The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the U.S. Capital Markets

Abstract

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing Ukraine conflict, an unprecedented amount of uncertainty appear in the financial market. This essay aspires to provide a picture of how those events have affected the stock market, energy market and initial public offering market in the US and give some investment strategies based on the findings. The paper gathered relevant data over the period and summarised the research method employed by other sources to lead to conclusions. The conclusion is that COVID-19 and Ukraine war has, in general, adversely impacted the stock market in terms of its return, volatility and efficiency, but with High tech sector is growing rapidly. The energy market also experienced significant fluctuations, and empirical results suggest that ETFs are safer investments than futures. Lastly, the initial public offering during the first year of the pandemic suffered significant underpricing and volatility in their returns, contrary to the anecdotal that the initial public offering market has performed well during the pandemic.