Emerging market debt and the COVID‐19 pandemic: A time–frequency analysis of spreads and total returns dynamics

ABSTRACT

We apply wavelet analyses to study the impact of COVID‐19 pandemic on the performance of emerging market bonds, in both investment grade and high yield ranges of creditworthiness. Our results show varying level of coherence ranging from low, medium and high between the Coronavirus Media Coverage index and the price moves of the emerging market USD‐denominated debt. We attribute the intervals of low coherence levels to the diversification potential during a systemic pandemic such as COVID‐19 of investments in bonds issued by developing economies. We document differences in patterns exhibited by various indices describing behaviour of option‐adjusted spreads and total returns as a function of credit quality of issuers form emerging market economies. We report well‐defined zones of the regime switching between the lead and lag roles of the emerging market bonds vis‐à‐vis the media coverage.