The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on financial performance: Comparison between Egyptian SMEs Tamayoz and EGX30 index

Most SMEs experience economic collapse and even insolvency due to a lack of sufficient governmental support, particularly those working in growing nations like Egypt with a heavy focus on SMEs’ growth and political and economic instability. As a result, this paper seeks first to measure the consequences of COVID-19 on financial performance (FP) by comparing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with listed corporations in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX). Second, we examine the impact of governmental interventions on this association. Our sample includes 26 SMEs in the Tamayoz EGX and the highest 30 firms listed in the EGX30. We applied pooled ordinary least square regression, paired sample test, and Barron and Kenny’s test. We used daily stock market returns from January 2020 to November 2020. The proliferation of COVID-19 has an influence on stock prices in both the EGX30 and Tamayoz stock indexes. We furthermore find a partial mediation of income support, facial-covering, school closures, and restrictions on international movements on the linkage between COVID-19 and FP for SMEs. The stock prices listed in EGX30 seem more sensitive to governmental interventions than Tamayoz EGX. The findings confirm governmental interventions would have a significant role in the firm’s FP during the COVID-19 pandemic.