Is Gold a Hedge or Safe Haven Asset during COVID–19 Crisis?

The COVID–19 pandemic has shaken the global financial markets. Our study examines the role of gold as a safe haven asset during the different phases of this COVID–19 crisis by utilizing an intraday dataset. The empirical findings show that dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs) between intraday gold and international equity returns (S&P500, Euro Stoxx 50, Nikkei 225, and China FTSE A50 indices) are negative during Phase I (December 31, 2019−March 16, 2020) of the COVID–19 pandemic, indicating that gold is a safe haven asset for these stock markets. However, gold has lost its property as a safe haven asset for these markets during Phase II (March 17−April 24, 2020). The optimal weights of gold in the portfolios of S&P500, Euro Stoxx 50, Nikkei 225 and WTI crude oil has significantly increased during Phase II, suggesting that investors have increased the optimal weights of gold as ‘flight-to-safety assets’ during the crisis period. The results also show that hedging costs have significantly increased during Phase II. The hedging effectiveness (HE) index shows that the hedge is effective for portfolios containing gold and major financial assets. Our results are robust to alternative specifications of the DCC-GARCH model.