COVID-19 effects on the S&P 500 index

This paper investigates the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the US on the S&P 500 Index using daily data covering the period between 21st January, 2020 and 10th August, 2021. The investigation is achieved by using a structural vector autoregression model, where a measure of the global economic activity and the spread between 10-year treasury constant maturity and the federal funds rate are also included. The empirical results suggest that having 1% of an increase in cumulative daily COVID-19 cases in the US results in about 0.01% of a cumulative reduction in the S&P 500 Index after 1 day and about 0.03% of a reduction after 1 week. Historical decomposition of the S&P 500 Index further suggests that the negative effects of COVID-19 cases in the US on the S&P 500 Index have been mostly observed during March 2020.