THE EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MACROECONOMIC VARIABLES AND STOCK RETURNS: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA AND THAILAND

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Nonthaporn Srihapan
Pornmanus Siritarungsri
Pao Jampangoen

Abstract

The stock returns in emerging markets are described as being highly volatile by the high volatility. However, there are limited studies about the fundamental factors that are driving this volatility level. Employing the (Spell out this acronym) (MSCI) world index and the U.S. 3-month T-bill yield as a proxy to examine the effect of international variables, this paper also investigates the key macroeconomic factors which are exchange rates, interest rates, industrial production and money supply in Malaysia and Thailand to see whether each of these variables can explain the stock returns. By examining a six-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model, it was the result shows that industrial production can significantly explain the stock returns in both countries. While the U.S. 3-month T-bill, interest rates, and money supply variables can explained Malaysian stock returns, whereas the global indicator, such as like the MSCI, can significantly explained Thai stock returns.

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Section
Research Article

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