The Effects of Volatility of Interest Rates on Stock Returns : A Study on Indian Stock Market

This article investigates the effects of interest rates volatility on stock market returns and volatility using weekly returns on the 15 selected public sector Banks namely Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Corporation Bank, Dena Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India, and Vijaya Bank over the period from 1st April 2004 to 31st Dec 2005.The ‘market model' is a standard framework for measuring the sensitivity of an individual stock to fluctuations in the market index. In this paper, we have used an ‘augmented market model' which estimates, the elasticity of returns on the stock against returns on the index. This regressor used in this model can be interpreted as the return on a portfolio where the long bond is purchased, using borrowed funds at the short rate. Augmented model with interest rates and assuming a student's t-distribution for error terms is used to test these relationships.The return on selected banks and market return required for the study are obtained from the National Stock Exchange website. We created time-series of notional bond returns on the 28-day and the 10-year zero coupon bond, priced off the NSE Zero Coupon Yield Curve for short tem and long term returns respectively.The results indicate that interest rates have a strong positive power for stock returns and. weak predictive power for volatility. We find that for 9 of the 15 banks in our sample, over 25% of equity capital would be gained or lost in the event of a 200 bps move in the yield curve. The stock market sensitivities suggest that there is strong heterogeneity across banks in India in their interest rate exposure. The stock market is unaware of interest rate risk when valuing bank stocks. i.e. a weak predictive power for volatility