This paper empirically investigates the impact of COVID‐19 on the volatility of stock prices in India with the help of a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. Daily closing prices of stock indices, Nifty and Sensex from September 3, 2019 to July 10, 2020 has been used for the analysis. Further, the study has been attempted to make a comparison of stock price return in pre‐COVID‐19 and during COVID‐19 situation. Findings reveal that the stock market in India has experienced volatility during the pandemic period. While comparing the result during COVID period with that of the pre‐COVID, we found that the return on the indices is higher in the pre‐COVID‐19 period than during COVID‐19.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has affected the entire global financial market in an unprecedented way. Due to the disruptions that emerged in the global market; the financial market of India also reacted to the pandemic and witnessed sharp volatility. Given the COVID-19 situation, this paper empirically investigates the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian stock market. Using daily closing prices of indices such as Nifty and Sensex, this study examines the volatility of these indices over the period 3rd September 2019 to 10th July 2020. Further, the study has attempted to make a comparative analysis of the return of the stock market in pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 situation. GARCH model is used to capture the volatility of the indices. Findings reveal that the stock market in India has experienced volatility during the pandemic period. While comparing the results with that of the pre-COVID-19 period, we find that return on the indices is higher in the pre-COVID-19 period than during COVID-19. The return of both the stock market reached the bottom line during the first lockdown period, which is from24th March to 6th April.