Heterogeneous Market Reactions of the G20 Stock Markets to the Hamas-Israel War

This study aims to examine the impact of the Hamas-Israel conflict on G20 stock markets and gold prices by employing an event study approach. The results show a continuous decline of the stock markets in the following 10 working days in the aftermath of the attack. The country-wise findings indicate that there are no significant abnormal returns in any stock market on the first day following the conflict. For longer event windows (+3, +5, +10), China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, Türkiye, and the US exhibited negative and significant cumulative abnormal returns (CARs), while Argentina and Russia had positive and significant CARs. The findings also reveal that gold preserves its role as a safe-heaven asset during high tension periods.