Covid-19, Investor Sentiment and Contagion Across Stock Markets

Abstract

This study examines investor sentiment which may trigger contagion in financial markets during the recent Covid-19 outbreak within a DCC-GARCH model. The results show that most of the time-varying correlations have risen after the Covid-19 outbreak until the WHO declared the disease as a global pandemic and most of the rise in correlations occurs within each group of countries/regions where the least and the most deaths took place. There is evidence of contagion in most cases. Overall, investor sentiment seems to give rise to contagion as the correlations between stock markets have increased during the global Covid-19 pandemic.