An Analysis of Stock Index Distributions of Selected Emerging Markets

Stock market data tends to display distinct characteristics commonly known as “stylized facts”. These include non-stationarity of price levels, as well as peak-shaped, fat-tailed and heteroskedastic log returns. This paper presents empirical evidence of these characteristics for emerging market indices, spanning over different geographic regions. The results do not disclose asymmetry in the tails of log return distributions in any particular direction. In addition, it is not confirmed that high volatility tends to follow large negative returns.