Herding in the Australian stock market during the era of COVID-19: the roles of liquidity, government interventions and mood contagion
ISSN: 0307-4358
Article publication date: 28 July 2023
Issue publication date: 30 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on herding behaviour in the Australian equity market by considering liquidity, government interventions and sentiment contagion.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilizes a daily dataset of the top 500 stocks in the Australian market from January 2009 to December 2021. Both predictive regression and portfolio approaches are employed to consider the impact of COVID-19 on herding intention.
Findings
This study confirms that herding propensity is more pronounced at the beginning of the crisis and becomes less significant towards later phases when reverse herding is more visible. Investors herd more toward sectors with less available information on financial support from the government during the financial meltdown. Conditioning the stock liquidity, herding is only detectable during highly liquid periods and high-liquid stocks, which is more observable during the initial phases of the crisis. Further, the mood contagion from the United States (US) market to Australian market and asymmetric herding intention are evident during the pandemic.
Originality/value
This is the first study to shed further light on the impact of a health crisis on the trading behaviour of Australian investors, which is driven by liquidity, public information and sentiment. Notwithstanding the theoretical contributions to the prior literature, several practical implications are proposed for businesses, policymakers and investors during uncertainty periods.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to Anh Dao (Swinburne University of Technology), Mary Ma (La Trobe University), Feng Sun (South China Normal University), Hoa Phan (RMIT University), Aizhan Anarkulova (University of Arizona), Jiaoying Pei (Nanyang Technological University), An Huynh (VNU-HCM), Tung Lam Dang (Danang University of Economics) and the conference participants at 2022 Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference (FMCG 2022) – Monash University (Australia); 29th Annual Global Finance Conference – University of Minho (Portugal); 2022 World Finance Conference – University of Turin (Italy); International Conference on Business and Finance (ICBF) 2022 – UEH University (Vietnam) for their valuable comments and suggestions. Quang Thien Tran would also like to acknowledge the financial support from Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Citation
Huynh, N., Nguyen, D.T. and Tran, Q.T. (2024), "Herding in the Australian stock market during the era of COVID-19: the roles of liquidity, government interventions and mood contagion", Managerial Finance, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 367-385. https://doi.org/10.1108/MF-02-2023-0138
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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