Pakistan's leading stock exchange and COVID-19 nexus : evidence from quantile regression analysis

Abstract

The contagious pandemic COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted numerous economic and business activities worldwide. This study focuses on COVID-19's effects on KSE-100 index (Karachi stock exchange), which is a part of a developing country. From 2 March 2020 to 9 November 2021, COVID-19 confirmed, recovered and deaths cases were taken as covariates for the COVID-19. To explore the conditional distributional impact of COVID-19 on KSE-100, we employ robust quantile regression analysis with detailed asymmetric evidence. The results show that the confirmed and recovered cases have a significant positive impact on KSE-100 whereas expired cases having a significant negative influence. These findings contradict previous studies in the world, which claimed that COVID-19 had a negative impact on developed stock markets while aligning with a vast literature of Pakistan stock exchange. It seems that as the result of timely policy implemented by the government of Pakistan. For investors, these findings are robust, which leads to providing practical policy to combat such circumstances in the future.