Macroeconomic Factors and Stock Price in Malaysia

Abstract

Stock prices move every seconds, up and down, and it never waits for an investor to make a decision. Investors, economists and the policy makers needs to understand the macroeconomic factors that influences the stock price as the factors plays a critical role in shaping the stock market. Furthermore, economists and policy makers should know how to react when the factors change, while investors should understand whether or not they should invest their money. Seven macroeconomic variables were collected for this study, which is the earnings per share, lending interest rate, consumer price index, gross domestic product, average crude oil price, dividend per share, and narrowed money supply (M1). However, due to strong correlation among the variables, earnings per share, gross domestic product, the average crude oil price, and narrowed money supply is excluded in regression model. Dividend per share, consumer price index, and lending interest rate is used in this study. The results of this paper reflected that gross domestic product, oil price and money supply are strongly correlated; inflation is statistically significant and positively influence the stock price, and finally the lending interest rate negatively influence the stock price.