Ghaith El-Nader

This study investigates the interactions among stock ownership, liquidity and dividends in the UK stock market over the period 2002–2016. Using different liquidity measures, it is shown that stocks with higher levels of free float (institutional ownership) are associated with higher (lower) levels of liquidity. In addition, a positive and significant relation is found between institutional ownership and dividend payout policy, which, as a result, highlights the comparative tax advantages that UK institutions have for dividend income. These relations hold even after controlling for firm-specific characteristics. Finally, a negative relation is found between dividends and liquidity, implying that investors with less (more) liquid stocks are more (less) likely to receive dividend payments.

This paper investigates whether the COVID-19 cases and death rates affect the dynamic correlation of corporate-government bond yields. Therefore, this study uses the daily corporate bond data with different ratings of bonds along with the COVID-19 data at both the US and global levels. Using the quantile regression approach, it produces the following results. First, the impact of daily cases differs from that of death rates both locally and globally. Second, the impact of local cases and death cases on the government-AAA yields correlation at a given quantile tends to reverse when the BBB bonds are used in the analysis. Third, global death rates significantly affect the correlation series the most at the higher quantiles. Lastly, AAA-rated bonds show higher sensitivity to COVID-19 cases and death rates than BBB-rated bonds. This finding indicates that relatively high-quality bonds are more susceptible to the pandemic period and thus calls for careful evaluation of assets included in investors’ portfolios. This study assumes that local COVID-19 data provide a better implication for constructing bond portfolios than global data. That is, their economic impact depends on the rating of the bond and tends to vary more across correlation quantiles.