Do Global Financial, Oil and Gold Volatility Shocks Affect the GCC Stock Markets?

Abstract

This study employed the non-structural VAR econometrics approach to examine the impact of Global Oil (OVX), Financial (VIX), and Gold (GVZ) volatility indices on GCC stock markets using a daily data set spanning from January 5, 2009 to August 16, 2018. From the VAR result obtained, disequilibrium in the global financial volatility (VIX) was able to significantly transmit negative shock to Bahrain and Kuwait stock markets and positive shock on GVZ. While the global Gold volatility was capable of transmitting fairly positive shock to the UAE and VIX market. The OLS also revealed more to the result obtained from VAR as it shows that OVX and VIX can have impact on the GCC stock markets. The causality test revealed that there is a unidirectional causality running from Qatar and UAE to OVX; none of the variables was able to granger cause VIX, while unidirectional causality exist from VIX and UAE to GVZ and VIX and Qatar to Bahrain. VIX and Qatar can granger cause Kuwait stock market, and only Saudi Arabia and Oman have bidirectional causality. Unidirectional causality exists from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, and Qatar is the only stock market capable of causing UAE unidirectionally. Hence, the study concludes that VIX and GVZ are capable of transmitting shocks to three of the six GCC stock markets—(Bahrain, Kuwait and The UAE) negatively (Bahrain and Kuwait) and positively (The UAE). And on this note, the study recommends that appropriate financial and gold transaction policies should be institutionalized so as to mitigate the transmission of shocks into the markets. Also, financial and gold experts who regulate the stock and gold markets especially in Bahrain and Kuwait should watch for any abnormality changes in the volatility movement of the financial and gold markets.