This paper examines whether herding behavior is present in the Indonesian stock market periods before and during COVID-19 happens. The pandemic and resulting economic fallout caused significant hardship for people all around the world. In behavioral finance, market participants are believed to be irrational and react differently to different market conditions. In highly uncertain conditions of the market brought upon by COVID-19, investors may assume defeatist attitude and panic sentiments, conveying them into irrational behavior such as herding. Further investigation into studying investor herding behavior in Indonesia is needed to gain a better understanding of their investing behaviors. This study uses Cross-Sectional Absolute Deviation Approach (CSAD) to detect herding behavior and uses all public listed companies from Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The results show that no herding is found before and during COVID-19, including in both up and down markets. Several proposed interpretations of these results include investors having the tendency to act cautious when facing a crisis, improved financial literacy courtesy of the government, investors devoting more time and energy on their finances due to lockdowns and work from home protocols, the possibility that Indonesia is too diverse to detect herding on a market level thus the sample needs to be more specific, along with the emergence of various online trading platforms inviting new, younger investors.

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