COVID-19 and the Freefall of the Stock Market

Sammanfattning: Background: The novel COVID-19 outbreak has been present for over a year and is a permanent companion impacting daily lives and hurting economics universal. Since the presence of the coronavirus has been directly impacting stock markets and its returns worldwide, an analysis of the impact on the COVID-19 outbreak is inevitable. Therefore, this paper examines the influence of the novel COVID-19 outbreak on four leading stock market indexes in affected countries including China, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the United States. Method: Linear regression models are used to evaluate the interconnection between stock market returns and exogenous variables including Governmental Interventions, New Cases, New Deaths, and others. To obtain a ranking of those exogenous variables by importance, the p-value of individual tests, the adjusted coefficients of determination R squared adjusted and Lasso paths including their Trace Plots of Coefficients fit. Results: The results highlight that the global stock markets were impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak instantly and stock market returns dropped rapidly for them for a certain period. For describing the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on stock market returns, the Stringency Index and the Economic Support Index are exogenous variables of importance while New Cases and New Deaths demonstrate rather low importance. Conclusion: Our empirical results have important policy implications, primary through demonstrating that Governmental Interventions along with other exogenous variables have both positive and negative impact on stock market returns around the world.