Global Stock Price Linkages Around The Us Financial Crisis: Evidence From Indonesia

Monetary authorities in Indonesia, as well as some academicians believe the absence of a long run relation between the Indonesian stock market and developed markets prevents this emerging market from being deeply affected by the US downturn. Nevertheless, this hypothesis may not apply to the domestic financial industry as these firms are involved in cross-country financial investments. This study examines the global linkage of Indonesian Financial Sector stock prices during the US downturn using cointegration tests and vector autoregression. This study examines linkages between the Indonesian Financial Industry with the same industry in the US, UK and four developed Asian markets, i.e., Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur stock exchanges. We also conduct tests using pre-US-crisis data to show the linkage change magnitude. We find that financial sector stock prices in the Indonesian market are cointegrated with the six observed markets before and during the crisis. Nevertheless, Indonesian financial stock prices are relatively invulnerable to pressures coming from other observed markets Thus, fund managers can gain diversification benefit from a portfolio containing financial industry stocks of these markets either in the long or short run.