Evidence of volatility clustering on the FTSE/JSE top 40 index

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research report investigated whether evidence of volatility clustering exists on the FTSE/JSE Top 40 Index. The presence of volatility clustering has practical implications relating to market decisions as well as the accurate measurement and reliable forecasting of volatility. This research report was conducted as an in-depth analysis of volatility, measured over five different return interval sizes covering the sample in non-overlapping periods. Each of the return interval sizes' volatility were analysed to reveal the distributional characteristics and if it violated the normality assumption. The volatility was also analysed to identify in which way, if any, subsequent periods are correlated. For each of the interval sizes one-step-ahead volatility forecasting was conducted using Linear Regression, Exponential Smoothing, GARCH(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) models.The results were analysed using appropriate criteria to determine which of theforecasting models were more powerful. The forecasting models range from very simple to very complex, the rationale for this was to determine if more complex models outperform simpler models.The analysis showed that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that there was volatility clustering on the FTSE/JSE Top 40 Index. It further showed that more complex models such as the GARCH(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) only marginally outperformed less complex models, and does not offer any real benefit over simpler models such as Linear Regression. This can be ascribed to the mean reversion effect of volatility and gives further insight into the volatility structure over the sample period.