IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v124y2017i1p147-171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The term structure of credit spreads, firm fundamentals, and expected stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Han, Bing
  • Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar
  • Zhou, Yi

Abstract

We explore the link between credit and equity markets by considering the informational content of the term structure of credit spreads. A shallower credit term structure predicts decreases in default risk and increases in future profitability, as well as favorable earnings surprises. Further, the slope of the credit term structure negatively predicts future stock returns. While systematic slope risk is priced, information diffusion from the credit market to equities, particularly in less visible stocks, plays an additional role in accounting for return predictability from credit slopes. That is, such predictability is less evident in stocks with high institutional ownership, analyst coverage, and liquidity, and vice versa.

Suggested Citation

  • Han, Bing & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Zhou, Yi, 2017. "The term structure of credit spreads, firm fundamentals, and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 147-171.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:124:y:2017:i:1:p:147-171
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2017.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X17300028
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2017.01.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lettau, Martin & Ludvigson, Sydney, 2002. "Time-varying risk premia and the cost of capital: An alternative implication of the Q theory of investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 31-66, January.
    2. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    3. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    4. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    5. Cao, Charles & Yu, Fan & Zhong, Zhaodong, 2010. "The information content of option-implied volatility for credit default swap valuation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 321-343, August.
    6. Jun Pan & Allen M. Poteshman, 2006. "The Information in Option Volume for Future Stock Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 871-908.
    7. Longstaff, Francis A., 2010. "The subprime credit crisis and contagion in financial markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 436-450, September.
    8. Antje Berndt & Iulian Obreja, 2010. "Decomposing European CDS Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 189-233.
    9. Kapadia, Nikunj & Pu, Xiaoling, 2012. "Limited arbitrage between equity and credit markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 542-564.
    10. Keim, Donald B. & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1986. "Predicting returns in the stock and bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 357-390, December.
    11. Benjamin Yibin Zhang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2009. "Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with the Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5099-5131, December.
    12. Andrew Ang & Joseph Chen & Yuhang Xing, 2006. "Downside Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(4), pages 1191-1239.
      • Andrew Ang & Joseph Chen & Yuhang Xing, 2005. "Downside risk," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Joost Driessen, 2005. "Is Default Event Risk Priced in Corporate Bonds?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 165-195.
    14. Jorion, Philippe & Zhang, Gaiyan, 2007. "Good and bad credit contagion: Evidence from credit default swaps," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 860-883, June.
    15. Avramov, Doron & Chordia, Tarun & Jostova, Gergana & Philipov, Alexander, 2009. "Credit ratings and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 469-499, August.
    16. Nils Friewald & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2014. "The Cross-Section of Credit Risk Premia and Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2419-2469, December.
    17. Hilscher, Jens & Pollet, Joshua M. & Wilson, Mungo, 2015. "Are Credit Default Swaps a Sideshow? Evidence That Information Flows from Equity to CDS Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 543-567, June.
    18. Daniel, Kent & Titman, Sheridan, 1997. "Evidence on the Characteristics of Cross Sectional Variation in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 1-33, March.
    19. Acharya, Viral V. & Johnson, Timothy C., 2007. "Insider trading in credit derivatives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 110-141, April.
    20. Jobson, J D & Korkie, Bob M, 1981. "Performance Hypothesis Testing with the Sharpe and Treynor Measures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 889-908, September.
    21. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    22. Amy K. Edwards & Lawrence E. Harris & Michael S. Piwowar, 2007. "Corporate Bond Market Transaction Costs and Transparency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1421-1451, June.
    23. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. John M. Griffin & Michael L. Lemmon, 2002. "Book‐to‐Market Equity, Distress Risk, and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2317-2336, October.
    25. Sudheer Chava & Amiyatosh Purnanandam, 2010. "Is Default Risk Negatively Related to Stock Returns?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(6), pages 2523-2559, June.
    26. Lars Norden & Martin Weber, 2009. "The Co†movement of Credit Default Swap, Bond and Stock Markets: an Empirical Analysis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(3), pages 529-562, June.
    27. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    28. Qiu, Jiaping & Yu, Fan, 2012. "Endogenous liquidity in credit derivatives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 611-631.
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:831-868 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Boudoukh, Jacob & Richardson, Matthew, 1993. "Stock Returns and Inflation: A Long-Horizon Perspective," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1346-1355, December.
    31. Pavel Savor & Mungo Wilson, 2016. "Earnings Announcements and Systematic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 83-138, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Bellardini & Pierluigi Murro & Daniele Previtali, 2019. "The Risk Weighted Ownership Index: an ex-ante measure of banks' risk and performance," Working Papers CASMEF 1904, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    2. Qingxiang Han & Mengxi He & Yaojie Zhang & Muhammad Umar, 2023. "Default return spread: A powerful predictor of crude oil price returns," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(7), pages 1786-1804, November.
    3. Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi & Takaoka, Sumiko, 2022. "The credit spread curve distribution and economic fluctuations in Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Sirio Aramonte & Mohammad R. Jahan-Parvar & Samuel Rosen & John W. Schindler, 2022. "Firm-Specific Risk-Neutral Distributions with Options and CDS," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 7018-7033, September.
    5. Zhou, Yi, 2022. "Option trading volume by moneyness, firm fundamentals, and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. Michael Hertzel & Jie Peng & Jing Wu & Yu Zhang, 2023. "Global supply chains and cross‐border financing," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(9), pages 2885-2901, September.
    7. Giovanni Calice & Ming Zeng, 2021. "The term structure of sovereign credit default swap and the cross‐section of exchange rate predictability," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 445-458, January.
    8. Gredil, Oleg R. & Kapadia, Nishad & Lee, Jung Hoon, 2022. "On the information content of credit ratings and market-based measures of default risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 172-204.
    9. Corvino, Raffaele & Fusai, Gianluca, 2022. "Default risk premium and asset prices," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Bellardini, Luca & Murro, Pierluigi & Previtali, Daniele, 2024. "Measuring the risk appetite of bank-controlling shareholders: The Risk-Weighted Ownership index," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    11. Thuy Thi Thu Truong & Jungmu Kim, 2019. "Do Corporate Social Responsibility Activities Reduce Credit Risk? Short and Long-Term Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Zimmermann, Paul, 2021. "The role of the leverage effect in the price discovery process of credit markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    13. Paseda, Oluseun & Olowe, Rufus, 2018. "The Debt Maturity Structure of Nigerian Quoted Firms," MPRA Paper 117061, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Jun 2018.
    14. Park, Heewoo & Kim, Tong Suk & Park, Yuen Jung, 2021. "Asymmetric information in the equity market and information flow from the equity market to the CDS market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.
    2. van Zundert, Jeroen, 2018. "Empirical studies on the cross-section of corporate bond and stock markets," Other publications TiSEM 338205fc-a031-4e06-a636-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Sirio Aramonte & Mohammad R. Jahan-Parvar & Samuel Rosen & John W. Schindler, 2022. "Firm-Specific Risk-Neutral Distributions with Options and CDS," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 7018-7033, September.
    4. Deniz Anginer & Çelim Yıldızhan, 2018. "Is There a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross-section of Equity Returns [The risk-adjusted cost of financial distress]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 633-660.
    5. Nielsen, Caren Yinxia, 2011. "Hidden in the Factors? The Effect of Credit Risk on the Cross-section of Equity Returns," Working Papers 2011:38, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 01 Oct 2016.
    6. Franke, Benedikt & Müller, Sebastian & Müller, Sonja, 2017. "The q-factors and expected bond returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 19-35.
    7. Zhou, Yi, 2022. "Option trading volume by moneyness, firm fundamentals, and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    8. Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2015. "An analysis of sectoral equity and CDS spreads," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 80-93.
    9. Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Yan, Hong, 2017. "Understanding transactions prices in the credit default swaps market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-27.
    10. Jie Cao & Amit Goyal & Xiao Xiao & Xintong Zhan, 2023. "Implied Volatility Changes and Corporate Bond Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1375-1397, March.
    11. Ye, Xiaoxia & Yu, Fan & Zhao, Ran, 2022. "Credit derivatives and corporate default prediction," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    12. Yinxia G. Nielsen , Caren, 2013. "Is Default Risk Priced in Equity Returns?," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2013/2, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.
    13. Tolikas, Konstantinos & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2017. "Is default risk priced equally fast in the credit default swap and the stock markets? AN empirical investigation," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 39-57.
    14. Liu, Jinyu & Zhong, Rui, 2017. "Political uncertainty and a firm's credit risk: Evidence from the international CDS market," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 53-66.
    15. Kim, Gi H. & Li, Haitao & Zhang, Weina, 2016. "CDS-bond basis and bond return predictability," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 307-337.
    16. Kiesel, Florian, 2016. "The effect of credit and rating events on credit default swap and equity markets," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 81265, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    17. Kiesel, F., 2016. "The effect of credit and rating events on credit default swap and equity markets," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 81247, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    18. Chris Godfrey & Chris Brooks, 2015. "The Negative Credit Risk Premium Puzzle: A Limits to Arbitrage Story," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2015-07, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    19. Lamia Bekkour & Thorsten Lehnert & Maria Chiara Amadori, 2011. "The Relative Informational Efficiency of Stocks, Options and Credit Default Swaps," LSF Research Working Paper Series 11-13, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    20. Avino, Davide & Nneji, Ogonna, 2014. "Are CDS spreads predictable? An analysis of linear and non-linear forecasting models," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 262-274.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cross section of stock return; Credit default spreads; Term structure; Information diffusion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:124:y:2017:i:1:p:147-171. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.