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In Ghana, even though scholars and experts in the field of economics and finance have expressed their opinions and perceptions on the effect of the pandemic on the Ghana Stock Exchange, there has been no study conducted to that effect. This study, therefore, aimed at examining the impact of COVID-19 on the stock returns on the Ghana stock exchange. This would help policy makers and investors in making efficient decisions.

The outbreak of the novel COVID-19 has been a thorn in the flesh of the world in its entirety, affecting many aspects of life including the stock market. This study, therefore, examined the impact of the outbreak on the stock returns of the Ghana Stock Exchange. The study utilized data from the All Share Prices of the Ghana stock exchange, commonly known as the Ghana stoke exchange composite index (GSECI) for analysis. The data covered the period before the outbreak of COVID-19 and during the outbreak. It was revealed that the Ghana stock exchange experienced better returns on the market before the outbreak of the virus. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to wide variations in the market increasing the risk of investments. The exponential General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) (1, 1) model also reveals that the outbreak of COVID-19 has a significant negative effect on the returns in the market. The market in these periods of COVID-19 is highly volatile. It is recommended that investors should carefully consider risk mitigation strategies to enable them diversify their investments effectively and efficiently against the high risk associated with the market in this COVID-19 era.

It was revealed that the Ghana stock exchange experienced better returns on the market before the outbreak of the virus. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to wide variations in the market increasing the risk of investments. The EGARCH (1, 1) model also revealed that the outbreak of COVID-19 had a significant negative effect on stock returns in the market. The market during these periods of COVID-19 was viewed as highly volatile.

The outbreak of COVID-19 is hence deduced to have a negative impact on the Ghana stock exchange. However, the knowledge of how the market has been affected by the disease, it is important that financial risk mitigation studies be undertaken. This goes beyond what this study has done. The study can further be expanded to include other important economic variables such as GDP, inflation, exchange rates and the likes in to the model.

Investors should carefully consider risk mitigation strategies to enable them diversify their investments effectively and efficiently against the high risk associated with the market in this COVID-19 era.

It is also important that investors consider diversification of their investments in order to reduce the risk in their investments. It will be more appropriate for most investors to invest with companies such as banks and the telecommunications companies listed on the on the market. This is because most of the telecommunication companies in these times have taken advantage and are making good profit on their businesses. Likewise, some of the financial institutions are considered essential institution in these times. Investing in industries such as manufacturing and the oil and gas sector may be more risky.

The decline in economic and financial market indicators could be credited to the failure of most business entities, organizations and firms which are struggling to sustain their operations in these times of COVID-19. These also include firms listed on the Ghana stock exchange with whom investors transact their daily businesses. However, about 70% of the Ghanaian economy heavily depends on these business and firms found in the private and informal sector. According to the Ghana Statistics Service COVID-19 Business Tracker Survey, about 131,000 businesses expressed their uncertainties with the business environment and also faced the challenge of financial accessibility. The study is appropriate to unearth the true effect and offer policy interventions.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the causal relationships and speed of adjustment of stock prices to changes in macroeconomic information (MEI) in Ghana from 1996 to 2018 using monthly data. The paper seeks to conduct the investigation at individual MEI level rather than the composite MEI.

Quantitative approach was used in this paper. Monthly data span of 1996–2018 was used. The delay and half-life technique was used to determine the speed with which the information resulting from the changes in the macroeconomic are evident in the stock price. Thereafter, Toda–Yamamoto Granger no-causality approach was used to examine the causal relationship amongst variables.

The paper revealed that although the market adjustment to MEI has improved, the speed is till slow. The exchange rate exhibited the slowest speed in respect of the market reaction while the market reaction to money supply was the fastest. Toda–Yamamoto Granger no-causality estimation also revealed a bi-directional causality between MEI (gross domestic product, interest rate and money supply) and stock price and uni-directional relationship flowing from MEI (the exchange rate and foreign direct investment) to stock price. The paper also found no causality between inflation and stock price.

The findings although revealed improved level of market efficiency in comparison with the earlier data, the speed of adjustment is still undesirable. Rigorous approach should be adopted for the implementation of major reforms such as alternative market so as to increase the number of share listing and to increase the scope of investors' participation to enhancing trading volume and marketability and ultimately speed up information diffusion.

The practical implication of the low level of information processing rate of Ghana Stock Exchange (averagely more than a month) is that astute investors and market analysts could employ MEI to outperform the market prior to their infusion onto the stock market.

This study is one of the few studies in the Ghanaian literature that has extended the investigation of the speed of adjustment beyond composite or aggregate macroeconomic level estimation to estimation at individual variable level. This contribution is very relevant since each macroeconomic variable has unique characteristics and require specific policy framework, it is important to consider the speed of adjustment from the perspective of each of the individual variables.

The study aims at examining how macroeconomic indicators affect the performance of stock markets by using the Ghana Stock Exchange as a case study.

Quarterly time series data covering the period 1991‐2005 were used. Cointegration and the error correction model techniques are employed to ascertain both short‐ and long‐run relationships.

Findings of the study reveal that lending rates from deposit money banks have an adverse effect on stock market performance and particularly serve as major hindrance to business growth in Ghana. Again, while inflation rate is found to have a negative effect on stock market performance, the results indicate that it takes time for this to take effect due to the presence of a lag period; and that investors benefit from exchange‐rate losses as a result of domestic currency depreciation.

The single most important contribution of this study is its emphasis on macroeconomic variables and stock market performance in a small country, since most studies have concentrated on stock markets and economic growth in advanced economies.

The Truncated Levy Flight (TLF) model has been successfully used to model the return distribution of stock markets in developed economies and a few developing economies such as India. Our primary purpose is to use the TLF to model the S&P 500 and the firms operating in the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

We assess the predictive efficacy of the TLF model by comparing a simulation of the Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) index and that of firms in the stock market in Ghana, using data from the same time period (June 2007–September 2013).

We find that the Levy models relatively accurately models the return distributions of the S&P 500 but does not accurately model the return distributions of firms in the Ghana stock market.

A major limitation is that we examined stock market data only from Ghana, while there are over 29 other African stock markets. We suggest that doctoral students and faculty can compare these stock markets either on the basis of age or the number of firms listed. For example, the oldest stock market was set up in 1883 in Egypt, while the more recent ones were set up in 2012 in the Seychelles and in Somalia.

Scholarly inquiry about the stock markets in Africa represents a rich area of research that we will encourage doctoral students and faculty to go into.

There has been little research done regarding the TLF model and African stock markets and this research has much utility and high level of originality.

The purpose of this research is to examine the foreign exchange exposure of listed companies on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the period January 1999 to December 2004. The research uses different exchange rate measures namely; the cedi to US dollar, the cedi to UK pound sterling, the cedi to the euro and a trade‐weighted exchange rate index to determine the degree of exposure.

The Jorion (1990) two‐factor model which regresses the return on a firm against changes in the exchange rate and return on the market is used to estimate the exchange rate exposure for the sample of twenty firms used in this study.

About 55 per cent of firms in the sample have a statistically significant exposure to the US dollar whilst 35 per cent are statistically exposed to the UK pound sterling. Sector specific exposure results show that the manufacturing and retail sectors are significantly exposed to the US dollar exchange rate risk. The financial sector did not show any risk exposure to any of the international currencies. The most dominant source of exchange rate risk exposure is the US dollar. Most firms are also negatively exposed to the cedi to US dollar exchange rate changes, implying that the cedi depreciation vis‐à‐vis the US dollar adversely affects firm returns.

The study reveals the extent of foreign exchange exposure of firms in Ghana and also adds to the limited body of empirical literature on exchange rate exposure of firms in Africa. Results of this study serve as a useful guide to corporate managers and investors on the degree of foreign exchange exposure and the need to effectively manage firm exposure.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on stock‐price volatility in Ghana.

The method of analysis is in two stages. The first stage estimates univariate volatility models for each macroeconomic variable; namely consumer price index (proxy for inflation), exchange rate, money supply, interest rates, oil price, gold price, and cocoa price using the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model. In the second stage volatility effect of macroeconomic variables on stock prices is estimated using the most recent squared residuals from the mean‐conditional variance of macroeconomic variables as exogenous variables in the conditional variance equation of the stock price.

The results show that higher volatility in cocoa prices and interest rates increases volatility of the stock prices, whilst higher volatility in gold prices, oil prices, and money supply reduces volatility of stock prices.

This paper departs from previous studies on African markets, by incorporating time‐varying volatility characteristics of stock returns and further examining the effect of conditional volatility of macroeconomic variables on the volatility of stock. It also incorporates the effect of external macroeconomic uncertainties from oil and commodity price shocks.

In the wake of climate change and its associated impact on firms' performance, this paper attempts to provide a piece of empirical evidence in support of the effect of weather conditions on the stock market performance.

Monthly time-series dataset and the fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) semi-parametric econometric technique are used to establish the effect of weather variables on stock market return.

This study finds that temperature and wind speed have a negative and statistically significant relationship with stock market performance. Likewise, humidity exhibits a negative relationship with stock market performance, albeit insignificant. The relevant stock market and macroeconomic control variables are statistically significant in addition to exhibiting their expected signs. The findings lend support to advocates of behavioural factors inclusion in asset pricing and decision-making.

For policy purposes, the authors recommend that traders, investors and stock exchange managers must take into consideration different weather conditions as they influence investors' behaviour, investment decisions, and consequently, the stock market performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first empirical evidence of the nexus between disaggregated weather measures and stock market performance in Ghana. This study uses monthly data (which are very rare in the literature, especially for developing country studies) to provide empirical evidence that weather influences stock market performance.

This study aims to examine the association between five firm-specific characteristics and the level of compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by companies listed on Ghana Stock Exchange. The five firm-specific characteristics are firm size, profitability, leverage, auditor type and firm age.

The study uses dataset from 31 listed Ghanaian firms from 2008 to 2012. Random effect is used to examine the influence of the predictive variables on the level of IFRS corporate compliance.

The result reveals a positive significant relationship between the level of compliance and firm size, auditor type, cross-listing and sector (information and communications technology (ICT) and agro-forestry). On the contrary, the level of compliance exhibits a negative significant association with leverage and firm age. It is observed that the level of compliance is not related to profitability. The results are robust to different model specifications.

This study identifies firm-specific characteristics that influence IFRS compliance by listed firms in Ghana. This would aid accounting policy makers to institute strategies to encourage compliance with IFRS by the listed firms.

The study contributes to financial reporting literature relating to developing economies and Ghana, in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the weak form efficiency of five African stock markets (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and Mauritius) using various tests to assess the impact of non-linearity effect and thin trading which are prevalent in African markets on market efficiency.

The weekly returns of S&P/IFC return indices for five African countries over the period 2000-2013 were obtained from DataStream and analyzed. The study adopted the newly developed Non-Linear Fourier unit root test advanced by Enders and Lee (2004, 2009) which allows for an unknown number of structural breaks with unknown functional forms and non-linearity in data generating process of stock prices series to test the Random Walk Hypothesis (RWH) for the five markets, and an augment regression model.

In light of the empirical evidence the author(s) using Non-linear Fourier Unit Root Test only fail to reject the RWH for South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt leading to the conclusion that these markets follow the RWH and weak-form efficient whilst Ghana and Mauritius are weak-form inefficient. Besides, evaluating non-linear models without adjusting for thin trading effect shows that, South Africa and Ghana markets are weak-form efficient while Nigeria, Egypt and Mauritius are not. However, after accounting for thin trading effect, the author(s) find that South Africa and Egypt markets follow the RWH. The findings imply that market efficiency results depend on the methodology used.

This paper provides further evidence on stock market efficiency in emerging markets. The finding suggests that thin trading and non-linearity effect influences markets efficiency tests in African stock markets. Thus, recent structural adjustment and liberalization policies have not enhanced stock market operations in Africa. This paper therefore has implications for policy makers and international investors.

This paper aims to examine the value relevance of accounting information from an emerging country perspective.

The study adopts Ohlson (1995) Price model to examine the extent to which accounting information explain variation in stock prices of listed firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

The study reveals that earnings and book value of equity exhibit a positive and significant relationship in stock prices. Earnings explain higher variation in stock market values on the Ghana Stock Exchange compared to book value of equity. The study however finds that despite the introduction of the International Financial Reporting Standards in Ghana, the value relevance of book value and earnings have declined significantly over the period 2005-2014.

A key implication is that regulators of capital markets, standards setters and accounting practitioners need to consistently improve upon the quality of financial reporting disclosures which will boost the confidence of users in their reliance on financial statements as the basis for choosing among alternative use of scarce resources. The authors adopted only the price model in testing the hypotheses. However, to provide comprehensive understanding of value relevance of accounting information, future studies can combine both the price and the return models.

The authors extend prior literature in the Ghanaian context with recent data. Finally, the study adds to the efficient market hypothesis by showing how share prices reflect accounting information produced by Ghanaian firms.