The COVID-19 Pandemic and Chinese Insurance Firms: A Panel Predictability Analysis

This paper examines whether the COVID-19 pandemic predicts Chinese insurance firms' stock excess returns. COVID-19 is proxied using three indices: the stringency index, containment and health indices, and the government support index. We use monthly data from January 2020 to September 2020 on 64 insurance firms. Using a newly developed factor-augmented panel predictability model, we find that COVID-19 is a statistically insignificant predictor of excess returns. Our results are robust to the use of different control predictors such as macro variables, financial indicators and Fama-French factors.

How did the oil price affect Japanese yen and other currencies? Fresh insights from the COVID-19 pandemic

In this paper, we use a shock spillover index to test the hypothesis that oil prices helped shape exchange rate behavior during the COVID-19 period. We use four exchange rates (CAD, EURO, JPY, and GBP vis-à-vis the USD) together with the oil price variable to test the importance of both return and volatility spillovers. Using hourly data, we consistently discover that both oil price return and volatility spillovers have become more important in explaining exchange rates in the COVID-19 period.

Has COVID-19 changed the stock return-oil price predictability pattern?

In this paper, we examine if COVID-19 has impacted the relationship between oil prices and stock returns predictions using daily Japanese stock market data from 01/04/2020 to 03/17/2021. We make a novel contribution to the literature by testing whether the COVID-19 pandemic has changed this predictability relationship. Employing an empirical model that controls for seasonal effects, return-related control variables, heteroskedasticity, persistency, and endogeneity, we demonstrate that the influence of oil prices on stock returns declined by around 89.5% due to COVID-19. This implies that when COVID-19 reduced economic activity and destabilized financial markets, the influence of oil prices on stock returns declined. This finding could have implications for trading strategies that rely on oil prices.

Effect of COVID-19 on the relationship between Euro/USD exchange rate and oil price.

We investigate the relationship between the Euro-United States Dollar (Euro/USD) exchange rate and oil futures price using intra-day data. The dataset is on hourly basis from 01/07/2019 to 30/11/2020 and 17-hour per day, from 01:00am to 17:00pm. By employing a predictive regression model, we observe oil price has influenced Euro/USD exchange rate but the evidence is very limited. Further, when we control for the effect of COVID-19, this relationship vanishes. Overall, COVID-19 shows some effect on the exchange rate during March 2020.•There is no predictive ability of oil price on Euro/USD exchange rate after controlling for COVID-19.

Japanese currency and stock market-What happened during the COVID-19 pandemic?

This paper examines the relationship between the Japanese Yen and the country's stock returns. Using several variants of econometric models and empirical specifications, we unravel that the depreciation of the Yen vis-à-vis the US dollar led to gains in Japanese stock returns. A one standard deviation depreciation of the Yen during the COVID-19 period (equivalent to 0.588%) improved stock market returns by 71% of average returns We see that this relationship was stronger over the COVID-19 period (January 2020 to August 2020) compared to the pre-crisis period.