Vetting the Volatility

Abstract

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comprises several rapidly growing industries attracting large sums of foreign direct investments. The emerging nature of the markets and the rapid influx of investments bring about the question of how the stock markets in OIC member countries react to variations in the economy. The objective of this chapter is to understand the relationship between business cycles and stock market volatility within the OIC member countries for short-term traders and long-term investors. The results showed that most of the OIC countries, being oil rich and dependent, saw its business cycle and stock markets fluctuating owing to drops and increases in world oil prices. All the countries in the sample were affected by the global crisis.