Industries' heterogeneous reactions during the COVID‐19 outbreak: Evidence from Chinese stock markets

Abstract This study examines the heterogeneous effects of the COVID‐19 outbreak on stock prices in China. We confirm what is already known, that the pandemic has had a significant negative impact on stock market returns. Additionally, we find, this effect is heterogeneous across industries. Second, fear sentiment can directly cause stock prices to fall and panic exacerbates the negative impact of the pandemic on stock returns. Third, and most importantly, we demonstrate the underlying mechanisms of four firm characteristics and find that those with high asset intensity, low labor intensity, high inventory‐to‐revenue ratio, and small market value are more negatively affected than others. For labor‐intensive state‐owned firms, in particular, stock performance worsened because of higher idle labor costs. Finally, we created an index to measure the relative position of an industry in the supply chain, which shows that downstream companies were more vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic.