Impact of the Pandemic on Information and E-Commerce Stock Market Returns: The Case of Hong Kong

The impact of COVID-19 on the fluctuations of stock markets has been dramatic, causing great volatilities. This article tries to measure this impact in the context of Hong Kong stock returns of particular sectors like information, E-commerce and so on. The article expands the previous panel regression researches on short-term effect of COVID-19 confirmed and death cases growths, by extending the research horizon to the most recent date and applying panel model to each unique stock sector and comparing their results altogether, including 1,815 firms, 216 days and 319,251 samples. In the findings, it turns out that the information and E-commerce industries (140 firms in total) are significantly negatively affected by the growth of daily COVID confirmed cases, and that the Hausman tests support the fixed effect model. After that, recommendations are formulated to help stakeholders of various types hedge financial risks and maintain the financial system at this critical moment.