Cryptocurrency Safe Haven Property against Indonesian Stock Market During COVID-19

Abstract

Safe-haven assets conserve their value or grow against another asset or portfolioduring market turmoil. Indonesian stock market, represented by the Jakarta composite index (JKSE), plunged in price because of COVID-19, pushing investors to look for safe-havens. The cryptocurrency began to be perceived as a store of value as indicated by the transaction volume increase; hence it was expected to be a safe haven asset. However, cryptocurrency’s high price volatility cast doubts on its store of value effectiveness, prompting inspection for its safe haven property as well. This research aimed to predict the assets' risk and return plus investigate whether cryptocurrency is safe haven assets against the Indonesian stock market during COVID- 19. Daily closing prices of JKSE, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple were used, then the GARCH model was implemented in the forecasting. DCC-GARCH model, followed by dummy variable regression, will be applied to the return data to evaluate the safe haven property. The prediction projected Bitcoin as the most profitable asset andRipple as the riskiest. The analysis and robustness test suggested that none of these cryptocurrencies were safe haven assets during the whole observation. This indicates that investors who intend to seek safe haven investments were advised against investing in these cryptocurrencies.