Financial market risks during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article examines the nature of time-varying systematic risk for both Islamic and non-Islamic sectoral indices during COVID-19. The novelty lies in the analysis of behavioral changes in beta as the global health crisis moved from an epidemic to a pandemic. Using daily stock market return data on 10 different industry sectors, we show that both Islamic and conventional indices depict a similar pattern, but Islamic equities exhibit lower risk, indicating a subdued reaction to market movements. However, as the COVID-19 evolves from an epidemic to a pandemic the trend changes, with Consumer Services, Financials, Healthcare, and Oil & Gas sector betas depicting an overreaction in Islamic equities. These results remain robust to multiple additional tests. On this basis, we argue that a lower systematic risk of Islamic equities can offer portfolio diversification opportunities.