Alternative investments during turbulent times comparison of dynamic relationship

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic, like the Russian aggression on Ukraine, had a significant impact on many financial markets and asset prices. The latter additionally led to large fluctuations on financial markets. In this paper, we try to compare the performance of safe haven assets during turbulent times, such as the recent global financial crises, eurozone debt crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian aggression on Ukraine. We investigate the dynamic relationship between indices from the European countries like the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and popular instruments such as gold, silver, Brent Crude Oil, Crude Oil WTI, US Dollar, Swiss Franc, and Bitcoin. The study estimated the parameters of either DCC or CCC models, to compare the dynamic relation between the above-mentioned stock markets and financial instruments. The results showed that in most cases, the US Dollar and Swiss Franc were able to protect investors from stock market losses during turbulent times. In those periods, gold was the closest to being a safe haven instrument for investors from France, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our findings are in line with other literature which points out that safe haven instruments can change over time and across countries. In that literature, we can find research performed for the USA, China, Canada, and Great Britain, but there is no such research for Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. The purpose of this paper is therefore to try to fill this research gap.