Co-movements between Germany and International Stock Markets: Some New Evidence from DCC-GARCH and Wavelet Approaches

The analysis of co-movements of stock market returns is a fundamental issue in finance. The aim of this paper is to examine the co-movement between Germany and major International Stock Markets in the time–frequency space. Our sample period goes from 01 June 1992 to 26 March 2013 and includes the financial crisis that erupted in US financial institutions in the summer of 2007 and spread beyond the US to other developed economies in the first half of 2008. We use DCC-GARCH and wavelet-based measures of co-movements which make it possible to find a balance between the time and frequency domain features of the data. The results suggest that the difference in the co-movement dynamics could be the result of the different natures of the financial crises or a change in regime. The finding of this paper has relevant policy implications in asset allocation and risk management in designing international portfolios for investment decisions.