Volatility Modeling and Forecasting for NIFTY Stock Returns

In this paper, an attempt has been made to model the volatility of NIFTY index of National Stock Exchange (NSE) and forecast the NIFTY stock returns for short term by using daily data ranging from January, 2000, to December, 2014, which comprises 3736 data points for the analysis by using Box-Jenkins or ARIMA model. The volatility in the Indian stock market exhibits characteristics similar to those found earlier in many of the major developed and emerging stock markets. It is shown that ARCH family models outperform the conventional OLS models. ADF test and unit root testing is done to know the stationarity of the series, later the AR(p) and MA(q) orders are identified with the help of minimum information criterion as suggested by Hannan-Rissanen. As per the analysis, ARIMA (1,0,1) model was found to be the best fit to forecast the volatility of NIFTY stock returns. The model can be used by the investors to forecast the short run NIFTY stock returns and for making more profitable and less risky investments decision