Testing for causality between the gold return and stock market performance: evidence for ‘gold investment in case of emergency’

This article investigates the causal relationships between gold and stock market performance or uncertainty by employing nonuniform weighting cross-correlations. In our sample period covering the last decade, we detect a unidirectional causality in mean from stock to gold, but find no causality in variance between the two. For subsample periods divided into pre- and post-current financial crisis, although we detect bidirectional causality in mean for the first sample period, there exists only a unilateral causality in mean and variance from stock to gold for the second sample period. These findings imply that flight-to-quality has occurred during the recent financial turmoil.