Changes of gold prices in COVID-19 pandemic: Daily evidence from Turkey's monetary policy measures with selected determinants

Abstract

The study examines the impacts of monetary policy measures on the gold prices in Turkey by using daily data between January 2, 2020 and August 04, 2020 so that reactions of gold prices to the COVID-19 pandemic can be defined. In this context, the effects of 11 (including 3 global, 3 national, 3 monetary policy, 2 COVID-19) determinants on gold prices are examined by adopting machine learning algorithms. The empirical results reveal that (i) the most significant determinant of gold prices is the foreign exchange rate in the pre-pandemic period whereas securities amount bought by the central bank is important in the pandemic period; (ii) the number of confirmed cases and deaths have an important and intermediate effect on gold prices in the pandemic period; (iii) monetary policy measures are important for gold prices; (iv) global factors have a relatively high impact in both periods.