Does the U.S.-China trade war impact the Swedish stock market? : An event study of the impact on the Swedish stock market and which sectors that are the most affected by the trade war

Abstract: There is an ongoing trade war between the two largest economies in the world. Since the trade war is still ongoing, few studies have been done to investigate how it affects the global economy. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the trade war’s effect on the Swedish stock market between the 2nd of March 2018 when U.S. president Donald Trump first threatened to impose tariffs on Chinese imports to the 15th of January 2020 when the phase one deal was signed. Data is collected from Donald Trump’s official twitter account and by statements from the U.S. and Chinese governments. An event study is then made by using the market model to find abnormal returns for different sectors and stocks on OMXS large cap. The study shows that the sectors react differently to the announcements. Some sectors were not affected at all and others were heavily affected. Telecommunication is a sector that had an average cumulative abnormal return close to zero both when there was positive news and negative news about the trade war. Contrarily, a sector that seems to be highly correlated to the news about the trade war is the Technology sector. Basic Resources is the most affected sector in the study when bad news occurred. From our study, we can conclude that the Swedish stock market is affected by the trade war.