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Globally dangerous diseases: Bad news for Main Street, good news for Wall Street?

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  • Donadelli, Michael
  • Kizys, Renatas
  • Riedel, Max

Abstract

This paper examines whether investor mood, driven by World Health Organization (WHO) alerts and media news on globally dangerous diseases, is priced in pharmaceutical companies' stocks in the United States. We concentrate on irrational investors who buy and sell pharmaceutical companies' stocks guided by beliefs as opposed to rational expectations. We argue that disease-related news (DRNs) should not trigger rational trading. We find that DRNs have a positive and significant sentiment effect among investors (on Wall Street). The effect is stronger (weaker) for small (large) companies, who are less (more) likely to engage in the development of new vaccines in the wake of DRNs. A potential negative mood (on Main Street) - induced by disease related fear - does not alter the positive sentiment effect. Our findings give rise to profitable trading strategies leading to significantly positive performances. Overall, this unparalleled research shows that large events of devastating nature to the economy can be considered as good news to some groups of interest, such as stock market traders.

Suggested Citation

  • Donadelli, Michael & Kizys, Renatas & Riedel, Max, 2016. "Globally dangerous diseases: Bad news for Main Street, good news for Wall Street?," SAFE Working Paper Series 158, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:safewp:158
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.2881220
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    Cited by:

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    3. HaiYue Liu & Aqsa Manzoor & CangYu Wang & Lei Zhang & Zaira Manzoor, 2020. "The COVID-19 Outbreak and Affected Countries Stock Markets Response," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-19, April.
    4. Sun, Yunpeng & Bao, Qun & Lu, Zhou, 2021. "Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, investor sentiment, and medical portfolio: Evidence from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and U.S," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. David Vidal-Tomás & Rocco Caferra & Gabriele Tedeschi, 2022. "The day after tomorrow: financial repercussions of COVID-19 on systemic risk," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 169-192, April.
    6. Omer Ahmed Sayed & Hussein Eledum, 2023. "The short‐run response of Saudi Arabia stock market to the outbreak of COVID‐19 pandemic: An event‐study methodology," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 2367-2381, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    WHO alerts; investor sentiment; pharmaceutical industry; trading strategies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets

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