Performances of leading Islamic finance markets prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic

The recent COVID-19 pandemic or Global Health Crisis (GFH) has distorted the normal functioning of the global economies and financial markets. Previous research has shown that Islamic equities were relatively more stable than conventional ones during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). So, this study aims to assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance and co-movement of the leading Islamic finance markets by employing MGARCH-DCC on daily frequency data spanning from January 01, 2017 to October 22, 2021. The findings suggest that, as expected, the pandemic outbreak has increased the volatility across the sample markets, but it faded relatively soon, indicating that Islamic equities carry hedging features and offer portfolio diversification benefits to investors. Moreover, the sample countries are less correlated during the sample period than expected. The findings have important implications for policymakers and diverse investors deciding on portfolio diversification. Global ethical and Islamic investors, including fund managers, could benefit by focusing on more stable markets and building optimal portfolios of Shari’ah-complaint equities during turbulent market conditions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.