Book Description
This paper investigates the lead-lag relationship in daily returns and volatilities between price movements of FTSE/ASE-20 futures and the underlying FTSE/ASE-20 cash index of the Athens Stock Exchange. The results suggest that there is a bidirectional causality between spot and futures returns, rejecting the usual result of futures leading spot market. However, spot market seems to play a more important role in price discovery. Volatility spillovers across the two markets are examined by using a bivariate EGARCH(1,1) model. This model is found to capture all the volatility dynamics. The results indicate that the transmission of volatility is bidirectional. Any piece of information that is released by the cash market has an effect on futures market volatility, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the volatility spillover from spot to futures market is slightly stronger than in the reverse direction.