IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v63y2022ics027553192200174x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is gold still a safe haven for stock markets? New insights through the tail thickness of portfolio return distributions

Author

Listed:
  • Echaust, Krzysztof
  • Just, Małgorzata

Abstract

This study examines the safe-haven property of gold during two deep financial crashes: the global financial crisis (GFC) and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Applying extreme value theory, we analyze the tail behavior of the returns of 46 stock indices sorted by geographic location and level of market development and then investigate these portfolios with various gold allocations. We focus on changes in the tail thickness of the portfolio return distribution as an effect of an increased gold allocation. The COVID-19 crisis exhibited heavier lower tails of the stock indices than the GFC. During the GFC, gold enabled heavy Fréchet-type tails to change into thin Gumbel-type tails, whereas during the COVID-19 crash, the tails remained heavy, even after hedging. Thus, gold acted as a safe-haven asset, significantly decreasing extreme downside risk during the GFC, but the same result cannot be confirmed for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Echaust, Krzysztof & Just, Małgorzata, 2022. "Is gold still a safe haven for stock markets? New insights through the tail thickness of portfolio return distributions," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:63:y:2022:i:c:s027553192200174x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2022.101788
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027553192200174X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2022.101788?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. Ali, Sajid & Bouri, Elie & Czudaj, Robert Lukas & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2020. "Revisiting the valuable roles of commodities for international stock markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Eric Girard & Rita Biswas, 2007. "Trading Volume and Market Volatility: Developed versus Emerging Stock Markets," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 429-459, August.
    3. 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.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14980 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bekiros, Stelios & Boubaker, Sabri & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Uddin, Gazi Salah, 2017. "Black swan events and safe havens: The role of gold in globally integrated emerging markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB), pages 317-334.
    6. Wen, Xiaoqian & Cheng, Hua, 2018. "Which is the safe haven for emerging stock markets, gold or the US dollar?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 69-90.
    7. Eom, Cheoljun & Kaizoji, Taisei & Scalas, Enrico, 2019. "Fat tails in financial return distributions revisited: Evidence from the Korean stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 526(C).
    8. 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.
    9. Boubaker, Heni & Cunado, Juncal & Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Gupta, Rangan, 2020. "Global crises and gold as a safe haven: Evidence from over seven and a half centuries of data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 540(C).
    10. Creti, Anna & Joëts, Marc & Mignon, Valérie, 2013. "On the links between stock and commodity markets' volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 16-28.
    11. Grisse, Christian & Nitschka, Thomas, 2015. "On financial risk and the safe haven characteristics of Swiss franc exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 153-164.
    12. Jondeau, Eric & Rockinger, Michael, 2003. "Testing for differences in the tails of stock-market returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 559-581, December.
    13. Klein, Tony, 2017. "Dynamic correlation of precious metals and flight-to-quality in developed markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 283-290.
    14. 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).
    15. El Hedi Arouri, Mohamed & Lahiani, Amine & Nguyen, Duc Khuong, 2015. "World gold prices and stock returns in China: Insights for hedging and diversification strategies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 273-282.
    16. Anirut Pisedtasalasai, 2021. "Hedging Stocks in Crises and Market Downturns with Gold and Bonds: Industry Analysis," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    17. Ankudinov, Andrei & Ibragimov, Rustam & Lebedev, Oleg, 2017. "Sanctions and the Russian stock market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 150-162.
    18. Batten, Jonathan A. & Kinateder, Harald & Szilagyi, Peter G. & Wagner, Niklas F., 2021. "Hedging stocks with oil," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Hassan, M. Kabir & Rashid, Md. Mamunur & Alhenawi, Yasser, 2021. "Are safe haven assets really safe during the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    20. Tatiana Didier & Inessa Love & María Soledad Martínez Pería, 2012. "What explains comovement in stock market returns during the 2007–2008 crisis?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(2), pages 182-202, April.
    21. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Schröder, Henning & Tegtmeier, Lars, 2020. "The role of catastrophe bonds in an international multi-asset portfolio: Diversifier, hedge, or safe haven?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    22. Dwita Mariana, Christy & Ekaputra, Irwan Adi & Husodo, Zaäfri Ananto, 2021. "Are Bitcoin and Ethereum safe-havens for stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    23. 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.
    24. Wu, Chih-Chiang & Chiu, Junmao, 2017. "Economic evaluation of asymmetric and price range information in gold and general financial markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 53-68.
    25. Baur, Dirk G. & Hoang, Lai T. & Hossain, Md Zakir, 2022. "Is Bitcoin a hedge? How extreme volatility can destroy the hedge property," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    26. Małgorzata Just & Krzysztof Echaust, 2021. "An Optimal Tail Selection in Risk Measurement," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, April.
    27. Beckmann, Joscha & Berger, Theo & Czudaj, Robert, 2015. "Does gold act as a hedge or a safe haven for stocks? A smooth transition approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 16-24.
    28. Dimitriou, Dimitrios & Kenourgios, Dimitris & Simos, Theodore, 2020. "Are there any other safe haven assets? Evidence for “exotic” and alternative assets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 614-628.
    29. Banerjee, Ameet Kumar, 2021. "Futures market and the contagion effect of COVID-19 syndrome," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    30. Sadorsky, Perry, 2014. "Modeling volatility and correlations between emerging market stock prices and the prices of copper, oil and wheat," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 72-81.
    31. Stoyan Stoyanov & Lixia Loh & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2017. "How fat are the tails of equity market indices?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 181-200, July.
    32. Yarovaya, Larisa & Brzeszczyński, Janusz & Goodell, John W. & Lucey, Brian & Lau, Chi Keung Marco, 2022. "Rethinking financial contagion: Information transmission mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    33. Brian M. Lucey & Maurice Peat & Aleksandar Šević & Samuel A. Vigne, 2021. "What is the optimal weight for gold in a portfolio?," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 297(1), pages 277-291, February.
    34. Abuzayed, Bana & Bouri, Elie & Al-Fayoumi, Nedal & Jalkh, Naji, 2021. "Systemic risk spillover across global and country stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 180-197.
    35. Ali, Fahad & Jiang, Yuexiang & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2021. "Downside risk in Dow Jones Islamic equity indices: Precious metals and portfolio diversification before and after the COVID-19 bear market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    36. Blanka Let & Karolina Siemaszkiewicz, 2020. "Looking for Alternatives in Times of Market Stress: A Tail Dependence between the European Stock Markets and Bitcoin, Gold and Fine Wine Market," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 70(5), pages 407-430, November.
    37. Salisu, Afees A. & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Lucey, Brian, 2021. "Gold and US sectoral stocks during COVID-19 pandemic," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    38. Ankudinov, Andrei & Ibragimov, Rustam & Lebedev, Oleg, 2017. "Heavy tails and asymmetry of returns in the Russian stock market," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 200-219.
    39. 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.
    40. Chen, Zhimin & Ibragimov, Rustam, 2019. "One country, two systems? The heavy-tailedness of Chinese A- and H- share markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 115-141.
    41. Cho, Dooyeon & Han, Heejoon, 2021. "The tail behavior of safe haven currencies: A cross-quantilogram analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    42. Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Kliber, Agata, 2021. "Is there one safe-haven for various turbulences? The evidence from gold, Bitcoin and Ether," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    43. Kaczmarek, Tomasz & Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Grobelny, Przemysław & Perez, Katarzyna, 2022. "False Safe Haven Assets: Evidence From the Target Volatility Strategy Based on Recurrent Neural Network," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    44. Kroner, Kenneth F & Ng, Victor K, 1998. "Modeling Asymmetric Comovements of Asset Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(4), pages 817-844.
    45. Jambotkar Mrunali Manohar & Guntur Anjana Raju, 2021. "Does Gold Retain its Hedge and Safe Haven Role for Energy Sector Indices During COVID-19 Pandemic? A Crossquantilogram Approach," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(1), pages 233-240.
    46. Just, Małgorzata & Echaust, Krzysztof, 2020. "Stock market returns, volatility, correlation and liquidity during the COVID-19 crisis: Evidence from the Markov switching approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    47. Disli, Mustafa & Nagayev, Ruslan & Salim, Kinan & Rizkiah, Siti K. & Aysan, Ahmet F., 2021. "In search of safe haven assets during COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical analysis of different investor types," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    48. Goodell, John W., 2020. "COVID-19 and finance: Agendas for future research," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    49. Kliber, Agata & Marszałek, Paweł & Musiałkowska, Ida & Świerczyńska, Katarzyna, 2019. "Bitcoin: Safe haven, hedge or diversifier? Perception of bitcoin in the context of a country’s economic situation — A stochastic volatility approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 524(C), pages 246-257.
    50. 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.
    51. Anirut Pisedtasalasai, 2021. "Hedging Stocks in Crises and Market Downturns with Gold and Bonds: Industry Analysis," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16.
    52. Dong, Xiyong & Li, Changhong & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2021. "How can investors build a better portfolio in small open economies? Evidence from Asia’s Four Little Dragons," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    53. Bouri, Elie & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Roubaud, David & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lucey, Brian, 2020. "Bitcoin, gold, and commodities as safe havens for stocks: New insight through wavelet analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 156-164.
    54. Ji, Qiang & Zhang, Dayong & Zhao, Yuqian, 2020. "Searching for safe-haven assets during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cheng, Sheng & Deng, MingJie & Liang, Ruibin & Cao, Yan, 2023. "Asymmetric volatility spillover among global oil, gold, and Chinese sectors in the presence of major emergencies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    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. Enilov, Martin & Mensi, Walid & Stankov, Petar, 2023. "Does safe haven exist? Tail risks of commodity markets during COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    2. 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).
    3. Tachibana, Minoru, 2022. "Safe haven assets for international stock markets: A regime-switching factor copula approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Talbi, Marwa & Bedoui, Rihab & de Peretti, Christian & Belkacem, Lotfi, 2021. "Is the role of precious metals as precious as they are? A vine copula and BiVaR approaches," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    5. Hasan, Md. Bokhtiar & Hassan, M. Kabir & Rashid, Md. Mamunur & Alhenawi, Yasser, 2021. "Are safe haven assets really safe during the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    6. Chemkha, Rahma & BenSaïda, Ahmed & Ghorbel, Ahmed & Tayachi, Tahar, 2021. "Hedge and safe haven properties during COVID-19: Evidence from Bitcoin and gold," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 71-85.
    7. Ali, Sajid & Bouri, Elie & Czudaj, Robert Lukas & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2020. "Revisiting the valuable roles of commodities for international stock markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. Văn, Lê & Bảo, Nguyễn Khắc Quốc, 2022. "The relationship between global stock and precious metals under Covid-19 and happiness perspectives," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    9. Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Naqvi, Bushra & Mirza, Nawazish & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Safe haven properties of green, Islamic, and crypto assets and investor's proclivity towards treasury and gold," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    10. Kaczmarek, Tomasz & Będowska-Sójka, Barbara & Grobelny, Przemysław & Perez, Katarzyna, 2022. "False Safe Haven Assets: Evidence From the Target Volatility Strategy Based on Recurrent Neural Network," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    11. 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).
    12. Hassan, M. Kabir & Kamran, Muhammad & Djajadikerta, Hadrian Geri & Choudhury, Tonmoy, 2022. "Search for safe havens and resilience to global financial volatility: Response of GCC equity indexes to GFC and Covid-19," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Kamal, Javed Bin & Wohar, Mark & Kamal, Khaled Bin, 2022. "Do gold, oil, equities, and currencies hedge economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risks during covid crisis?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Al-Nassar, Nassar S. & Boubaker, Sabri & Chaibi, Anis & Makram, Beljid, 2023. "In search of hedges and safe havens during the COVID─19 pandemic: Gold versus Bitcoin, oil, and oil uncertainty," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 318-332.
    15. Yang, Cai & Wang, Xinyi & Gao, Wang, 2022. "Is Bitcoin a better hedging and safe-haven investment than traditional assets against currencies? Evidence from the time-frequency domain approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Chkili, Walid & Ben Rejeb, Aymen & Arfaoui, Mongi, 2021. "Does bitcoin provide hedge to Islamic stock markets for pre- and during COVID-19 outbreak? A comparative analysis with gold," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    17. Pedini, Luca & Severini, Sabrina, 2022. "Exploring the hedge, diversifier and safe haven properties of ESG investments: A cross-quantilogram analysis," MPRA Paper 112339, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Mensi, Walid & Aslan, Aylin & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2023. "Time-frequency spillovers and connectedness between precious metals, oil futures and financial markets: Hedge and safe haven implications," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 219-232.
    19. Noman, Abu Hanifa Md & Karim, Muhammad Mahmudul & Hassan, Mohammad Kabir & Khan, Muhammad Asif & Pervin, Sajeda, 2023. "COVID-19 pandemic and the dynamics of major investable assets: What gives shelter to investors?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 14-30.
    20. Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Naveed Raza & David Roubaud & Jose Arreola Hernandez & Stelios Bekiros, 2019. "Gold as Safe Haven for G-7 Stocks and Bonds: A Revisit," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 17(4), pages 885-912, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Safe-haven asset; Fat tails; Global financial crisis (GFC); Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Block maxima method (BMM); Extreme value theory (EVT);
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:riibaf:v:63:y:2022:i:c:s027553192200174x. 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/ribaf .

    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.