The Effect of Earnings Per Share, Current Ratio, and Debt to Equity Ratio on Stock Prices Before and During the Covid-19 Pandemic with Price Earning Ratio as a Moderating Variable

Abstract

This study aims to determine the effect of earnings per share (EPS), current ratio (CR), and debt to equity ratio (DER) on stock prices with price earning ratio (PER) as a moderation variable. The data used is secondary data with a quantitative approach, where the population of health sector companies listed on the IDX is 25 companies. Using purposive sampling techniques, there were 7 companies that met the criteria, so there were 112 samples in this study. The hypothesis testing method used is multiple regression analysis and absolute difference test with the help of IBM SPSS 26. The results of this study show that EPS and PER have a positive effect on stock prices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. CR had no effect on share prices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. DER negatively affected stock prices before the COVID-19 pandemic, while during the COVID-19 pandemic it had no effect. PER moderated the effect of EPS on stock prices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. PER did not moderate the effect of CR on stock prices before the COVID-19 pandemic, while for conditions during the pandemic PER moderated the influence of CR on stock prices. PER did not moderate the influence of DER before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, these results show that during the COVID-19 pandemic there were changes in investor observations of stock prices, where investors prefer factors/variables that are directly related to stock value and profit potential over other variables that are not directly related.