The Impact of Commodity Prices, Interest Rate and Exchange Rate on Stock Market Performance: Evidence from Zambia

In 2016, the performance of Capital markets in Africa experienced a downward trend. Notable among them were Zambia, Ghana and Nigeria (http://www.african-markets.com/). The Lusaka Securities Exchange (LuSE) share price index was the worst performer year-to-date, down 26.83% in local currency. Among the contributing factors cited were commodity prices as the country relies on copper for more than 70% of its export revenue and had therefore suffered from commodity prices plunged which led to weakened currencies and widened budget shortfalls (http://www.african-markets.com/). Although the contributing factors are known, their impact on the Zambian stock market is not known. This study was an attempt to establish the impact of commodity prices and macroeconomic factors on the stock market returns. Like in similar studies, Nordin et al. (2014) and Alam & Uddin (2009), we used Auto regression Distribution Lag and Cointegration analysis and the Vector Error Correction model on the variables (stock price index, copper price, oil price, interest rates, and exchange rates) for the period 2004-2016. The findings of the study revealed Interest rates, exchange rates, copper and Oil price jointly have the long and short Run impact on the Lusaka Stock Market, but individually, only interest rates and copper prices had a significant long term impact on the stock market, but in the short run only Copper and Exchange rates had an immediate impact on the stock market. One important policy implication of this study is that it will alert the authorities and the investors on the impact of commodity prices, interest rate, and the exchange rate on the Lusaka Securities Exchange stock market performance.