Gold mining stocks- an investor's perspective

In this article, gold is analyzed from an investment perspective as an asset that allows you to increase your wealth. The analysis is twofold. First, it is about examining to what extent changes in gold prices in the world markets translate into changes in the prices of shares of companies that extract gold. Second, it was checked whether there is a financial leverage effect, which in this case means that changes in the price of shares of gold mining companies are greater than changes in the price of gold itself. Methodically, the Sharpe model was used and two basic parameters of the model were estimated, i.e. the intercept (alpha), and the beta coefficient as a measure of systematic risk, for the gold market and the equity market of gold mining companies and ETFs based on these companies.The research carried out in accordance with the logic of the Sharpe model shows that the obtained value of the alpha parameter for the stock market was positive, while for the gold market it was nega-tive. At the same time, higher levels of this parameter are beneficial to the investor, which means that an advantage of the stock market over the gold market exists. In turn, the estimated beta for the stock market is much lower than for the gold market. The systematic risk level for stocks is 0.45, and for the gold market it is 1.98, which is a significant difference. The stocks of gold mining companies can be classified as defensive against the stock market (the rate of return of the gold mine stock is insensitive to market movements) and aggressive against the gold market (the rate of return of the gold mine shares reacts more strongly than the movement in the price of gold).