Searching for hedging and safe haven assets for Indian equity market – a comparison between gold, cryptocurrency and commodities

Purpose - This paper aims to evaluate the hedging and safe haven properties of gold, cryptocurrency and commodities against the Indian equity market. Design/methodology/approach - First, the authors estimate the hedging and safe haven abilities of gold, cryptocurrency and commodities for the Indian stock market and further verify whether such properties vary across the broad stock market indices and over the different degrees of market volatility. Second, the authors use the multivariate GARCH framework to calculate the dynamic hedge ratios and hedging efficiencies to compare the hedging properties of the alternative asset classes. Third, the authors verify the robustness of the general findings during the recent crisis emanating from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings - Gold, cryptocurrency and most commodities have significant hedging abilities. Only natural gas, crude oil and aluminum, on the other hand, have safe haven property. Neither gold nor cryptocurrency qualifies as a safe haven asset. On the other hand, the financialization of the Indian commodities market provides a significant dividend to investors in terms of hedging and safe haven capabilities. The authors find the least negative hedge ratio and the highest positive hedging effectiveness for the stock-crude oil and stock-natural gas portfolios. The central observations of the paper remain immune to the COVID crisis. Originality/value - Focusing on the Indian equity market, the paper compares the diversification abilities of traditional assets like gold with those of the modern class of assets, including cryptocurrency and other commodities.