Using US Stock Sectors to Diversify, Hedge, and Provide Safe Havens for NFT Coins

Abstract

This paper explores risk management strategies for investments in Nonfungible Token (NFT) coins through their diversification within the S&P 500 industry sectors. Given the significant decline in NFT coin values in 2022, understanding these strategies is critical for investors. This study focused on four major NFT coins (Enjin coin (ENJ), MANA, Theta coin (THETA), and the Tezos coin (XTZ)) and employed ETFs representing the major S&P 500 sectors for analysis. Dynamic conditional correlation GARCH models have been used, to estimate correlations between the NFT coins and US industry sector ETFs. Our findings showed that while most S&P 500 sectors offered diversification benefits in the pre-COVID period, all of them did during the COVID period. However, these sectors are generally weak safe havens and poor hedges. Portfolio analysis suggests an optimal NFT coin weighting of 10–30%, based on the Sharpe ratio. This study aims to pave the way for informed decision-making in the dynamic NFT market.