The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on non-cyclical consumer companies based on their series of financial performance using fuzzy c-means clustering

Abstract

The increasing interest in investment among the younger generation, most as primary consumer goods, requires understanding how to invest properly. During COVID-19 pandemic, many consumers noncyclical companies of the young generation have affected their sustainability in market places. This study aims to discuss the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the clustering of consumer non-cyclical companies based on the ratio of financial performance using the fuzzy c-means clustering. The data was obtained from the Indonesia stock exchange, which is a series up to December 2021 that measures the financial performance of 84 companies engaged in the consumer non-cyclical sector. The variables used in this study are PER, DER, ROA, ROE, and NPM which are the company's profitability ratios. The optimum number of clusters is determined from the largest value of the modified partition coefficient. Based on the results of the fuzzy c-means test, 79 companies are included in the first cluster, while in the second cluster there are five companies. The second cluster is the best cluster based on their ratio of financial performance. The result confirmed that fewer companies had better financial performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this situation affected the younger investments during the pandemic.