Purpose This study aims to investigate the transmission of shock between the oil market and the Islamic and conventional stock markets of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during the oil shocks of 2008 and 2014. Design/methodology/approach This study uses two models. First, the dynamic conditional correlation–generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic model has been used to capture the fundamental contagion effects between the oil market and the Islamic and conventional stock markets during the tranquil and turmoil-crisis periods of 2008-2014. Second, the filter of Kalman has been used to capture the effects of pure contagion between the oil market and the GCC Islamic and conventional stock markets. The authors analyze the dynamic correlation between forecasting errors of oil returns and stock returns of GCC Islamic and GCC conventional indices. Findings The main findings of this investigation are: first, the estimation of the dynamic conditional correlation– generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic model for oil market and the Islamic and conventional stock markets proves that the Islamic and conventional stock markets and oil market displayed a significant increase in the dynamic correlation during the turmoil period, from mid-2008 and mid-2014. This proves the existence of contagion between the markets studied. Second, the authors analyze the dynamic correlation between forecasting errors of oil returns and stock returns of GCC Islamic and GCC conventional indices. They show a strong increase in the correlation coefficients between the oil market and the conventional GCC stock markets, and between the conventional and Islamic GCC stock markets during the oil crisis of 2014. However, there is no change in regime in the figure of the correlation coefficient between the oil market and the GCC Islamic stock markets during the 2008 financial crisis. This pure contagion is mainly attributed to the herding bias in 2014 oil crisis. Originality/value This study contributes to identifying the contribution of herding bias on the volatility transmission between the oil markets, and the GCC Islamic and conventional stock market, especially during two controversial shocks: the 2008 oil-price increase and the 2014 oil drop.

PurposeThe main objective of this paper is to investigate whether the investors' behavior under optimistic (pessimistic) conditions has an impact on risk transmission between the Chinese stock and bond markets and the sector indices mainly during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a new measure of the investor's sentiment based on Google trend to construct a Chinese investor's sentiment index and a quantile causal approach to examine the causal relationship between googling investor's sentiment and the Chinese stock and bond markets as well as the sector indices. On the other hand, the network connectedness is used to estimate the spillover effect on the investor's sentiment and index returns. To check the robustness of the study results, the authors employed the Chinese VIX, as another measure of the investor's sentiment using daily data from May 2019 to December 2020.FindingsIn fact, the authors found a dual causality between the investor's sentiment and the financial market indices in optimistic or pessimistic situations, which indicates that positive and negative financial market returns may have an effect on the Chinese investor's sentiment. In addition, the results indicated that a pessimistic investor's sentiment has a negative impact on the banking, healthcare and utility sectors. In fact, the study results provide a significant peak of connectivity between the investor's sentiment, the stock market and the sector indices during the 2015–2016 and 2019–2020 turmoil periods that coincide respectively with the 2015 recession of the Chinese economy and the COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueThis finding suggests that the Chinese googling investor's sentiment is considered as a prominent channel of shock spillovers during the coronavirus crisis, which confirms the behavioral contagion. This study also identifies the contribution of a particular interest for portfolio managers and investors, which helps them to accordingly design their portfolio strategy.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate empirical evidence of behavioral contagion between oil market, US market and stock markets of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries, during the oil shock and US financial crisis period of 2008-2009, after controlling for fundamentals-driven co-movements. Design/methodology/approach – To examine the volatility spillover among oil market and stock markets, the conditional variance of the trivariate BEKK-GARCH model includes three variables: oil returns, US index returns, and the respective individual market returns of 22 oil-importing and exporting countries. The authors estimate the time-varying correlation coefficients between the prediction error of oil market and each stock index. Also, the authors estimate the time-varying correlation coefficients between the prediction error of US market and each stock index. Findings – The estimation of the trivariate BEKK-GARCH model for VIX, oil market and 23 stock markets of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries suggests the volatility spillover of American investor sentiment to stock market and oil market returns. To capture the pure contagion effects between oil market and stock markets, the authors estimate the forecasting errors of time-varying parameter using the Kalman independently of macroeconomic fundamentals factors. The authors analyze the dynamic correlation between forecasting errors of oil price returns and stock indices returns. The authors show a sharp increase in time-varying correlation coefficients during the oil crisis and US financial crisis period of 2008-2009, which provides strong evidence of herding contagion between oil market and stock markets during the turmoil period. Originality/value – This paper makes an original contribution in identifying the behavioral contagion between oil market, US market and stock markets of oil-importing and exporting countries especially during the oil shock and US financial crisis period of 2008-2009. Specifically, the authors consider investor sentiment and herding bias to explain the volatility transmission between oil and stock market returns.

The purpose of this paper is to study the factors determining the performance (organizational, social, and financial) of conventional and Islamic microfinance institutions and their impact on maintaining the sustainability of these institutions. A panel data on a sample of 333 conventional and 49 Islamic microfinance institutions (MFIs) between 1996 and 2012 of six different regions is used for this purpose and analyzes using the simple linear regression technique. The results show that the sustainability measered by operational autonomy (OSS) of Islamic MFIs (IMFIs) is sensitive to their social performance (SP), while the sustainability of Conventional MFIs (CMFIs) is sustained by their Financial Performance (FP) measured by return on assets (ROA). Thus, these latter seem to deviate from the main social objective focusing more on profitability. Indeed, this judgement is confirmed when the results also showed that their (CMFIs) FP is positively affected by the quality of credit portfolios which reveals the category of the targeted clients (the poorest of the poor are abandoned). On the contrary, FP of IMFIs seems to be mainly supported by their specific source of funding through the islamic financial contracts where the results revealed that their profitabilty is positively affected by their capital structure. Moreover, the results show that the organizational performance positively affects the sustainability of the two categories of MFIs.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation “diversification-risk-performance” for Islamic and conventional banks in different financial stress levels. Also, it aims to investigate the impact of the structure of board directors, macroeconomic variables and banking specific factors on banking diversification. Design/methodology/approach The authors use generalized least squares regressions to examine the impact of banking specific, macroeconomic and governance variables on investment diversification of 66 Islamic and conventional banks during the period from 2006 to 2018. In addition, this study uses panel threshold regressions to study the impact of banks’ profitability and risks on investment diversification in different financial stress levels. Findings The findings show liquidity risk, performance, credit risk and capitalization ratio are significantly related to investment diversification of Islamic banks. On the other hand, liquidity and credit risks, capital to total assets ratio and size have a significant influence on investment diversification of conventional banks. In addition, the diversification strategy of Islamic banks is less sensitive to macroeconomic indicators. As regards to governance variables, the results suggest that the board size, the executive directors and the foreign directors have significant impact on the investment diversification in Islamic banks. On the other hand, chief executive officer duality and foreign directors affect significantly the investment diversification of conventional banks. This study also found that financial stress enables us to develop a better understanding of the relation “performance-risks and diversification.” Practical implications It is expected that the findings of this paper can be used by Islamic and conventional banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region that seek to manage the diversification strategy by reducing risk-taking and maximizing profitability. This study suggests that bank managers should consider the level of financial stress during the development of diversification strategy. It provides a better understanding for bank managers about the effect of bank specific and macroeconomics factors as well as governance variables on diversification. Originality/value This study focuses on providing an extension of the existing literature by studying the impact of financial stress indices on the relation between banks’ risk-performance and investment diversification for Islamic and conventional banks in the GCC region.