The Dow Jones Precious Metals
Index and Global Markets

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between the Dow Jones Precious Metal Index (DJGSP) and market indexes of the largest economies of the world, which included the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Hong Kong, Australia, Norway, and Canada for the five-year period from April 2007 to April 2012. The multiple correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination (CoD) were calculated to study this relationship. The multiple correlation coefficient measured the relationship between the DJGSP and market indexes, while the CoD indicated the percentage of the variation in the DJGSP that can be explained and accounted for by the market indexes in the regression equation. The multiple regression analysis was performed to study the effect of 10 market indexes on the movement of DJGSP. Results implied that market indexes of 7 out of 10 economies, when used together, better predicted the movements in the DJGSP. It was also found that, when individual market indexes were regressed with DJGSP, the DJGSP was highly correlated with Brazil’s market index and was least correlated with the U.S. market index. As the precious metals index has a very high regression coefficient relative to equity indexes of different economics, the precious metals should not be used to diversify global equity portfolios.