24/01/2024
PRECIOUS METALS ROLES IN INVESTMENT
PORTFOLIO – A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS FROM
THE PERSPECTIVE OF SELECTED
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
Summary: The paper presents conclusions from the research concerned with the effec-
tiveness and roles of precious metals in investment portfolios from the point of view of
Austrian, Slovakian and Slovenian investors. The ATX, SAX and SBITOP indices were
used to represent the market. The analyses cover the years 2007-2013 taking into account
different performance of stock exchange indices at that time. The precious metals to be
examined were gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
In most of the periods under discussion, characterized by differentiated stock ex-
change performance of the three markets, precious metals featured beta coefficient at a low
positive or even negative level. This further indicates that there is a low interdependency of
their rates of return with the main exchange indices, and consequently these assets may be
considered as alternative investments. However, attention should be paid to the fact that
each of these metals is characterized by different investment characteristics such as return
rate or risk.
Keywords: precious metals, conditional variance, safe haven, beta coefficient.
Introduction
In recent years globalization processes and mobile technologies develop-
ment have been affecting the expansionary development of financial markets.
On the one hand, this increases the risk of a worldwide financial crisis, yet on
the other, it provides unprecedented opportunities to invest capital in increasing-
ly more innovative instruments. Apart from conventional assets such as stocks,Precious metals roles in investment portfolio – a comparative analysis... 189
bonds or investment funds participation units, there are also alternative invest-
ments, in particular, hedge funds, precious metals and other commodities, struc-
tured instruments, collectibles or art investments. It is expecte