Investor sentiment and government policy interventions: evidence from COVID-19 spread

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the moderating role of government policy interventions amid the early spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) (January–May 2020) on the investor sentiment and stock returns relationship. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses panel data from a sample of 53 countries to examine the impact of investor sentiment, measured by the financial and economic attitudes revealed by the search (FEARS) index (Da et al. , 2015) on the stock return. Findings The moderating role of government policy response indices with the FEARS index on the global stock returns is further explored. This paper finds that government policy responses have a moderating role in the sentiment and stock returns relationship. The effect holds true even when countries are split based on five classifications, i.e. cultural distance, health standard, government effectiveness, social well-being and financial development. The results are robust to an alternative measure of pandemic search intensity, quantile regression and two measures of stock market activity, i.e. conditional volatility and exchange traded fund returns. Research limitations/implications The sample period of this study encompasses the early spread phase (January–May 2020) of the novel COVID-19 spread. Originality/value This paper provides some early evidence on whether the government policy interventions are helpful to mitigate the impact of investor sentiment on the stock market. The paper also helps to shed better insights on the role of different country characteristics for the sentiment and stock return relationship.