Marius Cristian Miloș

(1) Background: This paper aims to investigate whether the derivatives usage by the banking sector in the European Union has impacted its market valuation in the aftermath of the financial crisis. (2) Methods: Our analysis takes 120 European financial institutions listed on the European Union stock exchange over a period of 14 years into account (2008–2021). We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) to assess whether the use of derivatives allows financial intermediaries to increase their market value. Control variables, such as size, profitability, expectations of the market, bank risk, liquidity performance, and financial condition, are also taken into consideration. (3) Results: Our main findings suggest that market value is affected negatively by derivative asset accumulation. (4) Conclusions: The results are in line with the studies that investigated the impact of financial derivatives on the market value and found a negative connection between the two, justified by the suboptimal hedging or the higher volatility of the earnings.

In light of previous literature that has investigated the effects of MiFID and MiFID II regulation on stock market liquidity, we investigate whether the introduction of MiFID II in Romania has had any effect on the stock market liquidity. Through our empirical analysis, we were able to estimate a meaningful reduction of liquidity in the Romanian stock market liquidity, in response to MiFID II, in line with the previous empirical literature. We find that the liquidity of the BET index constituents has decreased in the period following MiFID II. We find contradictory results in what concerns the German stock market, which could be explained by the different level of development of the stock markets and of the financial education of investors.

The paper investigates whether the implementation of MiFID II, a packet of financial legislation applying broadly to European Union financial markets, has led to a change in the volatility of some European developed and emerging stock markets. We show that for the developed capital markets considered in the analysis, MiFID II did not lead to a decrease in the volatility of capital markets. On the contrary, for all analysis intervals considered (3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and 24 months), the impact on volatility is positive, with volatility increasing in the case of the FTSE 100, CAC40 and DAX stock indexes. There is a similar significant relationship for the Czech stock market, but only over the three-month interval. For the Polish and Romanian stock markets, which enforced MiFID II later, a negative impact of MiFID II on volatility could also be observed. In the Romanian market, MiFID II had a negative impact on volatility on the short-term horizon, while for the Polish market, the impact of MiFID II on volatility is noticeable on a longer term of 24 months.

In this paper, we present a comparative investigation of the multifractal properties of seven Central and Eastern European (CEE) stock markets using recent financial data up to August 2018 by employing seasonal and trend decompositions before applying multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis. We find that stock indices returns exhibit long-range correlations, supporting the idea that the stock markets in question are not efficient markets and have not reached a mature stage of market development. The results of the paper are of interest to investors looking for opportunities in these stock exchanges and also to policy makers in their endeavour of realizing institutional reforms in order to increase stock market efficiency and to support the sustainable growth of the financial markets.