Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Stock market is considered as a mirror for an economy because it mobilizes the economic resources and makes them as a creative investment. Stock market plays an imperative role in economic development of any country. The intent of current study is to explore the relationship between macroeconomic variables and stock returns of different sectors in Pakistan. The macroeconomic variables under consideration are exchange rate, interest rate, money supply, industrial production index, and consumer price index with stock returns of construction and material, chemical, banking, oil and gas, textile and financial sectors. Monthly data has been taken from Jan 2006 to Dec 2012. Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Granger causality test shows long run as well as short run causality among the variables. The results of VECM show that it takes approximately two to three months for shocks adjustment toward the mean. The results of Granger causality show the unilateral, bilateral and no causality of sectoral returns with macroeconomic variables.