Impact of COVID-19 on the Behaviour of Islamic and Conventional Investors: Evidence from the Indonesia Stock Market Crash 2020

Purpose — The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on Indonesia’s conventional and Islamic stock markets through the lens of behavioural finance in the digital age. Design/Methodology/Approach — The analysis in this paper is focused on the short-run and long-run impact of variables associated with COVID-19—such as the number of COVID-19 cases and mortality, the Google Search Volume (GSV) for the search query associated with COVID-19, and the panic index related to COVID-19—on the returns of the LQ45 Conventional Index and Jakarta Islamic Index (JII), using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. Findings — In the short run, increasing mortality and GSV significantly decreases the returns on LQ45 and JII. By contrast, the returns of LQ45 and JII are unaffected by an increase in the number of cases or the panic index. In the long run, only the panic index affects the LQ45 returns. Originality/Value — This article makes three contributions to the literature. First, it compares the COVID-19 outbreak’s impact on conventional and Islamic stock markets. Second, it discusses the short-run dynamics and long-run impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on stock returns. Third, it provides an explanation of the empirical relationship between the COVID-19 outbreak and the stock market using a behavioural finance viewpoint. Practical Implications — Digital behavioural science-based policies are needed to prevent or lessen financial market crashes during future crises.