Market reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from emerging markets

Purpose: This study examines the market reaction to the World Health Organization (WHO) announcement of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a global pandemic on the emerging equity markets and compares the reaction with developed markets. This study also compares the market reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic with the market reactions to the 2008 global financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach: Using the Morgan Stanley Capital International daily stock indices data and the Carhart and the GARCH(1,1) models for an event study, the authors examine the cumulative abnormal returns during 30 and 10 trading days and the extended 60 days before and after the WHO pandemic announcement. It also compares the market reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic with the reactions to the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy announcement during the 2008 global financial crisis. Findings: This study finds that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significantly greater negative impact to the stock markets in emerging countries than in the developed countries. The negative impact on the emerging markets is more pronounced for firms with small market capitalizations and for growth stocks. The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is stronger in the energy and financial sectors in both emerging and developed markets. The positive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in healthcare and telecommunications for the emerging markets and information technology for the developed markets. This study also finds that the equity markets in both emerging and developed countries recovered faster from the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the 2008 global financial crisis. Social implications: Investors' desire to diversify their risks across different countries and sectors in the emerging markets could bring superior returns. The diversification strategies bring critical financial supports to forestall the contagion of COVID-19, to protect lives, and to save the emerging economies, especially for those financially constrained countries that are facing twin health and economic shocks by channeling their investments to countries with weak healthcare systems. Originality/value: This study extends the literature that examines market reactions to stock market shocks by examining the market reactions to the COVID-19 outbreak on the emerging and developed equity markets across different market capitalizations, valuation and sectors. This study also finds that the markets recovered quicker from the COVID-19 pandemic announcement than during the 2008 global financial crisis. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Herd Behavior in Indian Stock Market During Extreme Volatility and Covid-19 Pandemic

The present study examines the evidence of herd behavior of investors in the Indian stock market during extreme volatility, i.e., bulí and bear phases. It also investigates the herd behavior during the first and second waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. A sample of 50 companies listed on NSE during January 2019 to December 2021 is considered for the study, employing the methods developed by Christie and Huang (1995) and Chang et al. (2000). The findings present evidence of herd behavior during the first wave of the pandemic, while there is no evidence of such behavior during the second wave. Further, the study concludes that investors mimic the investment behavior of others in an extreme high return period only. There is no indication of herd behavior in extreme low return period and in the whole sample period.

The Causality and Uncertainty of the COVID-19 Pandemic to Bursa Malaysia Financial Services Index's Constituents.

Valued in hundreds of billions of Malaysian ringgit, the Bursa Malaysia Financial Services Index's constituents comprise several of the strongest performing financial constituents in Bursa Malaysia's Main Market. Although these constituents persistently reside mostly within the large market capitalization (cap), the existence of the individual constituent's causal influence or intensity relative to each other's performance during uncertain or even certain times is unknown. Thus, the key purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the individual constituent's causal intensity, from early 2018 (pre-COVID-19) to the end of the year 2021 (post-COVID-19) using Granger causality and Schreiber transfer entropy. Furthermore, network science is used to measure and visualize the fluctuating causal degree of the source and the effected constituents. The results show that both the Granger causality and Schreiber transfer entropy networks detected patterns of increasing causality from pre- to post-COVID-19 but with differing causal intensities. Unexpectedly, both networks showed that the small- and mid-caps had high causal intensity during and after COVID-19. Using Bursa Malaysia's sub-sector for further analysis, the Insurance sub-sector rapidly increased in causality as the year progressed, making it one of the index's largest sources of causality. Even after removing large amounts of weak causal intensities, Schreiber transfer entropy was still able to detect higher amounts of causal sources from the Insurance sub-sector, whilst Granger causal sources declined rapidly post-COVID-19. The method of using directed temporal networks for the visualization of temporal causal sources is demonstrated to be a powerful approach that can aid in investment decision making.

Covid-19 Lockdown and Its Effect on BSE Indexes: An Event Study

This paper scrutinizes the Indian stock market performance after the central government's announcement of lockdown on March 22,2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown had different impacts on varied sectors which were considered for the study, namely, banking, oil and gas, healthcare, capital goods, Fast Moving Consumer Durables (FMCD), and small-cap and mid-cap segments. The data was collected from BSE indexes, and an event study with estimation window from May 14, 2019 to March 5, 2020, a period of 201 market working days, was considered. The findings reveal that small-cap, mid-cap, FMCD and healthcare sectors were most impacted by the nationwide lockdown and thus had abnormal returns, while the impact on other sectors like banking, oil and gas, and capital goods was not significant.