IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rfe/zbefri/v38y2020i2p563-584.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investors’ herd behavior related to the pandemic-risk reflected on the GCC stock markets

Author

Listed:
  • Marwan Mohamed Abdeldayem

    (Cairo University, Egypt and College of Administrative Sciences, Applied Science University (ASU), P.O Box 5055 Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain)

  • Saeed Hameed Al Dulaimi

    (College of Administrative Sciences, Applied Science University (ASU), P.O Box 5055 Manama Kingdom of Bahrain)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the causal association between expectations of pandemic risk and herding behavior. The study was undertaken in two stages. First, it was felt necessary to obtain a broad overview of the effect of the pandemic related risk of COVID-19 on investors’ herding in the GCC. This was achieved by analyzing secondary data (i.e. daily historic prices on five GCC country market indices). In analyzing the secondary data, the study follows Christie and Huang (1995) and employs the cross-sectional standard deviation (CSSD) of returns to detect investors’ herding behavior. Second, in an attempt to obtain a more precise understanding of the impact of pandemic related risk, a questionnaire survey was distributed and collected from 318 investors from the GCC stock markets. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was also used as the primary analysis between the two variables: i.e. expectations of pandemic risk and herding behavior. The findings reveal that expectations of pandemic risk have a significant positive impact on the herding behavior in the GCC stock markets during the coronavirus crisis in the first quarter of 2020. Finally, the results of this study are robust to a range of model specifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Marwan Mohamed Abdeldayem & Saeed Hameed Al Dulaimi, 2020. "Investors’ herd behavior related to the pandemic-risk reflected on the GCC stock markets," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 38(2), pages 563-584.
  • Handle: RePEc:rfe:zbefri:v:38:y:2020:i:2:p:563-584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.efri.uniri.hr/upload/Zbornik%202_2020/13-Abdeldayem_et_al-2020-2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    2. Salisu, Afees A. & Akanni, Lateef & Raheem, Ibrahim, 2020. "The COVID-19 global fear index and the predictability of commodity price returns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    3. Wei, Yu & Liang, Chao & Li, Yan & Zhang, Xunhui & Wei, Guiwu, 2020. "Can CBOE gold and silver implied volatility help to forecast gold futures volatility in China? Evidence based on HAR and Ridge regression models," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    4. Yarovaya, Larisa & Matkovskyy, Roman & Jalan, Akanksha, 2021. "The effects of a “black swan” event (COVID-19) on herding behavior in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    6. Chiang, Thomas C. & Zheng, Dazhi, 2010. "An empirical analysis of herd behavior in global stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1911-1921, August.
    7. Sebastian Berger & Christoph Feldhaus & Axel Ockenfels, 2018. "A shared identity promotes herding in an information cascade game," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(1), pages 63-72, July.
    8. Marwan M. Abdeldayem & Doaa S. Sedeek, 2018. "Managerial Behavior and Capital Structure Decisions; Do Overconfidence, Optimism and Risk Aversion Matter?," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 8(7), pages 925-945, July.
    9. Donadelli, Michael & Kizys, Renatas & Riedel, Max, 2017. "Dangerous infectious diseases: Bad news for Main Street, good news for Wall Street?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 84-103.
    10. Ichev, Riste & Marinč, Matej, 2018. "Stock prices and geographic proximity of information: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 153-166.
    11. Fotini Economou & Christis Hassapis & Nikolaos Philippas, 2018. "Investors’ fear and herding in the stock market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(34-35), pages 3654-3663, July.
    12. Lin, Mei-Chen, 2018. "The impact of aggregate uncertainty on herding in analysts' stock recommendations," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 90-105.
    13. Chen, Zhongfei & Matousek, Roman & Stewart, Chris & Webb, Rob, 2019. "Do rating agencies exhibit herding behaviour? Evidence from sovereign ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 57-70.
    14. Marwan M Abdeldayem & Doaa S Sedeek, 2018. "Managerial Behavior and Capital Structure Decisions; Do Overconfidence, Optimism and Risk Aversion Matter?," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 8(7), pages 925-945.
    15. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    16. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Kyle J. Kost & Marco C. Sammon & Tasaneeya Viratyosin, 2020. "The Unprecedented Stock Market Impact of COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 26945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    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. Siniša Bogdan & Natali Suštar & Bojana Olgić Draženović, 2022. "Herding Behavior in Developed, Emerging, and Frontier European Stock Markets during COVID-19 Pandemic," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-12, September.

    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. Kizys, Renatas & Tzouvanas, Panagiotis & Donadelli, Michael, 2021. "From COVID-19 herd immunity to investor herding in international stock markets: The role of government and regulatory restrictions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Ferreruela, Sandra & Mallor, Tania, 2021. "Herding in the bad times: The 2008 and COVID-19 crises," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    3. Xiao, Qin & Yan, Meilan & Zhang, Dalu, 2023. "Commodity market financialization, herding and signals: An asymmetric GARCH R-vine copula approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. G. Rejikumar & Aswathy Asokan-Ajitha & Sofi Dinesh & Ajay Jose, 2022. "The role of cognitive complexity and risk aversion in online herd behavior," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 585-621, June.
    5. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    6. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    7. Coskun, Esra Alp & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Kahyaoglu, Hakan, 2020. "Uncertainty and herding behavior: evidence from cryptocurrencies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Chong, Oiping & Bany- Ariffin, A.N. & Matemilola, Bolaji Tunde & McGowan, C.B., 2020. "Can China’s cross-sectional dispersion of stock returns influence the herding behaviour of traders in other local markets and China’s trading partners?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    9. Yarovaya, Larisa & Matkovskyy, Roman & Jalan, Akanksha, 2021. "The effects of a “black swan” event (COVID-19) on herding behavior in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Chang, Chia-Lin & McAleer, Michael & Wang, Yu-Ann, 2020. "Herding behaviour in energy stock markets during the Global Financial Crisis, SARS, and ongoing COVID-19," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    11. Insler, Michael & Rahman, Ahmed S. & Smith, Katherine, 2021. "Tracking the Herd with a Shotgun — Why Do Peers Influence College Major Selection?," IZA Discussion Papers 14412, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Zhao, Yuan & Liu, Nan & Li, Wanpeng, 2022. "Industry herding in crypto assets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    14. D'Arcangelis, Anna Maria & Rotundo, Giulia, 2021. "Herding in mutual funds: A complex network approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 679-686.
    15. Malik, Saif Ullah & Elahi, Muhammad Ather, 2014. "Analysis of Herd Behavior Using Quantile Regression: Evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)," MPRA Paper 55322, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2020. "Collectivism and commonality in liquidity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 137-162.
    17. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    18. Guney, Yilmaz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Komba, Gabriel, 2017. "Herding in frontier markets: Evidence from African stock exchanges," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 152-175.
    19. N. Blasco & P. Corredor & N. Satrústegui, 2022. "The witching week of herding on bitcoin exchanges," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, December.
    20. Arjoon, Vaalmikki & Bhatnagar, Chandra Shekhar & Ramlakhan, Prakash, 2020. "Herding in the Singapore stock Exchange," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; GCC Stock Markets; Investor Herding; Pandemic-Risk; Cross-Sectional Standard Deviation (CSSD); Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA);
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:rfe:zbefri:v:38:y:2020:i:2:p:563-584. 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: Danijela Ujcic (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/efrijhr.html .

    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.