COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STOCK INDICES IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE.

Capital markets are a very important intermediary between companies that need capital for their business ventures and creditors who participate in the capital market in order to increase the value of their stake in the long term. The most important capital markets are the bond market, the stock market and the foreign exchange market. One of the key stock market performance indicators are the stock market indices that measure the value of the stock or a segment of the stock market that can be classified according to economic activity. They are used to observe the behavior of a group of stocks, and by reviewing the average behavior of a group of stock over the years investors can gain an insight into the performance of a group of shares. The region of Southeast Europe is still in a period of transition, and the current macroeconomic situation deters investors from trading on the relevant capital markets they consider it a risky investment. The main focus of this paper is the structure of stock market indices that use the freefloat market capitalization methodology and the interpretation of the reason of their movements in the last six months. The relevant stock market indices are BELEXline (Serbia), SBITOP (Slovenia), BUX (Hungary), BIFX (Bosnia and Herzegovina), MONEX (Montenegro) MBI10 (North Macedonia) and finally CROBEX (Croatia). The aim of this paper is to interpret the influence of external factors on the stock market indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]