Citation

Tavor T, Teitler-Regev S. Jamba 2019; 11(1): e534.

Affiliation

Department of Economics and Management, the Max Stern Yezreel Valley Academic College, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, African Centre for Disaster Studies, North-West University)

DOI

10.4102/jamba.v11i1.534

PMID

30863506

PMCID

PMC6407467

Abstract

The growing number of negative events worldwide, among them natural disasters, artificial disasters and terrorism, has led the public to focus attention on the impact of such events on the economy and the capital market. This research examines the effects of natural disasters, artificial disasters and terrorism on the stock market in order to reveal profit opportunities. In this research, we collected data on 344 significant events that received media attention and examined the differences between the three types of events using the Pessimism Index. Some of the results include the following: (1) natural disasters cause the greatest damage to the economy, whereas terrorism causes the least damage; (2) natural disasters exhibit the highest level of severity, whereas artificial disasters have the lowest severity. The research reveals some opportunities for investors to obtain arbitrage profits. During natural disasters, the stock index decreases on the day of the events and on the two subsequent days. Therefore, investors should short sell the index on the day of the disaster and hold it for 2 days. On the contrary, during artificial disasters or terrorist incidents, the index drops only on the day of the event and the next day, so investors should short sell the index on the day of the disaster and hold it until the end of the first working day following the incident.

Language: en