COVID-19 AND GLOBAL STOCK MARKET

This paper is based on the response of the stock market towards the COVID-19 outbreak. For accomplishment of research objective, this study has deployed COVID19 confirmed cases and death (exogenous variable) and stock exchange returns (indigenous variable) of 64 economies from February 01, 2020 to April 30, 2020. Panel Data regression analysis was performed to test the hypothesis. The outcomes indicated that stock markets negatively and significantly responded to COVID-19. The return of stock markets gradually fallen as the number of confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 increases. The outcomes also suggest negative market response was strong in the beginning days of COVID-19. Generally, the outcomes of this study documents that stock markets rapidly react to COVID-19 outbreak but the response differs over time depending outbreak stage.