The Influence of Oil Price Shocks on Stock Market Returns: Fresh Evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of oil price shocks on Malaysia stock market returns by including interest rate, real effective exchange rate, industrial production index and inflation, as important factors of the stock market returns in Malaysia over the period of January, 1991 to December, 2016. Narayan and Popp (2010) test was applied to check the stationary property of the variables. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test showed the existence of a long run relationship among the variables. ARDL long run analysis results showed that oil price, interest rate, real effective exchange rate have negative impact on the stock market return of Malaysia, whereas industrial production has a positive impact. However, the inflation impact on the stock market return was insignificant. The vector error correction model granger causality results confirmed the existence of the long run causality. However, the short run causality showed that only interest rate and real effective exchange rate granger cause the Malaysian stock market returns.Keywords: Oil Price Shocks, Malaysia Stock Market Returns, Autoregressive Distributed LagJEL Classifications: C32, O53, Q43