They have also become important international investors and trade partners, and play a crucial role in world energy markets. Indeed, GCC countries are major exporters of oil in global energy markets, so their stock markets may be susceptible to changes in oil prices. However, the transmission mechanisms of oil price shocks to stock returns in GCC markets should be different from those in net oil-importing countries. Second, the GCC markets differ from those of developed and from those of major emerging countries in that they are largely segmented from the international markets and are overly sensitive to regional political events
