Islamic and Conventional Equity Market Movements During and After the Financial Crisis: Evidence from the Newly Launched MSCI Indices

This paper examines the relationship between the Islamic and conventional equity indices by employing the newly launched MSCI Global Islamic Indices which began in 2008. We argue for the case of cointegration supported by fundamental, category and habitat theories, and against cointegration due to the fundamental difference between Islamic and conventional stocks in terms of debt ratio, accounts receivable and interest bearing securities. We find Islamic and conventional equity markets move together despite fundamental differences and given that market microstructure, dividends, capital gains, taxation and governance systems are different across the markets. Almost simultaneous movement of the permanent and cycle components of Islamic and mainstream equity indices has been supported by the application of the Beveridge Nelson (BN) time series decomposition technique. Theoretically, the volatility of Islamic equities should be lower due to their low leverage ratio. Surprisingly, permanent parts of the Islamic indices appear to be more volatile during the crisis period and less volatile during the post-crisis period.