Stock Market Reaction to the Announcement of the COVID-19 Lockdown: Evidence from Healthcare Companies in Malaysia

The sudden global pandemic of COVID-19 occurred in Malaysia at the beginning of new 2020, which increased the uncertainty of the economy. As a highly demanded industry during diseases, COVID-19-related news had a mixed influence on investors' confidence in the healthcare industry, so the short-term market reaction of the Malaysian healthcare industry is investigated during this unfolding event. This paper examines whether the “lockdown” suppressed the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on stock performance in 12 listed healthcare companies in Malaysia. We consider the “lockdown” order has different impacts on samples. The hardest hit among the four events is the first announcement of lockdown, whose cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR) is negative (CAAR<0), for its strict movement control. However, the impacts of the following three lockdown events are positive and less severe as the market gradually digest these kinds of news and the deregulation of movement control. Previous studies have justified the influence of disease outbreaks on the stock market; however, this study compensates for other studies by employing the event study methodology (ESM) approach to provide the first empirical evidence of the unprecedented influence of “lockdown” on Malaysian healthcare stock market. This study has practical implications for Malaysian financial markets that the lockdown orders matter for the Malaysian healthcare industry. The empirical results show that the stock market has positively affected the lockdown announcement after the first event. In turn, the policymakers could draw on these results related to stock performance to modify the regulations in the healthcare industry.