Capital is coward, money tend to flee the markets during crises periods. In just few days after declaring Coronavirus as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), major stock markets lost more than 15% of their market capitalization. This study aims to examine the velocity of Coronavirus pandemic effect on major stock markets during the early stages of the pandemic. The study also examines whether or not there was any difference before and after the first confirmed Coronavirus case reported. Using the data on eleven major stock markets, results from this study shows that, out of the eleven markets under study, six markets showed no difference in mean return 30 trading days before and after reporting the first Coronavirus case in these countries. The results also showed that WHO announcement had a more impact on the stock markets performance than the announcements of local health authorities’ announcements. One interesting finding in this research is that there was an inverse relation between the distance of the stock market from Wuhan and the financial performance of that market.

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Purpose-With the bankruptcy of many large companies in recent years especially after the global financial crisis in 2008, the attention to bankruptcy prediction models has increased dramatically. The aim of this study is to examine the financial soundness of the companies listed in the mobile telecommunication sector in the Kuwait stock exchange (KSE). Methodology-Many bankruptcy models were developed as an early warning systems for any distress a company might face. This paper uses one of the most common models, Altman Z-score model, to examine the likelihood of bankruptcy and the financial soundness of mobile telecommunication companies listed in Kuwait stock exchange market during the period from 2013 to 2016. Findings-The results showed that out of the three companies operating in Kuwait, only one of them had a healthy financial position while the other two companies are facing financial distress. Conclusion-The study found that mobile telecommunication companies in Kuwait are facing the risk of bankruptcy due to their negative working capital which makes them vulnerable to any unexpected short-term obligations. As a result, these companies should work to reduce the gap between their current assets and current liabilities.

Carry trade is an investment strategy in which investors borrow low-yield currency and invest it in a high-yield currency, hoping to profit from the interest-rate differential. Based on uncovered interest parity (UIP), carry trade should not work, but studies have shown that UIP does not hold. This failure has led to unprecedented returns for that strategy, outperforming the S&P 500 in terms of the Sharpe ratio. This paper examines the profitability in using pegged currency in such a strategy. While carry trade is performed largely with currencies that adapt floating exchange rate system, conducting such a strategy using pegged currency has proven to be very rewarding, especially when the strategy is enhanced with forecasting methods.Keywords: carry trade, random walk, uncovered interest parity (UIP) Carry trade owes its success to the failure of uncovered interest rate parity (UIP). Gyntelberg and Remolona (2007) described it as nothing more than a bet against UIP. Baillie and Chang (2011) agreed when they described carry trade as a speculation against UIP. UIP is an arbitrage condition indicating there should be no profit opportunity from the differences in interest rates between two currencies. According to UIP, high interest rate www.ccsenet.org/ijef

An efficient employee is considered as a valuable asset in any organization, but measuring employee efficiency is not an easy task. This study aims to measure and compare staff efficiency in Kuwaiti banks using the financial performance of the bank as an efficiency proxy. Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are set as dependent variables, and total assets per employee, cost per employee, revenue per employee, number of staff per branch, and total employees’ cost to total revenues are set as independent variables. Using panel OLS regression on the data of 10 Kuwaiti banks that are listed at Kuwait stock exchange (KSE) over the period 2010-2018, results showed that total assets per employee, cost per employee, revenue per employee all had a significant direct relationship with both ROA and ROE and only total employees’ cost to total revenues showed a significant inverse relationship with the financial performance of the banks. The number of staff per branch was the only variable that had no relation with both ROA and ROE. The model showed that the National bank of Kuwait had the most efficient employees’ when it comes to ROA, while Ahli United bank had the most efficient employees’ when ROE was used to measure staff efficiency. In both cases, ROA and ROE, Warba bank had the least efficient staff among all banks under study.