BRIC or CBRI: It just doesn’t sound as sexy, does it?

•Examination of BRIC countries equity markets.•Identification of influential trading partners (import and export) for BRIC countries.•Relationship dynamics among BRIC and their trading partners' financial markets.•Demonstration of financial integration of BRIC countries over time.•Support for “decoupling” of Chinese and Russian markets from the world economies.

This paper examines equity markets of four emerging countries, often referred to as “BRIC countries” – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – their relations with influential trading partners over time; dependence structure of their financial markets and how the BRIC stock markets interact with stock markets of their trade partners during changing economic conditions. We find that between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2014, US and China are the most active trading partners for all four BRIC countries. We also find that our results speak in favor of the fact that the structure of linkages between the developed and the emerging markets and within emerging markets has changed after 2008 financial crisis. Finally, our results demonstrate that financial integration of BRIC counties exists throughout the sample period, pre-crisis and during the recovery period except for China and Russian Federation. These results may speak in favor of “decoupling” phenomena. On the other hand, the rest of the BRIC countries before and after 2008 financial crisis are still influenced by the performance of the US equity market and by the markets of other developed countries.