Government intervention and stock price returns during covid-19 pandemic: evidence from an emerging market

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stock market returns has received much attention from researchers and practitioners, the evidence on the government invention on stock market returns in frontier markets in the Asia-Pacific is very scanty. This study first revisits the relationship between COVID-19 and stock market returns using large data from 23/01/2020 to 28/05/2021. Second, this study examines how the Vietnamese stock market reacts to government actions during the COVID-19 outbreaks. Using the fixed effects model, the findings show stock market returns are negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although most sectors face a sharp decline in returns, positive returns are found in some sectors such as Energy, Healthcare, and Utilities, which is the opportunities for investors amid the pandemic. When observing the effect of government intervention, the stock market reacts to it negatively. The same is true for the announcements of social distancing and economic support measures. However, the stock market responds to containment and health measures with positive returns. More importantly, social distancing policy measures further enlarge the negative impact of COVID-19 on stock market returns – thus the government should take these measures with caution. The results also emphasize that economic support policy measures benefit indirectly via the channel of decreasing new infections. As a whole, the study offers some suggestions for the best and most proactive policy actions that governments, market participants, and investors in other emerging markets with similar financial institutions to Vietnam’s should use in the event of exogenous shocks like the COVID-19.