Abstract
The coronavirus crisis impact on the digital sector is undoubtedly an important issue that deserves to be studied. Researchers mostly focused on specific sectors such as tourism, healthcare sector, or the economy. This paper used a dynamic panel model to examine the COVID-19 crisis impact on the digital companiesfl stock return. The findings indicate that both of the monthly growth in total infected cases and total death cases caused by COVID-19 have significant positive effects on stock returns across digital companies. This novel results contradicts previous research findings and highlights that this crisis is slowing down all the economic sectors.
•This study investigates whether COVID-19 also affects digital companies’ stock return, representing a specific economic sector.•Results are striking; we find a sharp increase in both stock return and market-to-book ratio across all digital companies during the coronavirus crisis.•We also show that both total confirmed cases and total cases of death caused by COVID-19 have significant positive effects on both stock return and market-to-book ratio of digital companies.•These results contribute to highlight previous conclusions on the impacts of COVID-19 on stock return – particularly, we apply our methodology on digital sector – a context that has not been previously investigated in the literature.