How do gold and oil react to the COVID-19 pandemic: A review

Abstract

This paper reviews COVID-19 pandemic-related literature to examine its impacts on oil and gold prices during and since the initial outbreak. The literature reviewed covers varying markets, hypotheses, methodologies, robustness checks, and findings. Crude oil is important to everyday life for individuals, businesses, investors, and markets globally. The forces exerted by demand and supply and shocks can greatly increase volatility in oil commodity prices, which has been the case during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Oil has also in the past been used as a risk diversifier in portfolio optimization strategies. Gold has long been seen as a safe-haven asset that investors flee to during economic and financial market uncertainty and turbulence. How did the COVID-19 health crisis affect these two commodities during its initial outbreak and consequent persistence since then? How did government lockdown and restriction measures, monetary and fiscal stimulus packages, and pandemic-related news impact these commodity markets and their movements? Is there a contagion volatility effect between different markets and if so, who have been net transmitters and recipients of these flow-on effects? This literature review offers some insight into the answers to these questions while also highlighting the importance of further study since COVID-19 and its strains are not finished with the world yet.