IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v117y2020ics037842662030090x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hedging geopolitical risk with precious metals

Author

Listed:
  • Baur, Dirk G.
  • Smales, Lee A.

Abstract

We analyse the relationship between geopolitical risk and asset prices and show that geopolitical risk is distinct from existing measures of economic, financial, and political risk and that the response of precious metals to geopolitical risk differs considerably from that of other assets. Precious metals are hedges against geopolitical risk in general and geopolitical threats (as opposed to acts) in particular. Conversely, stocks and bonds respond negatively to geopolitical risk and geopolitical threats. For extreme geopolitical risks, only gold and silver display consistent safe haven properties. Our results show that holding precious metals within a diversified portfolio lowers the impact of geopolitical risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Baur, Dirk G. & Smales, Lee A., 2020. "Hedging geopolitical risk with precious metals," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:117:y:2020:i:c:s037842662030090x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105823
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842662030090X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105823?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Drakos, Konstantinos, 2010. "Terrorism activity, investor sentiment, and stock returns," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 128-135, August.
    2. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Christian Pierdzioch & Mark E. Wohar, 2018. "Terror attacks and stock-market fluctuations: evidence based on a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles test for the G7 countries," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 333-346, March.
    3. Reboredo, Juan C., 2013. "Is gold a safe haven or a hedge for the US dollar? Implications for risk management," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2665-2676.
    4. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    5. Baur, Dirk G. & McDermott, Thomas K., 2010. "Is gold a safe haven? International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1886-1898, August.
    6. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    7. Adrian Fernandez-Perez & Ana-Maria Fuertes & Joelle Miffre, 2017. "Commodity Markets, Long-Run Predictability, and Intertemporal Pricing," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 1159-1188.
    8. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    9. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello, 2022. "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1194-1225, April.
    10. Lubos Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2012. "Uncertainty about Government Policy and Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1219-1264, August.
    11. Goel, Sanjay & Cagle, Seth & Shawky, Hany, 2017. "How vulnerable are international financial markets to terrorism? An empirical study based on terrorist incidents worldwide," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 120-132.
    12. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2007. "Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 129-152, Spring.
    13. Dirk G. Baur & Brian M. Lucey, 2010. "Is Gold a Hedge or a Safe Haven? An Analysis of Stocks, Bonds and Gold," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 217-229, May.
    14. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    15. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie, 2014. "The VIX, the variance premium and stock market volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 181-192.
    16. Joscha Beckmann & Theo Berger & Robert Czudaj, 2019. "Gold price dynamics and the role of uncertainty," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 663-681, April.
    17. Junttila, Juha & Pesonen, Juho & Raatikainen, Juhani, 2018. "Commodity market based hedging against stock market risk in times of financial crisis: The case of crude oil and gold," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 255-280.
    18. Chen, Andrew H. & Siems, Thomas F., 2004. "The effects of terrorism on global capital markets," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 349-366, June.
    19. Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Dividend Yields and Expected Stock Returns: Alternative Procedures for Inference and Measurement," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 357-386.
    20. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Chan, Kalok, 1992. "Time-varying risk premia and forecastable returns in futures markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 169-193, October.
    21. Batten, Jonathan A. & Ciner, Cetin & Lucey, Brian M., 2010. "The macroeconomic determinants of volatility in precious metals markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 65-71, June.
    22. Ciner, Cetin & Gurdgiev, Constantin & Lucey, Brian M., 2013. "Hedges and safe havens: An examination of stocks, bonds, gold, oil and exchange rates," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 202-211.
    23. Amihud, Yakov & Wohl, Avi, 2004. "Political news and stock prices: The case of Saddam Hussein contracts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 1185-1200, May.
    24. Kollias, Christos & Kyrtsou, Catherine & Papadamou, Stephanos, 2013. "The effects of terrorism and war on the oil price–stock index relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 743-752.
    25. Brandt, Michael W. & Gao, Lin, 2019. "Macro fundamentals or geopolitical events? A textual analysis of news events for crude oil," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 64-94.
    26. Huang, Tao & Wu, Fei & Yu, Jing & Zhang, Bohui, 2015. "International political risk and government bond pricing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 393-405.
    27. Dirk Brounen & Jeroen Derwall, 2010. "The Impact of Terrorist Attacks on International Stock Markets," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(4), pages 585-598, September.
    28. Choudhry, Taufiq, 2010. "World War II events and the Dow Jones industrial index," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1022-1031, May.
    29. Jussi Nikkinen & Sami Vähämaa, 2010. "Terrorism and Stock Market Sentiment," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 263-275, May.
    30. Garman, Mark B & Klass, Michael J, 1980. "On the Estimation of Security Price Volatilities from Historical Data," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 67-78, January.
    31. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    32. Bryan Kelly & Ľuboš Pástor & Pietro Veronesi, 2016. "The Price of Political Uncertainty: Theory and Evidence from the Option Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(5), pages 2417-2480, October.
    33. Huang, Darien & Kilic, Mete, 2019. "Gold, platinum, and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 50-75.
    34. Smales, Lee A., 2014. "News sentiment in the gold futures market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 275-286.
    35. Schmeling, Maik, 2009. "Investor sentiment and stock returns: Some international evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 394-408, June.
    36. Geert Bekaert & Xiaozheng Wang, 2010. "Inflation risk and the inflation risk premium [Do macro variables, asset markets or surveys forecast inflation better?]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(64), pages 755-806.
    37. Gurdip Bakshi & Xiaohui Gao & Alberto G. Rossi, 2019. "Understanding the Sources of Risk Underlying the Cross Section of Commodity Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 619-641, February.
    38. Li, Sile & Lucey, Brian M., 2017. "Reassessing the role of precious metals as safe havens–What colour is your haven and why?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 1-14.
    39. Konstantinos Drakos, 2009. "Cross-Country Stock Market Reactions to Major Terror Events: The Role of Risk Perception," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 16, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    40. Manela, Asaf & Moreira, Alan, 2017. "News implied volatility and disaster concerns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 137-162.
    41. Berkman, Henk & Jacobsen, Ben & Lee, John B., 2011. "Time-varying rare disaster risk and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 313-332, August.
    42. Gkillas, Konstantinos & Gupta, Rangan & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Volatility jumps: The role of geopolitical risks," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 247-258.
    43. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian T. & Siegel, Stephan, 2016. "Political risk and international valuation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-23.
    44. Chesney, Marc & Reshetar, Ganna & Karaman, Mustafa, 2011. "The impact of terrorism on financial markets: An empirical study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 253-267, February.
    45. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    46. Karolyi, G. Andrew, 2006. "The Consequences of Terrorism for Financial Markets: What Do We Know?," Working Paper Series 2006-6, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    47. Agyei-Ampomah, Sam & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Mazouz, Khelifa, 2014. "Does gold offer a better protection against losses in sovereign debt bonds than other metals?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 507-521.
    48. Reboredo, Juan C., 2013. "Is gold a hedge or safe haven against oil price movements?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 130-137.
    49. Jacob Boudoukh & Ronen Feldman & Shimon Kogan & Matthew Richardson, 2013. "Which News Moves Stock Prices? A Textual Analysis," NBER Working Papers 18725, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    50. Maria Boutchkova & Hitesh Doshi & Art Durnev & Alexander Molchanov, 2012. "Precarious Politics and Return Volatility," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 1111-1154.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Smales, L.A., 2021. "Geopolitical risk and volatility spillovers in oil and stock markets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 358-366.
    2. Omar, Ayman M.A. & Lambe, Brendan J & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2021. "Perceptions of the threat to national security and the stock market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 504-522.
    3. Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2016. "Is there a link between politics and stock returns? A literature survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 15-23.
    4. Lei, Heng & Xue, Minggao & Liu, Huiling & Ye, Jing, 2023. "Precious metal as a safe haven for global ESG stocks: Portfolio implications for socially responsible investing," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Zhu, Xuehong & Niu, Zibo & Zhang, Hongwei & Huang, Jiaxin & Zuo, Xuguang, 2022. "Can gold and bitcoin hedge against the COVID-19 related news sentiment risk? New evidence from a NARDL approach," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    6. Gupta, Rangan & Majumdar, Anandamayee & Pierdzioch, Christian & Wohar, Mark E., 2017. "Do terror attacks predict gold returns? Evidence from a quantile-predictive-regression approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 276-284.
    7. Fatma Ben Moussa & Mariem Talbi, 2019. "Stock Market Reaction to Terrorist Attacks and Political Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from the Tunisian Stock Exchange," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 9(3), pages 48-64.
    8. Luu Duc Huynh, Toan, 2020. "The effect of uncertainty on the precious metals market: New insights from Transfer Entropy and Neural Network VAR," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    9. Asai, Manabu & Gupta, Rangan & McAleer, Michael, 2020. "Forecasting volatility and co-volatility of crude oil and gold futures: Effects of leverage, jumps, spillovers, and geopolitical risks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 933-948.
    10. Li, Sufang & Tu, Dalun & Zeng, Yan & Gong, Chenggang & Yuan, Di, 2022. "Does geopolitical risk matter in crude oil and stock markets? Evidence from disaggregated data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    11. Akhtaruzzaman, Md & Boubaker, Sabri & Lucey, Brian M. & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2021. "Is gold a hedge or a safe-haven asset in the COVID–19 crisis?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    12. Gkillas, Konstantinos & Gupta, Rangan & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2020. "Forecasting realized gold volatility: Is there a role of geopolitical risks?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    13. Jalloul, Maya & Miescu, Mirela, 2023. "Equity market connectedness across regimes of geopolitical risks: Historical evidence and theory," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Mokni, Khaled & Youssef, Manel & Ajmi, Ahdi Noomen, 2022. "COVID-19 pandemic and economic policy uncertainty: The first test on the hedging and safe haven properties of cryptocurrencies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    15. Zhou, Mei-Jing & Huang, Jian-Bai & Chen, Jin-Yu, 2020. "The effects of geopolitical risks on the stock dynamics of China's rare metals: A TVP-VAR analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Pierdzioch, Christian & Risse, Marian & Rohloff, Sebastian, 2016. "Are precious metals a hedge against exchange-rate movements? An empirical exploration using bayesian additive regression trees," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 27-38.
    17. Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Gozgor, Giray & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Sheng, Xin, 2018. "The effects of uncertainty measures on the price of gold," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-7.
    18. Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro & Shi, Shuping & Tan, David, 2022. "Gold as a financial instrument," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    19. Selmi, Refk & Mensi, Walid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Bouoiyour, Jamal, 2018. "Is Bitcoin a hedge, a safe haven or a diversifier for oil price movements? A comparison with gold," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 787-801.
    20. Smales, Lee A., 2020. "Examining the relationship between policy uncertainty and market uncertainty across the G7," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gold; Geopolitical risk; Safe haven; VIX; EPU; Precious metals;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:117:y:2020:i:c:s037842662030090x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.