Abstract:

This study investigates the financial linkage of Pakistan stock market with those of its three major trade partners i.e., China, UK and USA and the impact of ongoing global health crisis (Covid-19) on this linkage. A Dynamic Conditional Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (DCC-GARCH) approach was used to calculate dynamic correlation coefficient between the countries’ stock markets by using the daily price data of MSCI indices spanning the period 1st January 2016 to 31 December 2019 (Pre COVID-19 period) and 1st January 2020 to 30th June 2020 (COVID-19 period). The empirical results of the study highlighted that the integration of Pakistan stock market with the sampled countries was relatively low before the COVID 19 pandemic – which indicated a positive sign for market participants to diversify their portfolios. However, after the pandemic breakout, the correlation among stock markets increased substantially, indicating the significant role played by the shock events in the transmission of financial contagion between different stock markets.

Keywords: