Economic drivers of volatility and correlation in precious metal markets

Abstract

We investigate the time-varying dynamics of the precious metal markets. We employ a mixed data sampling technique to identify the impact of macroeconomic and financial drivers from G7 and BRICS countries on the daily volatility and pairwise correlation of Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium. We find that the U.S. and Chinese economies in particular influence the precious metal markets, but in opposite directions. The stock markets and trade balance of both G7 and BRICS countries, as well as the consumer confidence of G7 countries, are the key drivers for the volatility of precious metals. The most influential drivers for correlation are stock markets, money supply, and the inflation rate. Surprisingly, the economic policy uncertainty does not affect the dynamics as much as expected. Lastly, the global financial crisis in 2008 affected the direction of most of the macroeconomic and financial drivers.