THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STOCK MARKET & ECONOMIC ACTIVITY DURING THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

Abstract

The emergence of the corona virus and its rapid spread has caused a global health crisis, the virus has had a huge negative impact and has deepened fear in all segments of economic activity and financial flows. Experts from the business world, have for a long time highlighted the facts that point to great losses in the world economy. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicated that the corona virus was biggest threat to the world economy in recent history until today. For the needs of this paper, and in the direction of fulfilling the set goals, available data have been used that through statistical processing show the impact of the pandemic on the activities of the stock markets through the overall economic activity. In addition, the American and several world stock markets were selected for this paper as a comparison with the stock markets of Southeast Europe. The purpose of the paper is to show how the emergence of COVID in the Balkan countries at the beginning of 2020 affected stock exchange activities, how fear and state restrictions led to a decline in economic activity and thus a decline in the indices of all stock exchanges.