ORCID
Antonio Sánchez Serrano 0000-0001-7670-0802
Keywords
European banks; stock returns; asset quality; profitability; global financial crisis
Abstract
European Union banks were severely hit by the global financial crisis in 2008 and their stock prices and returns have generally not recovered since then, differently to what has been observed in other sectors (i.e., non-financial corporations) and jurisdictions (i.e., US). In this paper, we focus on three episodes of financial turmoil in EU financial markets occurring after the global financial crisis (August 2015, December 2015 and January 2016, and June 2016) and, through a series of linear regressions, with and without control variables, attempt to determine the common features of those banks which stock returns declined the most. Results of the regressions tend to suggest that size has been driving the decreases in stock returns in the three episodes. Regarding asset quality, the Texas ratio has been a decisive factor in the evolution of stock returns of EU banks in the second and third periods. Interestingly, profitability variables seem not to be statistically significant to explain the declines in stock returns, except in the third period, but only under some specifications. An evolution on the perception by financial market participants on EU banks, with a larger importance on asset quality in the latter periods, can also be observed. Lastly, on the basis of these results, further policy actions would be needed to clean-up the balance sheet of banks, as a necessary step towards full recovery after the global financial crisis.
Acknowledgments
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the European Systemic Risk Board, any of its Member Institutions or the ESRB Secretariat. Many thanks to Magdalena Grothe and Nikolas Mayer for the rich discussions and preliminary work on this topic, and to Pavol Jurca for his comments. Finally, comments by two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged as they have contributed to significantly improve the quality of the paper. Any remaining error is my own.
Recommended Citation
Serrano, A. S. (2024). EU banks after the crisis: sinners in the hands of angry markets. Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, 2018(9), 24-51. https://doi.org/10.7172/2353-6845.jbfe.2018.1.2
First Page
24
Last Page
51
Page Count
28
Received Date
30 August 2017
Revised Date
13 December 2017
Accept Date
15 December 2017
Online Available Date
2 January 2018
DOI
10.7172/2353-6845.jbfe.2018.1.2
JEL Code
G12; G14; G32; G21
Publisher
University of Warsaw