Effect of coronavirus on major global stock indices 2020-2021

While the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused all major stock market indices to fall sharply in March 2020, both the extent of the decline at this time, and the shape of the subsequent recovery, have varied greatly. For example, on March 15, 2020, major European markets and traditional stocks in the United States had shed around 40 percent of their value compared to January 5, 2020. However, Asian markets and the NASDAQ Composite Index only shed around 20 to 25 percent of their value. A similar story can be seen with the post-coronavirus recovery. As of November 14, 2021 the NASDAQ composite index value was around 65 percent higher than in January 2020, while most other markets were only between 20 and 40 percent higher. Why did the NASDAQ recover the quickest? Based in New York City, the NASDAQ is famously considered a proxy for the technology industry as many of the world’s largest technology industries choose to list there. And it just so happens that technology was the sector to perform the best during the coronavirus pandemic. Accordingly, many of the largest companies who benefitted the most from the pandemic such as Amazon, PayPal and Netflix, are listed on the NADSAQ, helping it to recover the fastest of the major stock exchanges worldwide. Which markets suffered the most? The energy sector was the worst hit by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, oil companies share prices suffered large declines over 2020 as demand for oil plummeted while workers found themselves no longer needing to commute, and the tourism industry ground to a halt. In addition, overall share prices in two major stock exchanges – the London Stock Exchange (as represented by the FTSE 100 index) and Hong Kong (as represented by the Hang Seng index) – have notably recovered slower than other major exchanges. However, in both these, the underlying issue behind the slower recovery likely has more to do with political events unrelated to the coronavirus than it does with the pandemic – namely Brexit and general political unrest, respectively.

在全球冠状病毒（COVID-19）大流行期间，尽管所有主要股市指数在2020年3月均出现大幅下跌，但此时跌幅的幅度以及随后的复苏形态却呈现出极大的差异。以2020年3月15日为例，欧洲主要市场和美国的传统股票相较于2020年1月5日，其价值已下跌约40%。然而，亚洲市场和纳斯达克综合指数的价值仅下跌了约20%至25%。在冠状病毒后的复苏过程中，亦可观察到类似的现象。截至2021年11月14日，纳斯达克综合指数的价值已较2020年1月上升约65%，而大多数其他市场仅上升了20%至40%。为何纳斯达克能够最快恢复？位于纽约市的纳斯达克指数因其众多全球最大的科技公司选择在此上市而被广泛视为科技行业的代名词。恰巧的是，在冠状病毒大流行期间，科技行业表现最为优异。因此，许多从大流行中获益最多的最大公司，如亚马逊、PayPal和Netflix，均上市于纳斯达克，助力其成为全球主要证券交易所中恢复最快的交易所。哪些市场遭受的打击最为严重？能源行业在全球COVID-19大流行中遭受重创。特别是，石油公司的股价在2020年经历了大幅下跌，因为石油需求急剧下降，而工人发现不再需要通勤，旅游业也陷入了停滞。此外，在伦敦证券交易所（以FTSE 100指数为代表）和香港（以恒生指数为代表）这两个主要证券交易所的整体股价回升速度明显慢于其他主要交易所。然而，在这两个市场的缓慢复苏背后，潜在的问题可能与冠状病毒大流行无关，更多与政治事件有关——分别是英国脱欧和普遍的政治动荡。