Abstract
The month of Ramadan is anticipated to influence the behavior of the stock market, where the environment in Ramadan is different from other months. During the Ramadan month, transformations in the social life of people are quite apparent and significant, and the overall economic activity tends to decelerate as the number of working hours decreases. This paper aims to explore the impact of the Ramadan month on the stock market returns, volatility, and trading volume on the Tunis Stock Exchange (TSE) between September 2009 and July 2019. To achieve these objectives, the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) technique and the ordinary least squares regression are used. The results show that the impact of the Ramadan month on the daily returns is positive and statistically significant at a 1% level. It is also found that the impact of the Ramadan month on the volatility and trading volume is negative and statistically significant. The findings can help domestic and foreign investors and regulators to better comprehend the Tunisian stock exchange and investor behavior. Moreover, this research can help investors to develop their trading strategies.
Highlights
An eminent task in the financial literature has been to check whether seasonal effects are present in asset returns
This paper aims to explore the impact of the Ramadan month on the stock market returns, volatility, and trading volume on the Tunis Stock Exchange (TSE) between September 2009 and July 2019
This paper explores the Ramadan effect on the Tunis Stock Exchange (TSE) between September 2009 and July 2019
Summary
An eminent task in the financial literature has been to check whether seasonal effects are present in asset returns. Some of the most eminent seasonal effects include the month of the year effect and the day of the week effect (e.g., Rozeff & Kinney, 1976; Wang et al, 2013; Chaouachi & Ben Mrad Douagi, 2014; Tilica & Oprea, 2014; Panyagometh, 2016). The month of the year effect indicates that from January to December the average asset returns are not similar. Many empirical studies (e.g., Rozeff & Kinney, 1976; Haug & Hirschey, 2006; Balint & Gica, 2012; Patel & Sewell, 2015) have concluded that January returns are significantly larger than returns of the other months. The day of the week effect signifies that for Monday through Friday, the mean asset returns are not similar. The main empirical results (e.g., Cross, 1973; Coutts & Hayes, 1999; Tonchev & Kim, 2004; Balint & Gica, 2012) are lower stock returns on Monday than other days
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