  In this paper we propose a new approach to estimation of the tail exponent in
financial stock markets. We begin the study with the finite sample behavior of
the Hill estimator under {\alpha}-stable distributions. Using large Monte Carlo
simulations, we show that the Hill estimator overestimates the true tail
exponent and can hardly be used on samples with small length. Utilizing our
results, we introduce a Monte Carlo-based method of estimation for the tail
exponent. Our proposed method is not sensitive to the choice of tail size and
works well also on small data samples. The new estimator also gives unbiased
results with symmetrical confidence intervals. Finally, we demonstrate the
power of our estimator on the international world stock market indices. On the
two separate periods of 2002-2005 and 2006-2009, we estimate the tail exponent.
