COVID-19 has caused severe disruptions in global economic activities, and its impacts on stock markets cannot be overemphasized. The study employs market model and event study approach with four events (WHO announcement of COVID-19 as a global health emergency, confirmed infections, confirmed deaths, and vaccination) to examine the reactions of four African regional blocs’ markets to the pandemic from September 1, 2019, to August 31, 2021, to estimate the average abnormal returns of each regional bloc. On the day of the WHO announcement, we document insignificant negative average abnormal returns in the Northern bloc. We also document significant negative average abnormal returns for infections in all but the Northern bloc on the event day. The Western bloc generated the highest significant negative average abnormal return (-43 per cent) on the day COVID-19 death was confirmed on the continent. We finally document insignificant average abnormal returns from weeks 1 to 20 after the first vaccination in the Northern and Eastern blocs. The study recommends that investors, portfolio managers, and speculators not panic during similar pandemics since they can generate significant abnormal returns and diversify their investment holdings across the four regional blocs in Africa, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The adoption of EVA as a compensation and management plan, generally, impacts positively the performance of companies adopting this method. However, this paper examines whether the adoption of the EVA framework enhances the firm’s performance and gauge the long-term effects of such an adoption on the firm’s value. It also assesses whether the market reacts to the announcement of the adoption of EVA as a compensation system. Moreover, the paper fills this gap in research literature by showing whether or not EVA adoption leads to a significant increase in firm value as reflected by its market prices on the long run. Growing evidence in research indicates that the stock market does not incorporate all firm information into the stock price quickly and completely (REF). Therefore, the critique that contemporaneous association between price and EVA does not reflect reality is likely to be correct. However, this paper takes a different action. The basic contention is that although prices adjust slowly to information, long horizons are sufficiently long for markets to incorporate almost all relevant information into prices. The study sample consists of 89 US firms adopted EVA as a compensation system. It compares the performance of adopting firms to that of selected matching firms and to the market indexes, particularly, the S&P500 portfolio. Then it uses two common aggregating methods to test the event of adopting EVA by different US firms namely the CAR and BHAR methods. The results obtained, however, showed a slight improvement in the performance of companies adopting EVA within five years from the date of adoption.