Background: Liquidity is, in practice of portfolio investment, an important attribute of stocks and measuring illiquidity presents a real challenge for researchers, primarily on developed stock markets. Moreover, there is a lack of research dealing with (il)liquidity on emerging markets. In the paper, the problem of applicability and validity of two well-known illiquidity measures, ILLIQ and TURN, on European emerging markets is observed. Objectives: The paper has two main purposes. The first is to test the relative performance of the two selected illiquidity measures in terms of their validity on European emerging stock markets. The second is to propose a new and improved illiquidity measure named Relative Change in Volume (RCV). Methods/Approach: Using daily returns and traded volumes for 12 stocks which are constituents of stock indices on seven observed markets, ILLIQ and TURN along with the new proposed measure are calculated and tested based on correlation with return. All measures are tested and proposed using the single stock approach. Results: It is shown that ILLIQ and TURN are not appropriate for seven observed markets. The measures do not follow the obligatory request that returns increase in illiquidity while RCV has the ability of taking into account the pressure of big differences in volume on return. RCV gives satisfactory results, making clear the distinction between liquid and illiquid stocks and between liquid and illiquid markets. Conclusions: The proposed measure potentially has important implications in illiquidity measurement in general, and not only for investors on emerging stock markets.

Aim of this paper is to characterize different risk measures in portfolio construction on seven Central and South-East European stock markets; Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Chez Republic, Romania and Turkey. Selected countries are members of EU, except Croatia and Turkey which have candidate status. Empirical part of this paper consists of three stages; at first descriptive statistics on stock returns was performed, afterwards different risk measures were employed in portfolio construction and in the last part, portfolios were tested in the out-of-sample period. Results indicate presence of extreme kurtosis and skewness in stock return series. Resulting portfolios incorporate stocks with extremely high kurtosis and stocks with negative skewness. Portfolio construction based only on risk and return results in major exposure to extreme returns and unsatisfactory portfolio out-of-sample results.

This paper deals with illiquidity measurement of stocks on Croatian Stock market. Illiquidity measures used in this paper are daily ratio of absolute stock return to its dollar volume (ILLIQ) and RCT (Relative change in turnover). Aim of this paper is to show that illiquidity measure RCT makes clear distinction between liquid and illiquid stocks that should be reflected through investment strategy where investment in RCT based illiquid portfolios outperforms investment in ILLIQ based portfolios and CROBEX index. Research was carried out on eighteen stocks from Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) which are constituents of CROBEX index. Portfolios of liquid and portfolios of illiquid stocks based on results of illiquidity measurement were constructed. Behaviour in terms of return and volatility of these portfolios in following one-year period was observed. Results showed that portfolios formed using RCT as measure of illiquidity constantly outperformed CROBEX index and ILLIQ based portfolios. Returns of RCT based portfolios had lower standard deviation and were more stable than ILLIQ based portfolios in whole period. RCT as a measure of illiquidity produces valuable information on stock liquidity that can be exploited as investment strategy reflecting itself in larger expected returns of RCT portfolios in future period than expected returns of ILLIQ based portfolios and market.