The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on financial ratios: A review at BIST

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has spread worldwide, brings economic, social, societal, and psychological effects, especially in the health field. Due to the existence of dependent commercial relations in the globalizing world, the effect of the pandemic is also experienced on a global scale. Its contractionary effect on economic activities directly affects all sectors. To minimize the damages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, some measures and restrictions have been implemented. Those measures have caused some changes in people's lives. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the Covid-19 global pandemic on the financial statements of companies traded in the BIST Industrial index. In the first part of the study, the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were tried to be examined in two groups, both on a global scale and the basis of our country. In the second part of the study, theoretical information about financial statements and financial analysis techniques, which play an essential role in the realization of economic analysis, is given. Liquidity ratios, profitability ratios, financial structure ratios, and activity ratios used in ratio analysis in the study are given in this section. In the application part of the study, the ratio analysis technique was applied to the quarterly financial statements of the companies operating in the BIST Industrial index covering the 2018 December-2021 September period. To determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the pre-Covid-19 and Covid-19 periods, the dependent group t-test was applied to the results of the ratio analysis. As a result, out of 40 ratios included in the analysis, there is a statistically significant difference between the pre-Covid-19 and Covid-19 periods for liquidity ratios, cash ratio, stocks/current assets ratio, short-term receivables/current assets ratio, financial structure ratios, long term liabilities /resource total ratio, short term libilities /resource total ratio, current assets/assets total ratio, tangible assets/total assets ratio, operating ratios, working capital turnover ratio, profitability ratios, gross sales profit/net sales ratio, EBIT/ shareholders equity ratio and cost of goods sold/net sales ratios. Keywords: BIST Industrial Index, Covid-19 Pandemic, Rate Analysis, T-test