Research article Special Issues

Impact of the novel coronavirus on stock market returns: evidence from GCC countries

  • Received: 28 July 2020 Accepted: 24 September 2020 Published: 27 September 2020
  • JEL Codes: G10, C33, I15

  • The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is not only an unprecedented human and health crisis,but it is expected to become one of the most economically costly pandemics in recent history. Latest financial reports indicate that the COVID-19 outbreak is severely disrupting the global economy and financial markets. Many equity markets around the world have endured heavy declines since the pandemic's outbreak. To provide an understanding of the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic on stock markets,we investigate in this paper the impact of the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths on the daily returns of the major stock market indices in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the period from April 1,2020 to June 26,2020. Using a panel data regression analysis,we find that stock markets in the GCC countries responded negatively and with a great degree to new and total COVID-19 confirmed deaths,while response to the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases is not significant. Therefore,during the COVID-19 outbreak daily returns of the major stock market indices in the GCC countries declined as the number of confirmed deaths increased. Further analysis suggests that GCC stock markets are impacted positively by the crude oil price (WTI) and negatively by the variation of the implied volatility in the global oil market and the global stock markets.

    Citation: Raéf Bahrini, Assaf Filfilan. Impact of the novel coronavirus on stock market returns: evidence from GCC countries[J]. Quantitative Finance and Economics, 2020, 4(4): 640-652. doi: 10.3934/QFE.2020029

    Related Papers:

  • The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is not only an unprecedented human and health crisis,but it is expected to become one of the most economically costly pandemics in recent history. Latest financial reports indicate that the COVID-19 outbreak is severely disrupting the global economy and financial markets. Many equity markets around the world have endured heavy declines since the pandemic's outbreak. To provide an understanding of the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic on stock markets,we investigate in this paper the impact of the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths on the daily returns of the major stock market indices in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the period from April 1,2020 to June 26,2020. Using a panel data regression analysis,we find that stock markets in the GCC countries responded negatively and with a great degree to new and total COVID-19 confirmed deaths,while response to the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases is not significant. Therefore,during the COVID-19 outbreak daily returns of the major stock market indices in the GCC countries declined as the number of confirmed deaths increased. Further analysis suggests that GCC stock markets are impacted positively by the crude oil price (WTI) and negatively by the variation of the implied volatility in the global oil market and the global stock markets.


    加载中


    [1] Ahmad S, Hafeez A, Siddqui SA, et al. (2020) A review of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease-2019) diagnosis, treatments and prevention. EJMO 4:116-125.
    [2] Alandijany TA, Faizo AA, Azhar EI (2020) Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Current status and management practices. J Infect Public Heal 13: 839-842. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.05.020
    [3] Al-Awadhi AM, Alsaifi K, Al-Awadhi A, et al. (2020) Death and contagious infectious diseases: Impact of the COVID-19 virus on stock market returns. J Behav Exp Financ 27: 100326.
    [4] Ali M, Alam N, Rizvi SAR (2020) Coronavirus (COVID-19)—An epidemic or pandemic for financial markets. J Behav Exp Financ 27: 100341.
    [5] Al-Maadid A, Caporaleb MC, Spagnolob F, et al. (2020) The impact of business and political news on the GCC stock markets. Res Int Bus Financ 52: 101102.
    [6] Alqahtani A, Chevallier J (2020) Dynamic spillovers between Gulf Cooperation Council's stocks, VIX, oil and gold volatility indices. J Risk Financ Manage 13: 1-17. doi: 10.3390/jrfm13040069
    [7] Al-Yahyaee KH, Mensi W, Sensoy A, et al. (2019) Energy, precious metals, and GCC stock markets: Is there any risk spillover? Pacific Basin Financ J 56: 45-70.
    [8] Arshad Ali S, Baloch M, Ahmed N, et al. (2020) The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)—An emerging global health threat. J Infect Public Heal 13: 644-646. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.02.033
    [9] Ashraf BN (2020) Stock markets' reaction to COVID-19: Cases or fatalities? Res Int Bus Financ 54: 101249.
    [10] Azar SA, Chopurian NA (2018) Commodity indexes and the stock markets of the GCC countries. Arab Econ Bus J 13: 134-142. doi: 10.1016/j.aebj.2018.08.001
    [11] Baker SR, Bloom N, Davis SJ, et al. (2020) The Unprecedented Stock Market Reaction To COVID-19. NBER Working Paper, No. 26945.
    [12] Baltagi BH (2008) Econometric analysis of panel data, 6th Eds., New York: John Wiley and Sons.
    [13] Breusch TS, Pagan AR (1980) The Lagrange multiplier test and its applications to model specification in econometrics. Rev Econ Stud 47: 239-253. doi: 10.2307/2297111
    [14] Cepoi CO (2020) Asymmetric dependence between stock market returns and news during COVID19 financial turmoil. Financ Res Lett 36: 101658.
    [15] Chen C, He K, Yu L (2015) The information content of OVX for crude oil returns analysis and risk measurement: Evidence from the Kalman filter model. Ann Data Sci 2: 471-487. doi: 10.1007/s40745-015-0058-4
    [16] Chen Y, Zou Y (2015) Examination on the relationship between OVX and crude oil price with Kalman filter. Proc Comput Sci 55:1359-1365. doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2015.07.122
    [17] Gujarati DN (2003) Basic Econom, 4th Eds., New York: McGraw-Hill.
    [18] Harapan H, Itoh N, Yufika A, et al. (2020) Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): A literature review. J Infect Public Heal 13: 667-673. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.03.019
    [19] Harjoto MA, Rossi F, Paglia JK (2020) COVID-19: Stock market reactions to the shock and the stimulus. Available at SSRN 3622899.
    [20] Istiak K, Alam MR (2020) US economic policy uncertainty spillover on the stock markets of the GCC countries. J Econ Stud 47: 36-50. doi: 10.1108/JES-11-2018-0388
    [21] Levin A, Lin CF, Chu CSJ (2002) Unit root tests in panel data: Asymptotic and finite-sample properties. J Econ 108: 1-24. doi: 10.1016/S0304-4076(01)00098-7
    [22] Liu HY, Manzoor A, Wang CY, et al. (2020) The COVID-19 outbreak and affected countries stock markets response. Int J Env Res Pub He 17: 1-19.
    [23] Mohanty SK, Nandha M, Turkistani AQ, et al. (2011) Oil price movements and stock market returns: Evidence from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Glob Financ J 22: 42-55. doi: 10.1016/j.gfj.2011.05.004
    [24] Mokni K, Youssef M (2019) Measuring persistence of dependence between crude oil prices and GCC stock markets: A copula approach. Q Rev Econ Financ 72: 14-33. doi: 10.1016/j.qref.2019.03.003
    [25] Nicola M, Alsafi Z, Sohrabi C, et al. (2020) The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): A review. Int J Surg 78: 185-193. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.04.018
    [26] Ozili P (2020) COVID-19 in Africa: Socio-economic impact, policy response and opportunities. Available at SSRN.
    [27] Sharif A, Aloui C, Yarovaya L, et al. (2020) COVID-19 pandemic, oil prices, stock market, geopolitical risk and policy uncertainty nexus in the US economy: Fresh evidence from the wavelet-based approach. Int Rev Financ Anal 70: 101496.
    [28] Smales L (2017) The importance of fear: Investor sentiment and stock market returns. Appl Econ 49: 3395-3421. doi: 10.1080/00036846.2016.1259754
    [29] Wagner AF (2020) What the stock market tells us about the post-COVID-19 world. Nat Hum Behav 4: 440.
    [30] Wooldridge JM (2010) Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data, 2nd Eds., Cambridge, MA: MIT. Press.
    [31] Worldometer (2020) Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, 2020. Available from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
    [32] Zhang D, Hu M, Ji Q (2020) Financial markets under the global pandemic of COVID-19. Financ Res Lett 36: 101528.
  • Reader Comments
  • © 2020 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
  • 1. 

    沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

  1. 本站搜索
  2. 百度学术搜索
  3. 万方数据库搜索
  4. CNKI搜索

Metrics

Article views(13560) PDF downloads(1713) Cited by(58)

Article outline

Figures and Tables

Tables(4)

Other Articles By Authors

/

DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
Return
Return

Catalog