THE VOLATILITY OF OIL PRICES ON STOCK EXCHANGES IN THE CONTEXT OF RECENT EVENTS

Oil along with currencies and gold are the main indicators of the most important processes which take place in the world economy, quotations' volatility being always followed by economic and social events. Quiet periods of oil prices, when quotations have a constant evolution or only suffer minor fluctuations, are very rare. Most of the time, very sharp price increases or decreases are happening over night or week. This is mostly due to the fact that the oil market is extremely speculative, being influenced by political, military, social, or meteorological events. Since the major oil price shocks of the 70s, the impact of oil price changes on the economic reality of a country or region has been widely studied by academic researchers. Moreover, the stock market plays an important role in the economic welfare and development of a country. Therefore, a vast number of studies have investigated the relationship between oil prices and stock market returns, being discovered significant effects of oil price shocks on the macroeconomic activity for both developed and emerging countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate the volatility of oil prices on stock exchanges taking into consideration the recent events that have affected the oil markets around the globe. Furthermore, based on the findings of this research, some possible scenarios will be developed, taking into account various events that might take place and their potential outcome for oil prices' future.