Effect of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on OECD countries equity markets

The COVID-19 outbreak originated in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. With its spread to the world in a short time, the disease was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. In order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, political regulators have taken restraint decisions. As a result of these decisions, social and economic life, education, financial markets and many sectors were greatly affected. In this context, in this thesis, the effects of COVID-19 on stock markets were examined by the GARCH model method. In the study, Germany, France, USA, Turkey, Poland, Czechia, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom and Italy countries, all of which are OECD members, were taken as şamile. According to the results of the analysis, significant and negative returns were obtained simultaneously in the first 5-day short term after the declaration of the pandemic in all countries. However, no significant effect of COVID-19 on returns was found in the long term. On the other hand, COVID-19 has led to an increase in volatility in the Turkish and UK markets in the long run. In Turkey, Germany and France, it increased volatility in the short term.