Covid‐19 outbreak and stocks return on the West African Economic and Monetary Union's stock market: An empirical analysis of the relationship through the event study approach

Abstract

This study uses the Wilcoxon's signed ranks test to identify the effect of the Covid‐19 outbreak on the stocks returns of companies listed on the West African Economic and Monetary Union's (WAEMU) stock market by considering two event dates (January 23, 2020 and March 2, 2020). To account for the temporal volatility in the event approach, the study resort to a GARCH model. Empirical findings suggest that January 23, 2020 event (first case of death due to Covid‐19 in China) have had a minor impact on the WAEMU stock market while the event on March 2, 2020 (first case of Covid‐19 in the WAEMU) strongly affected the financial market. This negative impact is much more pronounced for the distribution sectors (−34.16%). Robustness analysis reveals that the main information leading to disruption on the market is the weekly death cases and not the confirmed cases. In addition, government anti‐Covid‐19 measures such as social distancing and governance positively affect the stock return whereas lockdown, public health measures and movement restrictions contribute to a decline in the stock's price.