Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Price Volatility of Listed Commercial Bank Stocks in Vietnam

Abstract

This article aims to estimate the relationship between COVID-19 and the price volatility of listed commercial bank stocks in Vietnam during the two most severely affected years of the pandemic (2020–2021), and measuring the impacts of macroeconomic factors on those stocks’ returns and their price volatility (measured by standard deviation of returns) with previous studies’ results before the pandemic. Using the data from 16 listed commercial banks’ stock returns on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) during the study period, we used OLS to find the effect, with important findings: (1) COVID-19 daily reported cases had a weak negative effect on Vietnam listed banks’ stock returns and hardly any relation with stock returns’ standard deviation. (2) GDP influenced commercial bank stock returns positively, while CPI, number of COVID-19 cases, and businesses closed had a negative effect. Also, listed commercial bank stock returns were insignificantly impacted by the interest rate. (3) Macroeconomic factors’ impact on the standard deviation of returns were weak, during the pandemic. GDPs and CPIs effect turned out to be insignificant while interest rate had a negative effect on the volatility rate, and was only significant in two out of the three models, implying potential negative impacts of COVID-19 on the macroeconomy. JELClassification: G21, F62, F65, G18, G28