A research on the elements affecting the price of precious metals and the causality relationships

Precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium and platinum have been used as both means of payment and means of savings in human life from ancient times to the present day. With the modernization and development of markets, financial investment instruments have diversified. In this process, with the development of products that will enable investment in precious metals, these products began to be included more in portfolios. Price volatilities in precious metals have started to affect investors' portfolio management processes more. For this reason, the relationship between precious metals and many financial assets and variables has become one of the attention-grabbing issues of recent years. The factors affecting the price of precious metals, the price relationships between these variables, and if there is a relationship, whether there is a relationship in the same or opposite direction are the questions sought to be answered in this research. In the study, Brent oil, Bitcoin, BCOM, MSCI World, US 10-year bond interest rate and S&P500 were used as macroeconomic variables that are thought to affect the price of precious metals. Psychological factors such as trust, distrust, uncertainty and fear, which are measured in financial markets, are also added to these variables. First, unit root tests and optimal lag lengths are calculated. Then, Toda-Yamamoto causality analysis was used to reveal the relationship between the variables. After the causality analysis, association analysis was applied to the variables with the apriori algorithm. With this analysis, it was tried to determine the movements of the variables together through price information. According to the results of the analysis, a causality effect was observed from gold to silver, platinum and palladium. In addition, silver was found to affect gold and palladium, while platinum affected palladium.