The BRICS Stocks Index as an Aggregate Indicator of Regional Economic Development

Abstract

The topic is time-relevant, since today there is a strong need to find indicators showing a development path for countries after the pandemics of 2020 in specific regions of the world. This paper makes an attempt to create an indicator that is different and more representative of the BRICS than the indexes already in existence. The BRICS index offered here is a capitalisation-weighted average of daily quotations for the listed stocks which dynamics highly correlate with each other. The purpose of developing such an index is to monitor a general growth pattern of the BRICS’ economies and their corporations on the financial markets, both domestically and regionally, since they are at the core of the regions, they are in. The introduction of the BRICS index to the financial market can help increase investors’ appetite for the assets. It will make it easier to analyze the stock markets of the BRICS as well. The significance of such a rating is that it may lay the foundation for working out a trading strategy to deal in the stocks of the BRICS companies to get optimal returns. The BRICS stocks index can also be an indicator of regional development for countries dependent on the BRICS, as well as the product of financial engineering which may help attract investors and other professionals working on the financial market to accumulate growth and recovery funds for the trouble countries of the region