The impact of COVID-19 on MENA region stock markets

The short term effect of the coronavirus outbreak on leading MENA stock market indices is assessed in this paper. The effects of infectious disease are important, and they have had a direct impact on financial markets around the world. Using panel data, our findings show that stock markets in major affected countries and areas dropped sharply following the virus outbreak. When compared to other nations, MENA region experienced more negative abnormal returns. Further panel data regression test supports the negative effect of COVID-19 reported death cases on stock indices abnormal returns through an efficient channel by aggregating investors' pessimistic outlook on potential returns and fears of uncertainty. examine the role of COVID-19 on Bitcoin returns. The paper examines the impact of the Chinese Economic Policy Uncertainty (CEPU) index on Bitcoin regular returns between December 31, 2019 to May 20, 2020. The paper shows that the new CEPU has a positive effect on Bitcoin returns using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Generalized Quantile Regression (GQR) estimation techniques. However, only at the higher quantiles of the current CEPU is the positive effect statistically important. Based on this, Bitcoin can be used to hedge against China's policy uncertainties because large increases in uncertainty result in a higher return in Bitcoin. Corbet et al. 2021 set out to monitor for the presence of volatility spillovers from Chinese financial markets on a wide range of conventional financial assets during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. When compared to the conventional and long-standing influenza index, the findings show that the coronavirus pandemic has had an unusually pronounced and enduring effect on Chinese financial markets. Furthermore, found to have had a significant impact on lateral spillovers the Bitcoin is a novel finding to date. 2021 impact