The Effect of Global Political Events in the Arab Spring on Stock Returns: The Case of Turkey

International events or news have an effect on countries’ internal and external policies and since this effect is reflected on the markets, the decisions of domestic and foreign investors are revised continually. This study aims to analyze the effect of international good and bad news related to Iraq, Iran and Syria that are located in the Arab spring region and are border to Turkey, on the returns of ISE-100 index The study utilized event study methodology, international news related to Iraq, Iran and Syria between 2010-2013 and the daily closing price data of MSCI Emerging Markets Index and ISE-100 index between 2010-2013 constituted the dataset. At the end of the study, it was found that only the Iran-related news had effect on ISE-100 index.