Impact of the religious festivity on the tunis stock exchange

Abstract

The month of Ramadan is anticipated to influence the behavior of the stock market, where the en-vironment in Ramadan is different from other months. During the Ramadan month, transformations in the social life of people are quite apparent and significant, and the overall economic activity tends to de-celerate as the number of working hours decreases. This paper aims to explore the impact of the Ramadan month on the stock market returns, volatility, and trading volume on the Tunis Stock Exchange (TSE) between September 2009 and July 2019. To achieve these objectives, the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) technique and the ordinary least squares regression are used. The results show that the impact of the Ramadan month on the daily returns is positive and statistically significant at a 1% level. It is also found that the impact of the Ramadan month on the volatility and trading volume is negative and statistically significant. The findings can help domestic and foreign inves-tors and regulators to better comprehend the Tunisian stock exchange and investor behavior. Moreover, this research can help investors to develop their trading strategies.