Unblocking COVID-19 impact on stock returns

COVID-19 altered global economics activities during the pandemic period and still affects the stock returns. As worldwide resulted, this shift has changed the Pakistani stock returns activities. This study unfolds the impact of COVID-19 on stock returns frequency of pharmaceutical, power generation, technology and communication, and food sectors in Pakistan. To examine the relationship of above-mentioned sectors with stock returns, data were evaluated through event window that included the event dates of the 150-day and 60-day estimating period. COVID-19 has a considerable detrimental influence on stock returns during the post-event interval. The study findings showcase significant negative relationship with stock returns of the above-mentioned sectors. However, the results are contradictory during the second wave of coronavirus infection. Furthermore, the study also substantiates that COVID-19 has significantly affected the stock market performances of Pakistan. Still, the impact on the stock market performances was only for a short period, and it diminished in the second wave of COVID-19 spread in Pakistan. The findings contribute to the research on the stock returns of selected sectors and commodity market impact of a pandemic by providing empirical evidence that COVID-19 has spill-over effects on stock market. This result also helps investors in assessing the trends of the stock and commodity markets during the pandemic outbreak. Managers are encouraged to modify their strategies to maintain stocks of the firm for better performance under the direction of study findings.