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Bull and bear markets during the COVID-19 pandemic

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  • Maheu, John M.
  • McCurdy, Thomas H.
  • Song, Yong

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe disruption worldwide. We analyze the aggregate U.S. stock market during this period, including implications for both short and long-horizon investors. We identify bull and bear market regimes including their bull correction and bear rally components, demonstrate our model’s performance in capturing periods of significant regime change, and provide weekly forecasts that improve risk management and investment decisions. An investment strategy that uses out-of-sample forecasts for market states outperforms a buy and hold strategy during the pandemic by a wide margin, both in terms of annualized returns and Sharpe ratios.

Suggested Citation

  • Maheu, John M. & McCurdy, Thomas H. & Song, Yong, 2021. "Bull and bear markets during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:42:y:2021:i:c:s1544612321001720
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2021.102091
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. John M. Maheu & Thomas H. McCurdy & Yong Song, 2012. "Components of Bull and Bear Markets: Bull Corrections and Bear Rallies," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 391-403, February.
    2. Lunde A. & Timmermann A., 2004. "Duration Dependence in Stock Prices: An Analysis of Bull and Bear Markets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 253-273, July.
    3. Schwert, G William, 1990. "Indexes of U.S. Stock Prices from 1802 to 1987," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(3), pages 399-426, July.
    4. Adrian R. Pagan & Kirill A. Sossounov, 2003. "A simple framework for analysing bull and bear markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 23-46.
    5. Chib, Siddhartha, 1996. "Calculating posterior distributions and modal estimates in Markov mixture models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 79-97, November.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kirby, Chris, 2023. "A closer look at the regime-switching evidence of bull and bear markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Liang, Chao & Xu, Yongan & Wang, Jianqiong & Yang, Mo, 2022. "Whether dimensionality reduction techniques can improve the ability of sentiment proxies to predict stock market returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Iyer, Subramanian Rama & Simkins, Betty J., 2022. "COVID-19 and the Economy: Summary of research and future directions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    4. Jaros{l}aw Kwapie'n & Marcin Wk{a}torek & Stanis{l}aw Dro.zd.z, 2021. "Cryptocurrency Market Consolidation in 2020--2021," Papers 2112.06552, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; Equity returns; Markov switching; Predictive density; Investment strategies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics

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