Safe Haven Assets During the COVID-19 Pandemic : a study of safe haven aspects of gold and Bitcoin in U.S. financial markets

Sammanfattning: This paper explores the possibility of gold and Bitcoin acting as safe haven investments during the Corona pandemic. To answer the research question the authors use OLS-, GARCH-, and TGARCH-models. The S&P 500 stock- and S&P U.S. Aggregate bond-indexes are used as a measure of the performance on U.S. stock- and bond-market. Safe haven assets have a negative beta during turbulent times and therefore the period of 2020-01-01 to 2022-03-31 will be analyzed. A period of five years leading up to the pandemic as well as the turbulent time period will be used as an average to enable comparison between regular and trying times. The results conclude that neither Bitcoin nor gold can be viewed as safe haven assets. However, it is found that both assets can work as diversifiers in the two markets.