Safe havens in the face of Presidential election uncertainty: A comparison between Bitcoin, oil and precious metals

Abstract

Even though the empirical literature on safe haven properties of different assets with respect to financial risks is increasing, their abilities to safeguard against political risks has not been the subject of large empirical investigations. This paper uses an Empirical Mode Decomposition-based approach to look into the time-varying role of different assets (in particular, oil, precious metals and Bitcoin) as a safe haven against U.S. stocks in times of heightened uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our results suggest that oil can act as an effective safe haven against political risk exposure; but such property varies over time. The abilities of gold and silver to provide positive returns during downturns have been also documented in the medium-and the long-term. Bitcoin also serves as a safe haven against U.S. stock losses but in the short-term. These findings provide useful and relevant information to investors to help ensure better asset allocation in an uncertain environment.

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