This study described an empirical link between COVID-19 fear and stock market volatility. Studying COVID-19 fear with stock market volatility is crucial for planning adequate portfolio diversification in international financial markets. The study used AR (1) -GARCH (1,1) to measure stock market volatility associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 fear is the ultimate cause driving public attention and stock market volatility. The results demonstrate that stock market performance and GDP growth decreased significantly through average increases during the pandemic. Further, with a 1% increase in COVID-19 cases, the stock return and GDP decreased by 0.8%, 0.56%, respectively. However, GDP growth demonstrated a slight movement with stock exchange. Moreover, public attention to the attitude of buying or selling was highly dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic reported cases index, death index, and global fear index. Consequently, investment in the gold market, rather than in the stock market, is recommended. The study also suggests policy implications for key stakeholders.

Islamic banks are established with the mandate of conducting all their transactions in conformity with Islamic precepts which prohibit, among other things, the receipt and payment of interest. Unlike conventional (non-Islamic) commercial banks, Islamic banks mobilise funds primarily via investment accounts using profit sharing contracts. In this paper, we argue that the concept of financial risk, on which modern capital structure theories are based, is not relevant to Islamic banks. Given the contractual obligation binding the Islamic bank's shareholders and investment account holders to share profits from investments, we propose a theoretical model in which, under certain assumptions, an increase in investment accounts financing enables the Islamic bank to increase both its market value and its shareholders' rates of return at no extra financial risk to the bank. We theoretically demonstrate that such a process leads to an increase in the Islamic bank's market value but does not alter its weighted average cost of capital, i.e. the weighted average cost of capital of the Islamic bank remains constant. The evidence obtained from estimating and testing the model on annual accounts drawn from a sample of 12 Islamic banks lends support to our theoretical predictions, as do the results from counterfactual simulations and sensitivity experiments. Hence, in the context of Islamic banks both our theoretical and empirical results provide a new dimension to the theory of capital structure, which is based on a mixture of only debt and equity financing. In general, viewed against the main competing tenets of the traditional school and the MM standpoint, our results provide an encompassing paradigm on the theory of capital structure.

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This paper investigates the effect of different categories of essential COVID-19 data from 2020 to 2021 towards stock price dynamics and options markets. It applied the hypothetical method in which investors develop depression based on the understanding suggested by various green finance divisions. Furthermore, additional elements like panic, sentiment, and social networking sites may impact the attitude, size, and direction of green finance, subsequently impacting the security prices. We created new emotion proxies based on five groups of information, namely COVID-19, marketplace, lockdown, banking sector, and government relief using Google search data. The results show that (1) if the proportional number of traders’ conduct exceeds the stock market, the effect of sentimentality indexes on jump volatility is expected to change; (2) the volatility index component jump radically increases with the COVID-19 index, city and market lockdown index, and banking index; and (3) expanding the COVID-19 index gives rise to the stock market index. Moreover, all indexes decreased in jump volatility but only after 5 days. These findings comply with the hypotheses proposed by our model.

In light of the rapidly growing industrialization in BRICS and G7 regions, thorough energy, financials, and environmental analyses are essential for sustainable financial development in these countries. In this context, this work analyzes the relationship between energy, financial, and environmental sustainability and the regions’ social performance. Data from 2000 to 2017 is analyzed through a data envelopment analysis (DEA) like a composite index. Results show China and Brazil’s better performance in the region, with a sustainability score of 0.96, India was the third, followed by South Africa and Russia. Japan, the UK, and the USA were the most energy-efficient countries for five consecutive years. A 0.18%, 0.27%, 0.22%, 0.09%, 0.31%, and 0.32% reduction in carbon emission is observed with a 1% increase in R&D costs by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the USA, respectively. This work contributes to the existing literature regarding an eco-friendly sustainable policy design for the G7 countries based on multiple indicators.