Decomposing fundamental and non-fundamental volatility in GCC stock markets

Abstract

Given the change in oil price reflects change in observable economic fundamentals of Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) economies, in this paper non-parametric co-integration and variance bound tests are employed to decompose volatility into fundamental and non-fundamental components. Findings of the paper indicate that about 85% of volatility in GCC markets is due to the non-fundamental volatility component. This result suggests that herd behaviour may be a reason for excess price volatility.