Sugar prices development in period of COVID-19 pandemic

Agricultural commodities strengthened their position on the financial and commodity market during the 21st century. At the same time, however, the agricultural-oriented commodity market has been suffering due to a high degree of price fluctuation. Significant price fluctuations are typical in this respect, especially in times of uncertainty and periods of financial market crises. In this sector, sugar belongs among key commodities. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant increase in financial market uncertainty, including commodity markets. The new coronavirus affected both supply and demand on the sugar market. Such a situation resulted in significant changes in the area of production offered and especially in relation to the development of available sugar stocks. The aim of the paper is to define the impact of uncertainty on the stock market in relation to sugar price development in the period of COVID-19 crisis. The subject of the analysis is thus the development of sugar price on the one hand in the context of the financial market uncertainty and the development of the COVID-19 pandemic on the other hand. Sugar prices are represented by the S&P GSCI Sugar index, while the VIX index is used to indicate uncertainty in stock markets. To examine the changes in the relationship between sugar prices and stock market uncertainty, a regression model with a sequential Bai-Perron test of structural breaks in a thirty-year perspective is used. The results of the analysis proved the existence of a significant and negative relationship between sugar prices and the expected volatility of stock markets since the global financial crisis. Furthermore, the Granger causality test evaluates the causal relationships between sugar prices and the VIX index during the new coronavirus pandemic. The results of the analysis proved that the uncertainty in the stock market has been negatively affecting sugar prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decline in Mobility: Public Transport in Poland in the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The aim of the paper is to assess changes in mobility in public transport in Poland, as a consequence of the development of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the problem from the country and regional (voivodeships) perspective. The data come from Google COVID19 Community Mobility Reports, the Ministry of Health of Poland, and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The research covers the period between 2 March and 19 July 2020. The obtained results show that there is negative but insignificant relationship between human mobility changes in public transport and the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Poland. The strength and statistical significance of the correlation varies substantially across voivodeships. As far as the relationship between changes in mobility in public transport and the stringency of Polish government's anti-COVID-19 policy is concerned, the results confirm a strong, negative and significant correlation between analysed variables at the national and regional level. Moreover, based on one factor variance analysis (ANOVA) and the Tukey's honest significance test (Tukey's HSD test) we indicate that there are significant differences observed regarding the changes in mobility in public transport depending on the level of stringency of anti-COVID-19 regulation policy both in Poland and all voivodeships. The results might indicate that the forced lockdown to contain the development of the COVID-19 pandemic has effectively contributed to social distancing in public transport in Poland and that government restrictions, rather than a local epidemic status, induce a greater decrease in mobility.

Shaking stability: COVID-19 impact on the Visegrad Group countries' financial markets

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has made a significant impact on the global financial markets. The aim of this paper is to assess the short-term reaction of the Visegrad countries' financial markets to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Visegrad Group is a political alliance of four Central European countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The financial assessment is based on the EUR/CZK, EUR/HUF, and EUR/PLN exchange rates and the major blue-chip stock market indices, that is Prague PX, Budapest BUX, Warsaw WIG20, and Bratislava SAX. It is evident that the ongoing pandemic has changed the expectations of the financial market participants about the future value of exchange rates in the Visegrad countries. This study indicates that, as a consequence of COVID-19, higher probability has been attached to the large depreciation of the Czech koruna (CZK), the Hungarian forint (HUF), and the Polish zloty (PLN) than to their large appreciation. Moreover, based on the TGARCH model, the positive and significant correlation between the number of reported COVID-19 cases and the exchange rates has been confirmed, implying that the ongoing pandemic has resulted in the depreciation of the Visegrad currencies. Additionally, the result of the TGARCH model reveals that there is a significant and negative link between the Visegrad stock market indices and the COVID-19 spread. © 2020 by the authors.