The outbreak of COVID-19 has weakened the economy of Australia and its capital market since early 2020. The overall stock market has declined. However, some sectors become highly vulnerable while others continue to perform well even in the crisis period. Given this new reality, we seek to investigate the initial volatility and the sectoral return. In this study, we analyse data for eight sectors such as, transportation, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, food, real estate, telecommunications and technology of the Australian stock market. In doing so, we obtain data from Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and analysed them based on ‘Event Study’ method. Here, we use the 10-days window for the event of official announcement of the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia on 27 February 2020. The findings of the study show that on the day of announcement, the indices for food, pharmaceuticals and healthcare exhibit impressive positive returns. Following the announcement, the telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors exhibit good performance, while poor performance is demonstrated by the transportation industry. The findings are vital for investors, market participants, companies, private and public policymakers and governments to develop recovery action plans for vulnerable sectors and enable investors to regain their confidence to make better investment decisions.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚股市的 COVID-19 爆发和行业表现：事件研究分析

自 2020 年初以来，COVID-19 的爆发削弱了澳大利亚的经济及其资本市场。整体股市下跌。然而，一些部门变得非常脆弱，而另一些部门即使在危机时期也继续表现良好。鉴于这一新现实，我们寻求调查初始波动性和部门回报。在这项研究中，我们分析了澳大利亚股市的交通、制药、医疗保健、能源、食品、房地产、电信和技术等八个行业的数据。在此过程中，我们从澳大利亚证券交易所 (ASX) 获取数据，并根据“事件研究”方法对其进行分析。在这里，我们使用 2020 年 2 月 27 日澳大利亚官方宣布 COVID-19 爆发事件的 10 天窗口。研究结果表明，在宣布当天，食品、药品和医疗保健指数显示出可观的正回报。公告发布后，电信、制药和医疗保健行业表现良好，而运输行业表现不佳。这些发现对于投资者、市场参与者、公司、私营和公共政策制定者以及政府制定针对脆弱行业的复苏行动计划并让投资者重拾信心以做出更好的投资决策至关重要。