The Effect of COVID-19 on the Stock Market Performance: Empirical Evidence for Turkish Economy

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and stock market performance under the structural break in case of Turkey for the period from April 10, 2020 to March 19, 2021. Here, the confirmed cases, deaths, tests and recoveries during COVID-19 pandemic were carried out as the COVID-19 pandemic variables. The obtained empirical findings indicated that i) the series were integrated at I(1), ii) the series were cointegrated in the presence of structural break, iii) the confirmed number of cases and deaths reduced the stock market performance, while the confirmed number of tests and recoveries enhanced the performance of the stock market under the structural break, and iv) in the long run the bidirectional causality among the confirmed number of cases, deaths and recoveries with stock market performance and the unidirectional causality running from the confirmed number of tests to stock market performance were found. In brief, the study's empirical results could provide several policy suggestions to governments, policy makers, investors and risk managers to take several precautions that decreased the negative effects of the epidemics on the Turkish stock market performance.