama & French (1993) three-factor model and Fama & French (2015) five-factor model. We find that stocks that performed best over the short-term past tend to con- tinue to outperform other stocks and stocks that performed worst tend to have one of the lowest returns in subsequent months. We find that strategies based on buying past winners yield statistically significant positive abnormal returns. Furthermore,...
|
|
| |
guest ::
