Sukuk liquidity and creditworthiness during COVID-19

Abstract

This paper presents the empirical liquidity study of Islamic fixed-income securities during 2020–2021. Using bid-ask and Z-spread metrics we demonstrate that the apogee of both, liquidity and credit stresses in international sukuk market is reached in early April 2020. Contrasting results for non-Islamic fixed-income instruments, we show that sukuk credit spreads recover to pre-Covid levels faster than their bid-ask spreads. However, we find that the share of liquidity component in the yield spread of sukuks always remains below 1%, revealing that Covid-19 does not worsen in relative terms the economic attractiveness of this financing channel for Shariah-concerned entities and investors.