Economic Interactions among Stock Market Performance and Macroeconomic Variables with Mediating Role of Gold Prices Volatilities: An Evidence from Pakistan

In all emerging economies, one of the most challenging issues for investors is the multifaceted inter-relationship between volatility of gold prices and stock market index. During the COVID-19 sub-periods, gold has shown a strong hedging behavior against stock market performance. The main objective of this study was to quantify the long-run relationship among multiple independent macroeconomic variables (predictors) on stock market index (response variable) using the volatilities of gold prices as a mediator factor. This study applied the descriptive statistics, correlation, t-test and OLS multiple regression Model. The specific data comprised of period 2011-2020 regarding the fluctuations in gold prices, exchange rate, interest rate, inflation rate and performance of stock market index has been utilized. The statistical outputs of models showed that exchange rate (Dollar to PKR) was positively affecting the performance of Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)-100 Index, whereas inflation rate and interest rate were negatively affecting the overall performance of KSE100 index. The findings of this study suggested that to achieve better performance of stock market, relatively low interest rate and inflation rate contribute a significant role. However, to increase the generalization capabilities of this study the impact of mentioned macroeconomic variables in other sectors like industrial production, oil & gas and energy sectors with wider time span can be more helpful.