Stock Market Performance and Macroeconomic Variables - Theory and Critical Review of Literature

Relationship between stock market performance and macroeconomic variables has intrigued and is of pertinent importance to policy makers, regulators, academicians, researchers and investment community. This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical framework underpinning this relationship and also provides an extensive critical analysis of existing literature on the subject. Theory suggests that stock market performance has positive relationship with GDP, Money Supply, Industrial Production, Foreign Exchange Reserves, Balance of Trade, Net FPI and FDI Inflows. It is negatively related with Inflation, Interest Rate, Gold Price and Oil Prices. Relationship of stock market with exchange rate and fiscal deficit is not clear. Critical examination of literature on various bases suggests that while this relationship is clearly established for developed markets, there is no unanimity for this relationship regarding emerging markets. Also, while some prominent macroeconomic variables which affect stock market performance can be identified, an exhaustive list of macroeconomic variables cannot be drawn. There has been a shift in econometric methods applied from basic tools to more advanced second generation financial econometric techniques Future researches should focus on examining this relationship for emerging markets, consider a comprehensive set of macroeconomic and stock market performance variables, take a fairly long study period, apply modern financial econometric techniques, explore this relation at sectoral level and incorporate impact of recent global financial crisis in their study