International correlations across stock markets and industries: trends and patterns 1988-2002

Data from eight major stock markets world-wide and five industries in each market are analysed. The correlations of return indices between countries and industries are studied with the hope of finding answers or confirming previous empirical answers to the following questions and the implications of these findings for investment strategy determined. (1) Do both the country-specific correlations and industry-specific correlations fluctuate significantly over time between 1988 and 2002? (2) Are the country-specific and industry-specific correlations positively related to stock market volatilities? It is concluded that: First, the correlations among national stock markets have been increasing between 1988 and 2002 and the correlations are not constant over the time period of this research. This indicates that the effect of globalization outweighs country-specific factors in determining the co-movements of the markets. Second, the correlations are positively related to volatility in the stock markets in this sample. Correlations rise in periods when conditional volatility of markets is large. Finally, in most cases, correlations between national stock markets are greater than those between the five industries chosen in these markets, indicating that investment diversification across industries provides greater risk reduction benefits than diversification across countries.