78 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. PRECIOUS METALS PRICE FORECAST WITH ARCH FAMILY MODELS IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC PERIOD Hakan Oner 1+ Selma Oner 2 1 Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Nisantasi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Email: hakan.oner@nisantasi.edu.tr 2 Vocational School of Social Sciences, Department of Finance, Banking and Insurance, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Turkey. Email: selmasimen@gmail.com (+ Corresponding author) ABSTRACT Article History Received: 18 March 2022 Revised: 6 May 2022 Accepted: 20 May 2022 Published: 10 June 2022 Keywords Covid-19 pandemic Precious metals Price forecasting ARCH model GARCH model T-GARCH model T-GARCH model PARCH model. JEL Classification: C53; F30; G15. The COVID-19 virus, which was detected for the first time in Wuhan, China in December 2019, spread to all countries of the world and, therefore, became a global epidemic. Although more than two years have passed since the outbreak of the COVID- 19 pandemic, the economic effects of it continue. One of these is the effect of the pandemic on precious metal prices. Precious metals, which are called safe harbours and used as investment tools, have had a serious volatility in the last century as a result of the economic, political and pandemic factors changing the international balances. From this point of view, in this study, it is aimed to determine the appropriate forecasting model to predict the volatility of gold, silver, platinum and palladium prices, which are called precious metals, during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The econometric analysis covers the period between March 11, 2020, when the global epidemic was declared by the World Health Organization, and September 13, 2021, and includes 326 days of observation. To determine the appropriate forecasting model, ARCH, GARCH, T-GARCH, E-GARCH and PARCH are used as symmetrical and asymmetrical volatility models. Contribution/Originality: This study investigated which of the ARCH family symmetric and asymmetric models could be the best forecasting model for the volatility of precious metal prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. 1. INTRODUCTION Since 1973, when the fixed exchange rate regimes came to an end, unprecedented uncertainties began to emerge in the financial markets. The uncertainties that started to be experienced in the financial markets pushed the investors to work on reducing the uncertainty mathematically and statistically. The increasing importance of risk and uncertainty in today's financial world has necessitated the development of econometric time series that enable the modeling of variance and covariance depending on time. The use of conditional variability models has become widespread for analyzing time-dependent variability (volatility) in high-frequency financial data (Telatar & Binay, 2002). Previously, standard deviation was used to determine the volatility in financial markets, then ARCH type statistical methods began to be applied. The Economics and Finance Letters 2022 Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 78-86. ISSN(e): 2312-430X ISSN(p): 2312-6310 DOI: 10.18488/29.v9i1.3023 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved.