The asymmetric volatility in the gold market revisited

•We study asymmetric volatility effects in the gold futures market with intraday data.•Rolling HAR model estimations uncover two distinct effects.•Short-term negative semivariance plays a pervasively important role.•Positive semivariance is very relevant in periods of rising gold prices.•The impact of positive semivariance is dominated by longer-term volatility effects.

Based on 13.5 years of intraday data, this paper sheds light on the inverse asymmetric volatility effect inherent in the gold market. After decomposing realized volatility into positive and negative semivariance, rolling estimations of the HAR model uncover the relative importance of the long-term positive semivariance and reveal the dynamics of the individual volatility components over time. Two effects are identified: The relevance of the short-term negative semivariance is rather pervasive while the impact of the positive semivariance is strongly correlated with the overall development of the gold market. The asymmetric nature of gold price volatility is multi-faceted and hence more complex than previously documented.