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Gold and financial assets: Are there any safe havens in bear markets?

Author

Listed:
  • Virginie Coudert

    (Bank of France)

  • Hélène Raymond-Feingold

    (University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre la Défense)

Abstract

This paper looks into the role of gold as a safe haven or a hedge against stocks. We extend the existing literature in two ways. First, we consider crisis periods successively defined by recessions and bear markets. Second, we use a bivariate ARMA-GARCH-X model to estimate conditional covariances between gold and stocks returns. The regressions are run on monthly data for gold and several stock market indices (France, Germany, the UK, the US, the G7). We find that gold qualifies as a safe haven against all these stock indexes. This result holds for crises defined as recessions or bear markets, as the covariance between gold and stocks returns is found negative or null in all cases. Gold is also able to hedge against stock losses in most cases, although results are less clear-cut.

Suggested Citation

  • Virginie Coudert & Hélène Raymond-Feingold, 2011. "Gold and financial assets: Are there any safe havens in bear markets?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(2), pages 1613-1622.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-11-00264
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gold; stocks; safe haven.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance

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