The effect of oil price on stock market returns: Evidence from oil exporting Middle East countries

There are many studies on the effects of oil price shocks on Stock Market in Oil Importing countries such as the USA, Japan and the EU countries yet there in oil Exporting Countries the studies are limited. This paper investigates relation among oil price and stock market behavior in seven oil exporting countries. The research aim is filling the gaps of theoretical research in this area about energy economics in the point of econometrics method, macro sampling with the attention to oil exporting countries. The results confirm the existence of a positive effect of oil price changes on stock market in Iran. So causality test in Countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, having some commonalities such as the financial budget reliance on oil and economic structures are quite similar, confirming the causal positive relationship for oil price volatility on stock market returns.