Which Companies’ Stocks are “Immune” to the Pandemic?

A new working paper co-authored by Berkeley Haas Prof. Ross Levine identifies why some companies are less affected by the pandemic. Some company stocks during the pandemic seem to be almost immune to the devastation brought about by the global shut down.

Levine and his co-authors analyzed data on 6,000 companies across 56 countries as the coronavirus spread around the globe between January 2 and March 27. They found that stock price-drops were much less for companies with more cash, less debt, and larger profits. These companies were typically those with less dependency on the things heavily affected by COVID-19, such as global supply chains.