This paper focuses on four major aggregate stock price indexes (SP 500, Stock Europe 600, Nikkei 225, Shanghai Composite) and two "safe-haven" assets (Gold, Swiss Franc), and explores their return co-movements during the last two decades. Significant contagion effects on stock markets are...

We compare the performance of popular covariance forecasting models in the context of a portfolio of major European equity indices. We find that models based on high-frequency data offer a clear advantage in terms of statistical accuracy. They also yield more theoretically consistent predictions...