IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i12p5014-d373601.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Drives Stocks during the Corona-Crash? News Attention vs. Rational Expectation

Author

Listed:
  • Nils Engelhardt

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, TU Dortmund University, Chair of Finance, Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Miguel Krause

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, TU Dortmund University, Chair of Finance, Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Daniel Neukirchen

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, TU Dortmund University, Chair of Finance, Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Peter Posch

    (Faculty of Business and Economics, TU Dortmund University, Chair of Finance, Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

Abstract

We explore if the corona-crash 2020 was driven by news attention or rational expectations about the pandemic’s economic impact. Using a sample of 64 national stock markets covering 94% of the world’s GDP, we find the stock markets’ decline to be mainly associated with higher news attention and less with rational expectation. We estimate the economic cost from the news hype to amount to USD 3.5 trillion for the US and USD 200 billion on average for the rest of the G8 countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Nils Engelhardt & Miguel Krause & Daniel Neukirchen & Peter Posch, 2020. "What Drives Stocks during the Corona-Crash? News Attention vs. Rational Expectation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-12, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:5014-:d:373601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/5014/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/5014/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Karolyi, G Andrew & Stulz, Rene M, 1996. "Why Do Markets Move Together? An Investigation of U.S.-Japan Stock Return Comovements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 951-986, July.
    3. Plante, Michael, 2019. "OPEC in the news," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 163-172.
    4. Corbet, Shaen & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian, 2020. "The contagion effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from gold and cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    5. Brooks, Robin & Del Negro, Marco, 2004. "The rise in comovement across national stock markets: market integration or IT bubble?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(5), pages 659-680, December.
    6. Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F Wagner, 2020. "Feverish Stock Price Reactions to COVID-19," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 622-655.
    7. Azi Ben-Rephael & Zhi Da & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2017. "It Depends on Where You Search: Institutional Investor Attention and Underreaction to News," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(9), pages 3009-3047.
    8. Lixin Huang & Hong Liu, 2007. "Rational Inattention and Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1999-2040, August.
    9. Al-Awadhi, Abdullah M. & Alsaifi, Khaled & Al-Awadhi, Ahmad & Alhammadi, Salah, 2020. "Death and contagious infectious diseases: Impact of the COVID-19 virus on stock market returns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    10. De Grauwe, Paul & Gerba, Eddie, 2018. "The role of cognitive limitations and heterogeneous expectations for aggregate production and credit cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 206-236.
    11. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    12. Zhang, Dayong & Hu, Min & Ji, Qiang, 2020. "Financial markets under the global pandemic of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    13. Grubb, David & Symons, James, 1987. "Bias in Regressions With a Lagged Dependent Variable," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 371-386, June.
    14. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Stephen J. Terry, 2020. "COVID-Induced Economic Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 26983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Sharif, Arshian & Aloui, Chaker & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2020. "COVID-19 pandemic, oil prices, stock market, geopolitical risk and policy uncertainty nexus in the US economy: Fresh evidence from the wavelet-based approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Longin, Francois & Solnik, Bruno, 1995. "Is the correlation in international equity returns constant: 1960-1990?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-26, February.
    17. Conlon, Thomas & McGee, Richard, 2020. "Safe haven or risky hazard? Bitcoin during the Covid-19 bear market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    18. Stefano Ramelli & Alexander F Wagner, 0. "Feverish Stock Price Reactions to COVID-19," Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(3), pages 622-655.
    19. Corbet, Shaen & Hou, Yang & Hu, Yang & Lucey, Brian & Oxley, Les, 2021. "Aye Corona! The contagion effects of being named Corona during the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    20. Mara Madaleno & Carlos Pinho, 2012. "International stock market indices comovements: a new look," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 89-102, January.
    21. Garz, Marcel, 2013. "Unemployment expectations, excessive pessimism, and news coverage," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 156-168.
    22. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    23. Zaremba, Adam & Kizys, Renatas & Aharon, David Y. & Demir, Ender, 2020. "Infected Markets: Novel Coronavirus, Government Interventions, and Stock Return Volatility around the Globe," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    24. Paul De Grauwe, 2012. "Lectures on Behavioral Macroeconomics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9891.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Beer & Janine Maniora & Christiane Pott, 2023. "COVID-19 pandemic and capital markets: the role of government responses," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 11-57, January.
    2. Engelhardt, Nils & Krause, Miguel & Neukirchen, Daniel & Posch, Peter N., 2021. "Trust and stock market volatility during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    3. Katarzyna Czech & Michał Wielechowski & Pavel Kotyza & Irena Benešová & Adriana Laputková, 2020. "Shaking Stability: COVID-19 Impact on the Visegrad Group Countries’ Financial Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Christos A. Kontovas & Krishna Sooprayen, 2020. "Maritime Cargo Prioritisation during a Prolonged Pandemic Lockdown Using an Integrated TOPSIS-Knapsack Technique: A Case Study on Small Island Developing States—The Rodrigues Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-20, September.
    5. Baris Kocaarslan & Ugur Soytas, 2021. "The Asymmetric Impact of Funding Liquidity Risk on the Volatility of Stock Portfolios during the COVID-19 Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-12, February.
    6. Hoppe, Heiko, 2022. "The Impact of COVID-19 Policy Measures on European Companies – Empirical Evidence from Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway," Junior Management Science (JUMS), Junior Management Science e. V., vol. 7(2), pages 267-288.
    7. Helen Chiappini & Gianfranco Vento & Leonardo De Palma, 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Sustainable Indexes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    8. Neukirchen, Daniel & Engelhardt, Nils & Krause, Miguel & Posch, Peter N., 2023. "The value of (private) investor relations during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    9. Nils Engelhardt & Jens Ekkenga & Peter Posch, 2021. "ESG Ratings and Stock Performance during the COVID-19 Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-15, June.
    10. Neukirchen, Daniel & Engelhardt, Nils & Krause, Miguel & Posch, Peter N., 2022. "Firm efficiency and stock returns during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    11. Amina Malik & Babar Zaheer Butt & Haroon Aziz, 2022. "COVID-19 Entwined the Dynamic Relationship between Stock Returns and Macroeconomic Variables," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 13(4), pages 11-22.
    12. Junjian Gu, 2020. "Risk Assessment on Continued Public Health Threats: Evidence from China’s Stock Market," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-30, October.
    13. Srilakshminarayana G, 2021. "Tail Behaviour of the Nifty-50 Stocks during Crises Periods," Advances in Decision Sciences, Asia University, Taiwan, vol. 25(4), pages 115-151, December.
    14. Calabrò, Andrea & Frank, Hermann & Minichilli, Alessandro & Suess-Reyes, Julia, 2021. "Business families in times of crises: The backbone of family firm resilience and continuity," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2).
    15. Al-Maadid, Alanoud & Alhazbi, Saleh & Al-Thelaya, Khaled, 2022. "Using machine learning to analyze the impact of coronavirus pandemic news on the stock markets in GCC countries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Who should be afraid of infections? Pandemic exposure and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Tomás Gómez Rodríguez & Humberto Ríos Bolívar & Adriana Zambrano Reyes, 2021. "Volatilidad y COVID-19: evidencia empírica internacional," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 16(3), pages 1-20, Julio - S.
    3. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2020. "Economic impact of government interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: International evidence from financial markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    4. Tarchella, Salma & Dhaoui, Abderrazak, 2021. "Chinese jigsaw: Solving the equity market response to the COVID-19 crisis: Do alternative asset provide effective hedging performance?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    5. Islam, Raisul & Volkov, Vladimir, 2020. "Calm before the storm: an early warning approach before and during the COVID-19 crisis," Working Papers 2020-09, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics.
    6. Yarovaya, Larisa & Brzeszczyński, Janusz & Goodell, John W. & Lucey, Brian & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2022. "Rethinking financial contagion: Information transmission mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Demir, Ender & Danisman, Gamze Ozturk, 2021. "Banking sector reactions to COVID-19: The role of bank-specific factors and government policy responses," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    8. Zaremba, Adam & Kizys, Renatas & Tzouvanas, Panagiotis & Aharon, David Y. & Demir, Ender, 2021. "The quest for multidimensional financial immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from international stock markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Manel Youssef & Khaled Mokni & Ahdi Noomen Ajmi, 2021. "Dynamic connectedness between stock markets in the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic: does economic policy uncertainty matter?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    10. Akhtaruzzaman, Md & Boubaker, Sabri & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2021. "Financial contagion during COVID–19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    11. Serdar Neslihanoglu, 2021. "Linearity extensions of the market model: a case of the top 10 cryptocurrency prices during the pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    12. Peng-Fei Dai & Xiong Xiong & Zhifeng Liu & Toan Luu Duc Huynh & Jianjun Sun, 2021. "Preventing crash in stock market: The role of economic policy uncertainty during COVID-19," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, December.
    13. Smales, L.A., 2021. "Investor attention and global market returns during the COVID-19 crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Aharon, David Y. & Siev, Smadar, 2021. "COVID-19, government interventions and emerging capital markets performance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    15. Papadamou, Stephanos & Fassas, Athanasios P. & Kenourgios, Dimitris & Dimitriou, Dimitrios, 2021. "Flight-to-quality between global stock and bond markets in the COVID era," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    16. Yarovaya, Larisa & Matkovskyy, Roman & Jalan, Akanksha, 2022. "The COVID-19 black swan crisis: Reaction and recovery of various financial markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    17. Celso-Arellano, Pedro & Gualajara, Victor & Coronado, Semei & Martinez, Jose N. & Venegas-Martínez, Francisco, 2023. "Impact of the global fear index (covid-19 panic) on the S&P global indices associated with natural resources, agribusiness, energy, metals and mining: Granger Causality and Shannon and Rényi Transfer ," MPRA Paper 117138, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Feb 2023.
    18. Rouatbi, Wael & Demir, Ender & Kizys, Renatas & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Immunizing markets against the pandemic: COVID-19 vaccinations and stock volatility around the world," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Julien Chevallier, 2020. "COVID-19 Pandemic and Financial Contagion," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-25, December.
    20. Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Mahi, Masnun & Hassan, M. Kabir & Bhuiyan, Abul Bashar, 2021. "Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on stock markets: Conventional vs. Islamic indices using wavelet-based multi-timescales analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:5014-:d:373601. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.