A Study of Islamic Portfolio Diversification Opportunities for Investors of Pakistan in various stock holding periods

Abstract

This study attempts to find out the possible opportunities for the investors of Pakistan Islamic market to maximize the benefits of divergence. Dow Jones Islamic market returns (DJIMR) of four different regions named as Dow Jones Islamic Americas, Dow Jones Islamic European, Dow Jones Islamic Asian Pacific and Dow Jones Islamic Middle East and North Africa Regions across the Pakistan Karachi Meezan Index-30 have been used to capture the approach of diversification benefits. According to objectives, Multivariate GARCH— Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model is applied and it is suggested that local investors of Pakistan should prefer to invest in Asian pacific region, then to Americas region and further Middle East and North Africa region and least preference should be given to European region to maximize benefits from diversification. In order to capture the change in diversification benefits during various stock holding horizons, Continuous wavelet transformation- CWT is applied and results have indicated insignificant relationship/correlation between two markets (local and international markets of all regions) for short period of holdings rather medium and long term holdings period. Indeed, this study has focused on advance concept of incorporating the role of stock holding horizons while determining the benefits of diversification which has greater implications in the field of portfolio diversification