•The bilateral contagion effects across oil and gold are verified by time-varying Granger causality tests.•We find contagion effects of bubbles from oil to gold markets during the 2014/2015 crash and the COVID-19 outbreak.•We find contagion effects of bubbles from gold to oil markets during 2019’s collapsing U.S. dollar (October 9, 2019, to March 13, 2020) and during the COVID-19 outbreak period (March 19 to 27, 2020, and from April 9 to 17, 2020). This paper examines the causal relationship between crude oil and gold spot prices to assess how the economic impact of COVID-19 has affected them. We analyze West Texas Light crude oil (WTI) and gold prices from January 4, 2010, to May 4, 2020. We detect common periods of mild explosivity in WTI and gold markets. More importantly, we find a bilateral contagion effect of bubbles in oil and gold markets during the recent COVID-19 outbreak.