Trends in stock-bond correlations

Harumi Ohmi*, Tatsuyoshi Okimoto

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    14 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Previous studies document the existence of long-run trends in comovements in the stock and bond markets. Following these findings, this article examines possible trends in stock-bond return correlations. To this end, we introduce a trend component into a smooth transition regression (STR) model including the multiple transition variables of Aslanidis and Christiansen (2012). The results indicate the existence of significant decreasing trends in stock-bond correlations for many advanced safer countries. In addition, although stock market volatility continues to be an important factor in stock-bond correlations, the short rate and yield spread become only marginally significant once we introduce the trend component. Our out-of-sample analysis also demonstrates that the STR model, including the volatility index and time trend as the transition variables, dominates other models. Furthermore, we find a significant increase in stock-bond correlations for riskier euro countries around the beginning of the euro crisis. Our findings of decreasing and increasing trends in stock-bond correlations can be considered a consequence of the decreasing effects of diversification and more intensive flight-to-quality behaviour that have taken place in recent years and after the euro crisis.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)536-552
    Number of pages17
    JournalApplied Economics
    Volume48
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2016

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Trends in stock-bond correlations'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this