The micro and macro determinants of stock returns of export firms: Borsa Istanbul case

As regarding the contributions of export performance to building strong economy, the exporting firms have gained attention of investors. In the light of this, this study explore the micro and macro determinants of stock returns of 181 exporting firms traded on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) for the periods from 2008 to 2023. As micro level determinants which are also firm specific variables are determined as firm size, firm profitability, leverage and export intensity. On the other hand, the macroeconomic determinants are selected as economic growth, real effective exchange rate and inflation variables. As for methodology, the fixed effect panel data models are applied to the unbalanced data set. The test results of the final model, which includes given all micro and macro variables, offer that firm size and firm profitability have positive and significant impacts on the stock returns of Turkish exporting firms, whereas financial leverage and export intensity do not influence the stock performance significantly. On the other hand, the empirical results provide that economic growth and real effective exchange rate negatively and significantly affect the stock returns of these firms. In the similar vein, it is found that inflation also has negative and significant impact on the stock returns of exporting firms. This study offers empirical findings that the stock performance of exporting firms in Turkiye are not only influenced by firm specific variables but also the macroeconomic variables in the country.