Modeling the distribution of extreme returns in the Chinese stock market

It is well known that extreme share returns on stock markets can have important implications for financial risk management. In this paper, we are concerned with the distribution of the extreme daily returns of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) Composite Index. Three well-known distributions in extreme value theory, i.e., Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Generalized Logistic (GL) and Generalized Pareto distributions, are employed to model the SSE Composite index returns based on the data from 1991 to 2013. The parameters for each distribution are estimated by using the Power Weighted Method (PWM). Our results indicate that the GL distribution is a better fit for the minima series and that the GEV distribution is a better fit for the maxima series of the returns for the Chinese stock market. This is in contrast to the findings for other markets, such as the US and Singapore markets. Our results are robust regardless of the introduction of stock movement restriction and the global financial crisis. Further, the implications of our findings for risk management are discussed.