Does a Held-to-Maturity Strategy Impede Effective Portfolio Diversification for Islamic Bond (Sukuk) Portfolios? A Multi-Scale Continuous Wavelet Correlation Analysis

Abstract

The Islamic bonds or sukuk market is one of the fastest growing segments of the nearly US$2trillion global Islamic finance industry. However, lack of trading in secondary sukuk markets is a peculiar feature in this sector and both institutional and retail sukuk investors are known to adopt a held-to-maturity investment strategy. Consequently, there is a critical gap in literature in studying the portfolio diversification opportunities available to sukuk investors and evaluating these in the light of held-to-maturity strategies. This paper (using recently available data and continuous wavelet transform methodologies) has made an initial attempt to study the portfolio diversification strategies for Islamic bond (sukuk) portfolios across heterogeneous investment horizons using the Malaysian and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sukuk markets as a case study. Our findings critically indicate that returns between local currency sukuk in different markets have low levels of long-term correlations, thus enabling portfolio diversification benefits. However, international currency sukuk issued in different markets exhibit high levels of long-term correlations which impede portfolio diversification benefits for held-to-maturity investments. A similar impediment is also witnessed in the domestic market context where diversification is intended by investing in different types of domestic sukuk. Overall, our findings critically highlight the feasibility of held-to-maturity sukuk investment strategies from a portfolio diversification perspective.

Dynamic correlations and volatility linkages between stocks and sukuk: Evidence from international markets

“…Other authors compare the risk/return profile of sukuk with conventional bonds (Fathurahman & Fitriati, 2013; Mosaid & Boutti, 2014; Zin et al, 2011), also through a case study analysis (Cakir & Raei, 2007). Najeeb, Bacha, and Masih (2014) analyze the portfolio diversification opportunities, including sukuk in a well‐diversified portfolio. They find that returns of local (GCC and Malaysian) currency sukuk have low levels of long‐term correlations, allowing gains in portfolio diversification; but international currency sukuk exhibit high level of long‐term correlations.…”

Effects of Leverage, Liquidity, and Profitability on The Rating of Sukuk

“…This resource is such the most accessible alternative funding at an inexpensive cost. If the internal funding were not available, the financial manager would try to seek other funding obtained from the external sources by issuing a debenture or stocks in a capital market (Raffestin, 2017;Najeeb et al, 2017). Meanwhile, deciding on using a specific funding source is one of the most important financial management (Honková, 2015;Reboredo & Naifar, 2017;Smaoui et al, 2020).…”

Applying multivariate-fractionally integrated volatility analysis on emerging market bond portfolios

“…Especially in stock markets and commodities, the wavelet method has been frequently applied to investigate interdependence and coherence. However, there has been limited application on EM bonds (Najeeb et al 2017). As in the case of copulas, wavelet transformation needs additional model for forecasting.…”