COVID-19 pandemic and capital markets: the role of government responses

This paper analyzes the moderation effect of government responses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, proxied by the daily growth in COVID-19 cases and deaths, on the capital market, i.e., the S&P 500 firm's daily returns. Using the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, we monitor 16 daily indicators for government actions across the fields of containment and closure, economic support, and health for 180 countries in the period from January 1, 2020 to March 15, 2021. We find that government responses mitigate the negative stock market impact and that investors' sentiment is sensitive to a firm's country-specific revenue exposure to COVID-19. Our findings indicate that the mitigation effect is stronger for firms that are highly exposed to COVID-19 on the sales side. In more detail, containment and closure policies and economic support mitigate negative stock market impacts, while health system policies support further declines. For firms with high revenue exposure to COVID-19, the mitigation effect is stronger for government economic support and health system initiatives. Containment and closure policies do not mitigate stock price declines due to growing COVID-19 case numbers. Our results hold even after estimating the spread of the pandemic with an epidemiological standard model, namely, the susceptible-infectious-recovered model.

The interconnectedness across risk appetite of distinct investor types in Borsa Istanbul

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the interconnectedness across the risk appetite of distinct investor types in Borsa Istanbul. This study also examines the causal impact of global implied volatility indices on the risk appetite of these investor groups. Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a novel time-varying frequency connectedness framework of Chatziantoniou et al. and a new time-varying Granger causality test with a recursive evolving procedure by Shi et al. over June 2008 and July 2022. FindingsThe results show a high level of interconnectedness across the risk appetite of different investor types. The sizable spillovers to domestic types of investors either occur from professional or foreign investors, indicating the long-term dominant effect of foreign and more qualified investors on the domestic investors in Borsa Istanbul. The authors provide significant evidence of causality from the global implied volatility to the Borsa Istanbul risk appetite indices, which are getting stronger after the COVID-19 outbreak. Originality/valueUnlike the previous studies, the authors analyze the risk appetite sub-indices of various types of investors to reveal behavioral distinctions and interconnectedness across them. The authors use a novel econometric framework to assess investors' risk appetite in different investment horizons in a time-varying system. Together with volatility index (VIX), the authors also use volatilities of oil (OVX), gold (GVZ) and currency (EVZ), considering the information transmission not only from stock markets but also energy, metals and currency markets. The present data set covers significant financial crises, socioeconomic events and the COVID-19 outbreak.

Investor attention and reaction in COVID-19 crisis: sentiment analysis in the Indian stock market

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the influence of attention and sentiment in the Indian stock market during the unusual COVID-19 crisis in the first and second waves of the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is used to estimate the expected return. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model with optimal lag value selection and Granger causality using the vector autoregressive (VAR) estimation model were applied to find out whether there is a causal relationship between investors' attention and sentiment that influence stock returns across 14 sectors. Findings The results show that increased attention to COVID-19 substantially varied in the first wave and second wave market reactions. The upsurge attention of COVID-19 shows a negative influence with lower expected returns in the second wave. The sentiment of investors contrasts from the lower expected return in the first wave to the higher expected return in the second wave of the pandemic. Moreover, investors' sentiment in a state of fear is associated with lower returns. Originality/value The authors capture sentiment based on attention and investors mood using novel data set during the COVID-19 pandemic shock. The study is among a few which take a comprehensive stock market response during initial and subsequent waves across sector returns.

Heterogeneous investor attention to climate risk: Evidence from a unique dataset

The COVID-19 pandemic has led global investors to draw a parallel between pandemics and climate risk, focusing their attention on climate risk. We examine COVID-19’s effect on investors’ awareness of climate risk by analysing novel trading data for Korean-listed firms that include investor information. We observe that institutional investors divest from high-emission firms during the market crash induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas individual investors do not, suggesting that investor attention to climate risk is heterogeneous. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Investment Analysts Journal is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Time-varying herding spillover for emerging countries: evidence from BRIC countries and Turkey

Purpose This study aims to investigate herding spillover in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries and Turkey under different regimes by using a time-varying approach. Design/methodology/approach The authors used the structural change model of Bai and Perron (1998). Findings The results indicate that there is an evidence of herding behaviour in the Chinese stock market in two different regimes. These regimes cover the recent global financial crisis and the period of Hong Kong protests. We also report the evidence of herding behaviour in the Turkish stock market in the regime covering the COVID-19 period. Findings of herding spillover show that there is a two-way herding among Russia and China during crises and high volatile regimes. Similarly, there exists a cross-country herding among Brazil and India during crisis regimes. Also, there is herding spillover from Turkey to Russia, China and Brazil during the global financial crisis, post-European debt crisis and COVID-19 periods respectively. Furthermore, it is also evident that there is a herding spillover from Russia and China to India during the period covering COVID-19. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that uses structural change approach to identify herding behaviour spillovers from the US stock market to BRIC countries and Turkey and to investigate the cross-country herding behaviour among BRIC countries and Turkey.

Is stock market in Sub-Saharan Africa resilient to health shocks?

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of health and other exogenous shocks on stock markets in Africa. Particularly, the authors examined the resilience of the major stock markets in 12 African economies during the recent global pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the recent panel vector autoregressive model, which enables us to capture the response of stock markets to shocks in COVID-19, commodity markets and exchange rate. For robustness, the authors also analysed the panel Granger causality test. Data was obtained for the period ranging from 2 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. Findings The results show that the growth in COVID-19 cases and deaths do not have any substantial impact on the stock market returns of these economies. In terms of commodity markets, the authors find that gold price has a negative contemporaneous effect on stock returns, but the effect fizzles out around the fifth day while crude oil price, on the other hand, has a significant positive simult aneous impact on stock returns and also converges around the fifth day. The authors further find that the exchange rate has a contemporaneous and nonlinear effect on stock returns and seems to be more dramatic when compared with the other variables. Overall, the results show that stock markets in Africa appear to be flexible and resilient against the COVID-19 outbreak but are affected by other exogenous shocks such as volatile commodity prices and the foreign exchange market. The effect is, however, short-lived - between one to five days. Practical implications Following the study's findings, policies should be put in place to support financial markets by way of hedging against commodity instability and securing domestic currency financing. Policymakers are also recommended to concentrate on managing the uncertainties around their exchange rate markets and develop robust and efficient domestic financial markets to encourage local and foreign investors. Originality/value Several studies have been carried out on the effects of disasters (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) on stock markets, but only a few studies have examined the resilience of stock markets to health and other exogenous shocks. This study's attempt is not only to examine the impact of COVID-19 health shocks on stock markets but also to analyse the resilience of the sampled stock markets. The authors also analyse the resilience of stock markets to commodity markets and exchange rates shocks.