Firm, industry and macroeconomics dynamics of stock returns: A case of Pakistan non-financial sector

The available research literature on stock performance has primarily stressed the importance of asset price theories, macroeconomic and microeconomic, and institutional differences. However, there is still an open question: Are there any other factors those influence stock performance? This research aims to answer this question by providing new insights into industry factors along with country-level and firm-specific factors in conjunction with the stock performance of the non-financial sector firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. The study provides new insights into the prevailing research literature by considering an emerging economy, Pakistan. We find that non-financial sector firms are heterogeneous, suggesting applying a fixed effect approach for reliable estimation. To investigate the issue, data from 80 companies spanning 17 years (2004-2020) were analyzed with a fixed-effect model. Our study results revealed that firm tangibility, munificence, gross domestic product, inflation and money supply have negative, while size, growth, dynamism, Herfindahl-Hirschman index, exchange rate and oil prices have a positive relationship with financial performance. The results are robust under alternative estimation approaches and offer useful policy implications.