This study is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between firm’s leverage and systematic risk for seven European countries in relation to Shari’ah (Islamic) stock screening. This paper also aims to examine the shock transmission through the systematic risk and whether less debt...

When regulating the financial system, the volatility phenomenon seems to emerge, practically, as a phenomenon which is intrinsic to the capital market behaviour. Theoretically, the leverage of the firms appears to be a major determinant of the volatility of prices and returns. At the same time,...

The capital structure theory advocates a mix between debt and equity to optimize a firm‘s value (Modigliani & Miller, 1958). However, Islamic finance recognizes more conservative levels of debt for firms, based not on capital structure, but on debt to total assets or debt to market...

A major issue facing the investors in the financial markets of the contemporary world is to identify whether the observed stock market fluctuations are due mainly to contagion or fundamentals. This is due to the fact that if the fluctuations are mainly due to a contagion, then it is something...

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...

The issue of market linkages (and price discovery) between stock indices and the lead-lag relationship are topics of interest to financial economists, financial managers and analysts. The lead-lag relationship analysis should take into account both the short and long-run investor. From a...

Sukuk (Islamic debt securities) are dominating the Malaysian capital market with strong support from the government, mega-conglomerates and firms. Sukuk, as an important source of firms’ financing, is increasingly catching up with conventional bonds in terms of volume of transactions and...

In theory, the price of equity is determined by the dividend yields and growth potentials of the firms. There exists established empirical proof of the impact of macroeconomic changes to the equity markets. With the advent of Islamic equities, and the recent surge of interest in them have raised...

Our study measures co-movements in Islamic and conventional equity markets, to discover contagion and to measure integration level. We apply wavelet decomposition to unveil the multi-horizon nature of co-movement. We find that the subprime crisis generates fundamental-based contagion for both...

A major issue in both Islamic finance and conventional finance is whether the shocks to the volatilities in the asset returns are substitutes or complements in terms of taking risk. An understanding of how volatilities of and correlations between asset returns change over time including their...