Impact of terrorism on stock markets across the world and stock returns

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study the following: short-run and long-run associations between the terror-affected country’s stock market index and other global countries’ equity indices and gold; the volatility of stock market indices when one of the countries is affected by a terrorist attack; and the linkages between terrorism and the returns in the selected stock markets. Design/methodology/approach - To study the impact of the Taj attack on other global indices, the authors selected top five countries’ stock market indices, namely, FTSE, DJI, NIKKEI, SSEC and DAX. The short-run and long-run associations are also compared with gold. The authors used the autoregressive distributed lag model, LM test and bounds test for analyzing the short-run and long-run impact; ARCH family models to study the volatility impact; and the MAR model to study the impact on returns. Findings - The authors found that all the global indices had a short-run association with the terror-affected country’s benchmark index, i.e. BSE. Gold moved as expected, with it having a short-run impact on the terror-affected country. All the global indices except DJI have volatility of share price movement either positively or negatively. As the benchmark of the terror-affected country fell, NIKKEI, HSI, IXIC, DAX and CAC also fell; that is, it had a positive influence on the terror-affected country’s index. Post the Mumbai attacks, DJI, NIKKEI, SSEC, DAX, BSE and CAC performed well in performance measure returns compared with the pre-attack period. Whereas, FTSE and GOLD performed well in performance measure returns in the pre-attack period compared with the post-attack period. GOLD proved that it is the best avenue to invest in, as it has only a short-term association with the terror-affected country’s index. Research limitations/implications - The authors studied the short-run and long-run associations with only five countries’ benchmark indices. Practical implications - The authors found that all the global indices had long- and short-run associations with the terror-affected country’s benchmark index, i.e. BSE. Global indices like DJI, NIKKEI, SSEC, DAX and FTSE had a short-term association with the affected country’s index. Gold moved as expected, with it having a short-run impact on the terror-affected country. All the global indices except DJI have volatility of share price movement either positively or negatively. As the benchmark of the terror-affected country fell, NIKKEI, HSI, IXIC, DAX, TSX, BVSP and CAC also fell; i.e., it had a positive influence on the terror-affected country’s index. Post the Mumbai attacks, DJI, NIKKEI, SSEC, DAX, BSE and CAC performed well in performance measure returns compared with the pre-attack period. Whereas, FTSE and GOLD performed well in performance measure returns in the pre-attack period compared with the post-attack period. GOLD proved that it is the best avenue to invest in, as it has only a short-term association with the terror-affected country’s index. In all the relationships were mixed with respect to terror attacks, and GOLD took the lead run out of all the associations it had in the 16-year time span from 2000 to 2016. Social implications - The research has got an important implication to the investors. It shows that patience is the key, as all the indices had only short-term associations with the BSE. It implies that investors’ returns will be negative in the short run, but if they continue investing, in the long run, the impact of terrorism tapers out and the returns will increase. Originality/value - There is a lot of research done on the impact of the US attacks on the stock markets of other countries, but on the impact of the Taj attack in India, there is hardly any research.