Search Results (6)

The rapid advancement of digital technology has transformed how investors gather financial information, with platforms like Google Trends providing valuable insights into investor behavior through the Google Search Volume Index (GSVI). While the relationship between the GSVI and market behavior has been explored in developed markets, its application in emerging markets like Pakistan remains underexplored. This study investigates how investor attention, measured by the GSVI, influences market volatility, liquidity, and stock price movements in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), using weekly data from the KSE-100 Index between 2019 and 2024. The findings reveal that the GSVI significantly impacts market volatility and liquidity, particularly in retail-driven markets with high information asymmetry. Additionally, this research shows that the GSVI is a reliable predictor for stock price fluctuations, with heightened investor attention correlating with increased market activity. Despite the limitations of the GSVI in fully capturing investor sentiment, this study contributes to behavioral finance literature by demonstrating the role of digital information flows in shaping market behavior in emerging markets. It offers actionable insights for investors, financial institutions, and policymakers in Pakistan while suggesting areas for future research in applying the GSVI to global contexts and exploring alternative proxies for investor sentiment in emerging economies. Full article

In Modern era, the Researchers are keenly interested in different areas of green financing projects such as green economics, green trade, green sustainable development activities, green climatic and environment quests, green investment and financial ventures, and green public policy-related topics, respectively. Owing to the lower cost of production for sustainable development, a healthy climate, and a neat environment is needed, this study is structured to build the significant relationship between various green sustainable development projects, the financial effectiveness and performance of PSX and NYSX, respectively. For this purpose, the time series data for 2000–2020 are collected from IFS, WBI, SBP, the Federal Reserve system, S&DP, and the UNDP financial reports. The empirical analysis reveals the insignificant effects of green investment, financial projects, public policies, and social green projects on the financial performance of PSX, whereas the empirical modeling also attests that all the green factors significantly affect the performance of NYSX except the green economic and trading projects and renewable energy green projects, which are insignificant predictors with respect to FIP-NYSX. Moreover, the index for human development insignificantly affects the prediction of FIP-NYSX. The mixed empirical results guide policymakers, the board of PSX and NYSX, and the management of green financing companies to reconsider their policies and objectives with respect to successful green operations and the financial performance of PSX and NYSX. Full article

Periods of economic turmoil distort the ability of stock prices to reflect the available information. In the last three decades, emerging markets experienced numerous crises. The major three of them are the Asian Financial Crisis (1997–1998), Global Financial Crisis (2007–2009) and Global Pandemic Crisis (2020–2022). The nature, intensity and duration of these crises differ significantly. This study investigates the impact of these varying natures of crises on the level of informational efficiency. The empirical evidence is based on the emerging stock market of Pakistan. Index-level data are collected from Pakistan Stock Exchange-100 Index for the period 1995–2022. The rebalancing is done each year to ensure that the final sample is composed of only 100 stocks with the highest market capitalization. The results based on the Variance Ratio (VR) test show that informational efficiency is time-varying. Among all the three crises, informational efficiency deters more in the COVID-19 pandemic, albeit the market efficiency recovers soon. This implies that the arbitrage opportunity is marginal in crisis periods, while investors prefer to invest in post-crisis periods. Finally, our results reveal that among all the crises, investors were more informed in the Global Financial Crisis. Investors must keep a close eye on market regimes for designing investment solutions. Full article

This study empirically examines the spillovers from global uncertainties to the sectoral indices of the Pakistan stock market (PSX). Furthermore, we select three major sectoral indices, i.e., the energy, financial, and material composite indices. These indices represent a massive capital volume of PSX. We utilize the data from 10 May 2002 to 27 June 2022 to examine the outbreak due to the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008 and the impact of the world’s great pandemic, of COVID-19. Additionally, we applied a novel econometric estimation approach: quantile connectedness. We found that connectedness is strong in the case of highly positive changes (above the 20% quantile) and highly negative changes (below the 80% quantile). Additionally, the study also found that materials sector is the least connected at level of 1.58%. In contrast, the financial sector was a strong transmitter of spillovers during the entire study period at connectedness of 54.59%. Regarding graphical results, we found that economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and crude oil index (WTI) are net transmitters, especially during the financial crisis and COVID-19, whereas WTI transmitting impact was significantly dominant during GFC 2007–2008. Conversely, the index MSCI remains the recipient of the spillover during the entire study period, where the remitting effect was observed as dominant during the GFC, and COVID-19 outbreak. The energy sector was found to be more recipient during the GFC, with additional turn transmitters of the shocks after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study recommends that portfolio managers and individual investors consider the materials sector for their investment due to the least connectivity. Similarly, investors need to invest carefully in the financial sector because it is a net transmitter of spillovers to other sectors. Full article

The importance of downside risk cannot be denied. In this study, we have replaced beta in the five-factor model of using downside beta and have added a momentum factor to suggest a new six-factor downside beta capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Two models are tested—a beta- and momentum-based six-factor model and a downside-beta- (proxy of downside risk) and momentum-based six-factor model. Beta and downside beta are highly correlated; therefore, portfolios are double-sorted to disentangle the correlation. Factor loadings, i.e., size, value, momentum, profitability, and investment, are constructed. The standard methodologies are applied. Data for sample stocks from different non-financial sectors listed in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) are taken from January 2000 to December 2018. The PSX-100 index and three-month T-bills are taken as proxies for market and risk-free returns. The study uses three subsamples for robustness—period of very high volatility, period of stability, and period of stability and growth with volatility. The results show that the value factor is redundant in both models. The momentum factor is rejected in the beta-based six-factor model only. The beta-based six-factor model shows very low R² in periods of highly volatility. The R² is high for the other periods. In contrast, the downside beta six-factor model captures the downside trend of the market in an effective manner with a relatively high R². The risk–return relationship is stronger for the downside beta model. These reasons lead us to believe that, overall, the downside beta six-factor model is a better option for investors as compared to the beta-based six-factor model in the area of asset pricing models. Full article

In this study, we examine an empirical relationship between stock market volatility with the exchange rate and gold prices of an emerging market, “Pakistan”, employing daily and monthly data (PSX-100 Index) covering from 2001: Q3 to 2018: Q2. The study explains the average stock returns by applying MGARCH. Further, it investigates that the volatility in the exchange rate (Rs/US $) and gold prices remain equally strong in bearish and bullish conditions of the stock market by using a quantile regression approach (2001–2018). Additionally, the sample period is divided into two split samples that cover (2001–2007) and (2008–2018) respectively, based on global financial crises and applied similar analysis. The overall results show the negative impact of the exchange rate and gold price volatility on the stock market performance daily (monthly), supporting the argument that the stock market considers the exchange rate and gold price fluctuations as an adverse indicator and reacts negatively. Full article