The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Stock Market Performance in Indonesia

This study explores the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown policies that are used to tackle the pandemic on stock market returns in Indonesia. This study uses fixed-effects panel-data regression method to evaluate the impact of the growth in COVID-19 total confirmed cases and death as well as the lockdown policies on daily stock returns of 272 firms that are listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange’s main board and operate in the real sector from 2 March 2020 to 27 November 2020. The study confirms the significantly adverse impact of growth in the total of confirmed cases and death due to COVID-19 on Indonesia’s daily stock returns. Moreover, the lockdown policies regardless how strict they are, have a positive and significant impact on the Indonesia’s daily stock returns. This study further considers the different impact of COVID-19 pandemic on each of eight observed sectors; where the sector of property as well as trade, service and investment have a significantly negative performance; while the sector of basic industry, consumer goods and mining have a significantly better performance. This study suggests that COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown policies have a mixed impact on the Indonesia’s stock market returns.