The outbreak of coronavirus named COVID-19, emerged in Wuhan/China first, has brought numerous effects on our lives. We are all familiar with and fearful of the eventful economic impacts of the crisis, including the impact on financial markets, institutions and businesses. The extent of impact and its consequence is so enormous that it has defeated all prior research estimations of the impact of a pandemic. For example, Fan, Jamison and Summers (2018) in a recent study estimated that the annual losses from a pandemic risk to be approximately US$500 billion, or 0.6% of global income. However, that estimated large sum of US$500 billion loss seems to be nothing in light of the ongoing costs from the COVID-19 pandemic. (John Hopkins University regularly publishes the latest COVID-19 data from around the world.

You and your team are part of the investment division in the Melbourne office of a renowned Financial Planning Company. The company has investments in different financial markets around the world. To make a timely investment decision, your boss has asked you to examine the COVID-19's effect on some selected stock markets and currency pairs and compare their performance in contrast to Gold and Bitcoin. It is to be noted that historically Gold and recently Cryptocurrency (e.g., Bitcoin) are found to provide shelter in times of crisis. Given this brief background, you are asked to produce a research report addressing the following research questions

1. How did the COVID-19 affect the following exchange rates: USD/AUD, EURO/AUD, USD/GBP, CNY/AUD and CNY/USD? (Hint: use the daily exchange rate data published by RBA-Reserve Bank of Australia or any other valid source for the period from January 2020 till date for the trend and impact analysis, you can use additional data and analysis to support your findings and discussions).