IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/102782.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gold as a Financial Instrument

Author

Listed:
  • Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro
  • Shi, Shuping
  • Tan, David

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the effectiveness of gold as a hedging and safe haven instrument for a variety of market risks. Rather than confining the analysis to specific countries, we treat gold as a global asset and apply the novel Phillips, Shi and Yu (2015a,b) methodology to identify extreme price movements. This method accounts for both the level and speed of changes in price dynamics that better characterises periods of abnormally high risks. We find that gold is a strong safe haven for stock, European sovereign, and oil inflation market risks. We also show that gold is a strong hedge to inflationary and currency risks. We demonstrate that gold had exhibited safe haven properties during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, and highlight the importance of considering explosive behaviour in identifying periods of risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro & Shi, Shuping & Tan, David, 2020. "Gold as a Financial Instrument," MPRA Paper 102782, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:102782
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/102782/1/MPRA_paper_102782.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Historical Episodes Of Exuberance And Collapse In The S&P 500," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1043-1078, November.
    2. Blose, Laurence E., 2010. "Gold prices, cost of carry, and expected inflation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 35-47, January.
    3. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2014. "Specification Sensitivity in Right-Tailed Unit Root Testing for Explosive Behaviour," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(3), pages 315-333, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Choudhry, Taufiq & Hassan, Syed S. & Shabi, Sarosh, 2015. "Relationship between gold and stock markets during the global financial crisis: Evidence from nonlinear causality tests," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 247-256.
    6. Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy & Peter C.B. Phillips, 2016. "Hot property in New Zealand: Empirical evidence of housing bubbles in the metropolitan centres," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 88-113, April.
    7. Harvey, David I. & Leybourne, Stephen J. & Sollis, Robert & Taylor, A.M. Robert, 2016. "Tests for explosive financial bubbles in the presence of non-stationary volatility," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 548-574.
    8. 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.
    9. LeBlanc, Michael & Chinn, Menzie David, 2004. "Do High Oil Prices Presage Inflation? The Evidence from G-5 Countries," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4wt4m7hg, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    10. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert, 2013. "Oil prices and effective dollar exchange rates," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 621-636.
    11. Arora, Vipin & Gomis-Porqueras, Pedro & Shi, Shuping, 2013. "The divergence between core and headline inflation: Implications for consumers’ inflation expectations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 497-504.
    12. Wang, Kuan-Min & Lee, Yuan-Ming & Thi, Thanh-Binh Nguyen, 2011. "Time and place where gold acts as an inflation hedge: An application of long-run and short-run threshold model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 806-819, May.
    13. Fantazzini, Dean, 2016. "The oil price crash in 2014/15: Was there a (negative) financial bubble?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 383-396.
    14. Benjamin Wong, 2015. "Do Inflation Expectations Propagate the Inflationary Impact of Real Oil Price Shocks?: Evidence from the Michigan Survey," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(8), pages 1673-1689, December.
    15. 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.
    16. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Limit Theory Of Real‐Time Detectors," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 1079-1134, November.
    17. Hooker, Mark A, 2002. "Are Oil Shocks Inflationary? Asymmetric and Nonlinear Specifications versus Changes in Regime," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 540-561, May.
    18. Sjaastad, Larry A., 2008. "The price of gold and the exchange rates: Once again," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 118-124, June.
    19. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Kyle J. Kost & Marco C. Sammon & Tasaneeya Viratyosin, 2020. "The Unprecedented Stock Market Impact of COVID-19," NBER Working Papers 26945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Reboredo, Juan C. & Rivera-Castro, Miguel A., 2014. "Can gold hedge and preserve value when the US dollar depreciates?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 168-173.
    21. Yongheng Deng & Eric Girardin & Roselyne Joyeux & Shuping Shi, 2017. "Did bubbles migrate from the stock to the housing market in China between 2005 and 2010?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 276-292, August.
    22. Phillips, Peter C.B. & Magdalinos, Tassos, 2007. "Limit theory for moderate deviations from a unit root," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 115-130, January.
    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. 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.
    25. 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.
    26. Neely, Christopher J. & Rapach, David E., 2011. "International comovements in inflation rates and country characteristics," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1471-1490.
    27. Itamar Caspi & Nico Katzke & Rangan Gupta, 2014. "Date stamping historical oil price bubbles: 1876 - 2014," Working Papers 20/2014, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    28. Shuping Shi & Abbas Valadkhani & Russell Smyth & Farshid Vahid, 2016. "Dating the Timeline of House Price Bubbles in Australian Capital Cities," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(299), pages 590-605, December.
    29. Efthymios Pavlidis & Alisa Yusupova & Ivan Paya & David Peel & Enrique Martínez-García & Adrienne Mack & Valerie Grossman, 2016. "Episodes of Exuberance in Housing Markets: In Search of the Smoking Gun," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 419-449, November.
    30. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2010. "The crude oil market and the gold market: Evidence for cointegration, causality and price discovery," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 168-177, September.
    31. Álvarez, Luis J. & Hurtado, Samuel & Sánchez, Isabel & Thomas, Carlos, 2011. "The impact of oil price changes on Spanish and euro area consumer price inflation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 422-431.
    32. William Cheung & Scott Fung & Shih-Chuan Tsai, 2010. "Global capital market interdependence and spillover effect of credit risk: evidence from the 2007-2009 global financial crisis," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1-2), pages 85-103.
    33. Nguyen, Duc Binh Benno & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2019. "The risk premium of gold," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 140-159.
    34. Markwat, Thijs & Kole, Erik & van Dijk, Dick, 2009. "Contagion as a domino effect in global stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1996-2012, November.
    35. Pukthuanthong, Kuntara & Roll, Richard, 2011. "Gold and the Dollar (and the Euro, Pound, and Yen)," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 2070-2083, August.
    36. Białkowski, Jędrzej & Bohl, Martin T. & Stephan, Patrick M. & Wisniewski, Tomasz P., 2015. "The gold price in times of crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 329-339.
    37. Adämmer, Philipp & Bohl, Martin T., 2015. "Speculative bubbles in agricultural prices," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 67-76.
    38. Paolo Zagaglia & Massimiliano Marzo, 2013. "Gold and the U.S. dollar: tales from the turmoil," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 571-582, March.
    39. Caspi, Itamar & Katzke, Nico & Gupta, Rangan, 2018. "Date stamping historical periods of oil price explosivity: 1876–2014," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 582-587.
    40. Hu, Yang & Oxley, Les, 2018. "Do 18th century ‘bubbles’ survive the scrutiny of 21st century time series econometrics?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 131-134.
    41. Phillips, Peter C.B. & Shi, Shu-Ping, 2018. "Financial Bubble Implosion And Reverse Regression," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 705-753, August.
    42. Benjamin Hunt, 2006. "Oil Price Shocks and the U.S. Stagflation of the 1970s: Some Insights from GEM," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 61-80.
    43. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Historical Episodes Of Exuberance And Collapse In The S&P 500," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 1043-1078, November.
    44. Hu, Yang & Oxley, Les, 2017. "Are there bubbles in exchange rates? Some new evidence from G10 and emerging market economies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 419-442.
    45. Yang Hu & Les Oxley, 2018. "Bubbles in US regional house prices: evidence from house price–income ratios at the State level," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(29), pages 3196-3229, June.
    46. 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.
    47. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shu-Ping Shi & Jun Yu, 2011. "Specification Sensitivity in Right-Tailed Unit Root Testing for Explosive Behavior," Working Papers 15-2011, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    48. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi & Jun Yu, 2015. "Testing For Multiple Bubbles: Limit Theory Of Real‐Time Detectors," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1079-1134, November.
    49. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi, 2019. "Detecting Financial Collapse and Ballooning Sovereign Risk," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(6), pages 1336-1361, December.
    50. Bohl, Martin T., 2003. "Periodically collapsing bubbles in the US stock market?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 385-397.
    51. Tully, Edel & Lucey, Brian M., 2007. "A power GARCH examination of the gold market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 316-325, June.
    52. Swanson, Peggy E., 2003. "The interrelatedness of global equity markets, money markets, and foreign exchange markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 135-155.
    53. Neil Kellard & Denise Osborn & Jerry Coakley & Isabel Figuerola-Ferretti & Christopher L. Gilbert & J. Roderick McCrorie, 2015. "Testing for Mild Explosivity and Bubbles in LME Non-Ferrous Metals Prices," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 763-782, September.
    54. Yan, Lei & Garcia, Philip, 2017. "Portfolio investment: Are commodities useful?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 43-55.
    55. George Milunovich & Shuping Shi & David Tan, 2019. "Bubble detection and sector trading in real time," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 247-263, February.
    56. Capie, Forrest & Mills, Terence C. & Wood, Geoffrey, 2005. "Gold as a hedge against the dollar," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 343-352, October.
    57. Mark, Joy, 2011. "Gold and the US dollar: Hedge or haven?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 120-131, September.
    58. 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.
    59. Reboredo, Juan C., 2013. "Is gold a hedge or safe haven against oil price movements?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 130-137.
    60. Christophe Faugere & Julian Van Erlach, 2004. "The Price of Gold: A Global Required Yield Theory," Finance 0403003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    61. Canhui Hong, 2018. "Flight-to-quality debt crises," 2018 Meeting Papers 166, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    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. Paweł Kowalewski & Dominik Skopiec, 2023. "Wzrost znaczenia złota w rezerwach dewizowych banków centralnych gospodarek wschodzących," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 54(3), pages 259-284.
    2. Hoque, Mohammad Enamul & Soo-Wah, Low & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Akhter, Tahmina, 2023. "Time and frequency domain connectedness and spillover among categorical and regional financial stress, gold and bitcoin market," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    3. Vieira, Duarte Saldanha & Carvalho, Paulo Viegas de & Curto, José Dias & Laureano, Luís, 2023. "Gold's hedging and safe haven properties for European stock and bond markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).

    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. Aktham Maghyereh & Hussein Abdoh, 2022. "Bubble contagion effect between the main precious metals," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(1), pages 43-63, March.
    2. O'Connor, Fergal A. & Lucey, Brian M. & Batten, Jonathan A. & Baur, Dirk G., 2015. "The financial economics of gold — A survey," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 186-205.
    3. Yang Hu, 2023. "A review of Phillips‐type right‐tailed unit root bubble detection tests," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 141-158, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Wang, Xinya & Lucey, Brian & Huang, Shupei, 2022. "Can gold hedge against oil price movements: Evidence from GARCH-EVT wavelet modeling," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    6. Thi Hong Van Hoang & Amine Lahiani & David Heller, 2016. "Is gold a hedge against inflation? New evidence from a nonlinear ARDL approach," Post-Print hal-02012307, HAL.
    7. Hoang, Thi Hong Van & Lahiani, Amine & Heller, David, 2016. "Is gold a hedge against inflation? New evidence from a nonlinear ARDL approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 54-66.
    8. Ghazali, Mohd Fahmi & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Bahari, Zakaria, 2015. "Sharia compliant gold investment in Malaysia: Hedge or safe haven?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 192-204.
    9. Nguyen, Quynh Nga & Bedoui, Rihab & Majdoub, Najemeddine & Guesmi, Khaled & Chevallier, Julien, 2020. "Hedging and safe-haven characteristics of Gold against currencies: An investigation based on multivariate dynamic copula theory," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Reboredo, Juan C. & Rivera-Castro, Miguel A., 2014. "Can gold hedge and preserve value when the US dollar depreciates?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 168-173.
    11. He, Qing & Guo, Yongxiu & Yu, Jishuang, 2020. "Nonlinear dynamics of gold and the dollar," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    12. Zhao, Yanping & Chang, Hsu-Ling & Su, Chi-Wei & Nian, Rui, 2015. "Gold bubbles: When are they most likely to occur?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34, pages 17-23.
    13. Śmiech, Sławomir & Papież, Monika, 2017. "In search of hedges and safe havens: Revisiting the relations between gold and oil in the rolling regression framework," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 238-244.
    14. Shuping Shi & Peter C.B. Phillips, 2023. "Diagnosing housing fever with an econometric thermometer," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 159-186, February.
    15. Salisu, Afees A. & Ndako, Umar B. & Oloko, Tirimisiyu F., 2019. "Assessing the inflation hedging of gold and palladium in OECD countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 357-377.
    16. Semeyutin, Artur & Downing, Gareth, 2022. "Co-jumps in the U.S. interest rates and precious metals markets and their implications for investors," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert & Pilbeam, Keith, 2015. "Causality and volatility patterns between gold prices and exchange rates," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 292-300.
    18. Qureshi, Saba & Rehman, Ijaz Ur & Qureshi, Fiza, 2018. "Does gold act as a safe haven against exchange rate fluctuations? The case of Pakistan rupee," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 685-708.
    19. Wen, Danyan & Wang, Yudong & Ma, Chaoqun & Zhang, Yaojie, 2020. "Information transmission between gold and financial assets: Mean, volatility, or risk spillovers?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Hoang, Thi-Hong-Van & Wong, Wing-Keung & Zhu, Zhenzhen, 2015. "Is gold different for risk-averse and risk-seeking investors? An empirical analysis of the Shanghai Gold Exchange," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 200-211.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gold; Hedge; Safe Haven; Sovereign Debt; Equity Markets.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:102782. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.