Research On The Factors Affecting The International Gold Spot Price

As a symbol of national wealth and power,gold is becoming more and more important in international competition.China's gold market has developed less than 15 years and the market autonomy is not prominent.Right now the domestic gold market is strongly following the international gold market.Faced with the downturn of global economy,the increased vitality of domestic capital market,and the domestic economic slowing down,more and more investors are listing gold in their asset portfolio.Furthermore,the People's Bank of China has also continued to buy gold to diversify its foreign exchange reserves in recent years.Whether from the national level or the individual investor level,to deepen the understanding of the factors affecting the price of gold is very important.In this paper,based on the existing research,more factors affecting gold price were founded through the analysis of gold supply and demand.This paper used a combination of quantitative research and qualitative research method.First,through the establishment of various econometrics model including VEC model,ECM model,Granger causality test and impulse response analysis,we deeply analyzed the influences on international gold spot price of the US dollar index,US inflation rate,the global central bank gold reserves and the US real interest rate.Secondly,through the method of event analysis,the influences of the major economic and political events occurred between 1990 and 2015 on the international gold spot price were studied.Quantitative research shows that US real interest rate changes have the greatest contribution to gold price volatility.In short term,the price of gold has a higher elasticity,which is less affected by changes of the price in the early period,and the impact of the US inflation rate on the short-term gold price is not significant.Qualitative research shows that gold prices are mainly affected by the changes in gold market policy and market structure,the macroeconomic situation in the US,economic policies of major economies,war or military conflicts,local conflicts or unrest,and natural disasters.