An empirical analysis of the relationships between crude oil, gold and stock markets

This paper analyzes the direction of the causality between crude oil, gold and stock markets for the largest economy in the world with respect to such markets, the US. To do so, we apply non-linear Granger causality tests. We find a nonlinear causal relationship among the three markets considered, with the causality going in all directions, when the full sample and different subsamples are considered. However, we find a unidirectional nonlinear causal relationship between the crude oil and gold market (with the causality only going from oil price changes to gold price changes) when the subsample runs from the first date of any year between the mid-1990s and 2001 to last available data (February 5, 2015). The latter result may explain the lack of consensus existing in the literature about the direction of the causal link between the crude oil and gold markets.