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Publication

Immune or at-risk? stock markets and the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic

Date
2021
Abstract
The closure of borders and traditional commerce due to the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a lasting financial impact. We determine whether the growth in COVID-19 affected index prices by examining equity markets in five regional epicentres, along with a ‘global’ index. We also investigate the impact of COVID-19 after controlling for investor sentiment, credit risk, liquidity risk, safe-haven asset demand and the price of oil. Despite controlling for these traditional market drivers, the daily totals of COVID-19 cases nevertheless explained index price changes in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Similar results were not observed in China, the origin of the virus, nor in the ‘global’ index (MSCI World). Our results suggest that early interventions (China) and the spatiotemporal nature of pandemic epicentres (World) should be considered by governments, regulators and relevant stakeholders in the event of future COVID-19 ‘waves’ or further extreme societal disruptions
Supervisor
Description
peer-reviewed
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance;30, 10047
Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
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