The international shipping industry is the largest transportation system in the world. However, shipping stock prices were highly volatile during the 2020–2021 COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to identify the causal relationships of the four dimensions (financial performance, bond financing, environmental, social, governance, and COVID-19) and 20 criteria affecting the sustainability of global shipping companies. The research scope includes a sample of nine listed international shipping companies accounting for 49% of the global market share with data collected from 2010 to 2020. Survey responses from 15 investment experts were also obtained. We applied a hybrid multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) method integrating the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), analytic network process, and modified VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno techniques to be the DANP-mV model to identify the causal relationships among the dimensions and criteria, providing ways of narrowing the performance gaps of shipping companies. The results indicate that financial performance is the main cause affecting COVID-19 and ESG practices. The ESG practices influence bond financing. The largest performance gaps across shipping companies include earnings per share (EPS), yield to maturity, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and timely delivery. The findings of this study suggest that shipping companies may focus on gross profit margin to improve EPS, term to maturity to enhance yield to maturity, social distancing policy to meet timely delivery, and the board size to enhance corporate social responsibility (CSR). The outcome of this study aids shipping companies in prioritizing their resources and investors in selecting shipping company stocks in response to COVID-19.

The Taiwanese government has encouraged bank privatization and the establishment of financial holding companies to improve banking sustainability and consolidate banks, insurance companies, and securities firms. It is important for bank decision makers to set policies that lead to sustainable development. However, the literature remains unclear about the types of banks that achieve greater business sustainability. This paper aims to (1) identify the criteria that affect banks’ business sustainability and (2) determine the most sustainable types of banks. This study uses a hybrid multiple-criteria decision-making approach on eighteen financial criteria for twenty-five Taiwanese listed banks with data from 2012 to 2016. The results show that non-performing loan ratio is the most critical factor. In addition, financial holding companies outperformed non-financial holding companies. Financial holding companies with insurance companies as their largest subsidiaries performed best. Private banks exceeded state-owned banks in sustainability. The results lead to two implications. First, banks should value risk over profitability and diversify financial products. Second, the government should continue to privatize banks. These findings suggest that bank managers implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a master plan, framework, and guidelines to help them track bank performance indicators to ensure sustainability.

Oil continues to be a major source of world energy, but oil prices and funds have experienced high volatility over the last decade. This study applies the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity-mixed-data sampling (GARCH-MIDAS) model on data spanning 1 July 2014 to 30 April 2020 to examine volatility transmission from the equity, bulk shipping, commodity, currency, and crude oil markets to the United States Oil Fund (USO) and BlackRock World Energy Fund A2 (BGF). By dividing the sample into two subsamples, we find a significant volatility transmission from the equity market to the oil ETF and energy fund both before and after the 2018 U.S.–China trade war. The volatility transmission from the bulk shipping, commodity, and crude oil markets turns significant for the oil ETF and energy fund after the 2018 U.S.–China trade war, extending into the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The results suggest that investors can use the equity market to predict the movement of oil and energy funds during both tranquil and turmoil periods. Moreover, investors can use bulk shipping, commodity, and crude oil markets in addition to the equity market to forecast oil and energy funds’ volatility during the turmoil periods. This paper benefits investors against the high volatility of the energy funds.

The purposes of the research have evidenced the spillover effects of oil-related factors in the oil market and the leading indexes of petrochemical commodities and the bulk shipping markets. The research gap was fitted and explored the effects associated with leading indexes for the shipping and petrochemical markets on the oil market during the US-China trade war, which is seldom bridged with significant relations in the history of oil. The scope of data for the period from 4 January 2016, through 31 August 2022, were analyzed using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic mixed data sampling model as methodology of mix frequency to examine volatility spillover of four research hypotheses from the bulk shipping and petrochemical markets to the oil market. Main contributions revealed that spillover from the bulk shipping and petrochemical commodity markets transmitted significant volatility to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil returns after the US-China trade war began, a trend that has continued throughout the COVID-19 era until Ukraine–Russia war. These rare events indicate that the realized volatility derived from these market variables can be used to track the more significant contagions on WTI futures volatility in this empirical research than the weak relation in past studies.