| dc.description.abstract | The outbreak of COVID-19 weakened the world economy and the overall stock market
crashed. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the stock market reacted to key
events during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first event was the first confirmed COVID-19
case in Norway on February 26, 2020, the second event was WHO declaring COVID-19 a
pandemic on March 11, 2020, and the third event was the Norwegian government’s press
conference regarding the second COVID-19 wave on October 23, 2020. Our main focus was
to investigate Oslo Stock Exchange, but we also compared Norway to Sweden and
Denmark. In addition to this, we also analyzed if any firm-specific factors affected the return.
We conducted an event study methodology to measure abnormal returns. Then we
regressed these abnormal returns from one of the events to analyze the causes.
First, our results show that the stock market in Norway was negatively affected by COVID-
19. Second, we found that the day that WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic had the
most impact on the stock markets out of the three events, and Norway was more negatively
affected than Sweden and Denmark. Third, our additional study show that trading volume was
the factor that had the most impact on the return. Profitability and firm size were also
influential factors, but not to the same extent. Lastly, the health care sector was hit the
hardest, followed by the financials and energy sectors. Industrials and consumer staples
were the least negatively affected. | en_US |
