Network analysis of bursa Malaysia’s energy sector during the COVID-19

Challenges in the energy sector have been greatly exacerbated by Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The COVID-19 have an impact on energy demand and consumption because of new policies and norms implemented to adapt during the pandemic. In 2020, it is predicted that global energy demand will fall by 6 percent from 2019 levels, which is seven times larger than the drop caused by the financial crisis in 2009. Due to the unprecedented situation, this paper is motivated to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on shariah-compliant energy stocks in Malaysia. The opening, highest, lowest and closing prices of each stock are taken from January 2, 2019 until December 31, 2020. The correlation among stocks is visualised using the minimum spanning tree (MST) technique and evaluated using a degree centrality measure to determine the importance of each stock on the network. The results showed that the correlation of each stock was stronger during the pandemic. Besides, the topological structure as well as the central stock of the network also changed throughout the study. In this study, Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd (HIBI.KL) is considered the most important stock for the study period. Overall, this research offers a comprehensive insight into the energy market situations