AN ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE RETURN DYNAMICS CONDITIONAL ON UNITED STATES MONDAY HOLIDAY CLOSURES

This paper investigates Japanese stock returns for the Friday, Monday and Tuesday surrounding U.S. Monday holiday closures. The empirical results show that U.S. Monday closures have a statistically significant impact on Japanese stock return dynamics for surrounding trading days, but do not support the hypothesis that the U.S. Monday and Japanese Tuesday effects are related. Potential explanations for the occurrence and then disappearance of the Japanese Tuesday effect rely on market microstructure properties unique to the Tokyo market. The spillover effects from New York to Tokyo have been increased in density over time, which is attributed to market structural changes represented by the introduction of Nikkei 225 index futures on the SIMEX in 1986.