This study compares the momentum profitability of Islamic and conventional stocks in Malaysia and examines whether the presence of momentum profits is market-state dependent. Winner portfolios are shown to outperform loser portfolios, suggesting that a momentum effect exists in the equity market. Islamic stocks exhibit stronger momentum than conventional stocks. Interestingly, although pursuing profit is not the primary goal of Islamic stock investors, the findings indicate that momentum profits for all Islamic stock trading strategies are higher than those for conventional stocks. The profits from momentum strategies for both stocks are market-state dependent. In all trading strategies, while there are significant positive momentum profits following market upturns, there is no evidence of profits subsequent to market downturns. Overall, Islamic stocks yield higher momentum profits than conventional stocks across market states. These findings are robust to using various measures of the state of the market. While the presence of momentum profits is also robust to the inclusion of Fama-French?s (1993) risk factors, the risk factors are unable to explain momentum profits, suggesting that the risk-adjusted momentum profits are not due to risk compensation. Rather, the profitability is evidence of stock mispricing.

This study examines whether business cycles and financial crises affect the risk of Islamic stocks compared to conventional stocks in Malaysia for the period 1997 to 2016. The findings conclude that business cycles play a crucial role in affecting stock risk. Specifically, stock risk tends to be higher during the economic contraction than during economic expansion for Islamic, conventional and all stocks. We further test whether Asian and Global financial crises exacerbate stock risk. The results document that the level of stock risk increases during financial crises. Moreover, we find that the impact of economic contraction and financial crises on increasing stock risk remain significant after controlling for various variables known to have effect on risks. In addition, we discover that the risk of Islamic stock is lower compared to those of conventional and all stocks during the economic contraction and financial crises. This recommends the diversification advantage and investment opportunity of the Islamic stocks during the periods of financial turbulence. The findings offer important insights to investors who are considering Islamic or conventional stocks as potential investment and to policymakers in evaluating stock risk in different economic states.2 Kata kunci: Saham Islam dan konvensional; risiko saham; kitaran perniagaan; pengembangan dan pengecutan ekonomi; krisis kewangan

This study explores a novel extension of the informational efficiency literature. We examine the impact of the convergence of