Abstract
This paper examines the effect of market investor types (institutional and non-institutional) on total market trade value in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a three-month period of total containment. The research was conducted using a time series analysis method with an AutoRegressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), using weekly data collected from 7 January 2020 to 24 September 2020. The short-run result shows that both investor types net traded values and ownership holding values negatively impacts the development of Tadawul activity. Furthermore, the development of Tadawul activity showed a negative performance for the total containment period of three months. However, the long-run estimated model shows that, for both investor types, only net traded value has a positive significant impact on market activity development, whereas non-institutional ownership holding value development has a significant negative impact. Our results suggest fear is a mediator for the effect of COVID-19 on stock markets.