What does futures market interest tell us about the macroeconomy and asset prices?

Economists have traditionally viewed futures prices as fully informative about future economic activity and asset prices. We argue that open interest could be more informative than futures prices in the presence of hedging demand and limited risk absorption capacity in futures markets. We find that movements in open interest are highly pro-cyclical, correlated with both macroeconomic activity and movements in asset prices. Movements in commodity market interest predict commodity returns, bond returns, and movements in the short rate even after controlling for other known predictors. To a lesser degree, movements in open interest predict returns in currency, bond, and stock markets.     

What drives asymmetric dependence structure of asset return comovements?

We examine the determinants of return comovements of three different asset classes and provide critical insights on the key macroeconomic and non-macroeconomic factors which drive the asset return comovements during economic contraction and expansion regimes. We show that amongst the macroeconomic factors, interest rate and inflation have significant effect on the return comovements during the economic contraction regime whilst risk aversion significantly affects the return comovements during the economic expansion regime. The non-macroeconomic factors, output uncertainty, bond illiquidity and depth of recession contribute significantly in explaining the variations of return comovements for all asset pairs during both economic contraction and expansion periods except for real estate-based portfolios. Our results are robust to alternative model specification that uses regime switching MGARCH model.     

A MULTIFACTOR MODEL OF THE QUALITY OPTION IN TREASURY FUTURES CONTRACTS

The values of quality options in Treasury futures contracts are set relative to the prices of all coupon bonds in their respective deliverable sets. As a result, any model used to value the quality option should set its price relative to the set of observed bond prices. This requirement rules out the use of most simple equilibrium models that represent all bond prices in terms of a finite number of state variables. We use the two-factor Heath-Jarrow-Morton model, which permits claims to be priced relative to observable bond prices, to investigate the potential value of the quality option in Treasury bond and note futures. We show that the quality option has significantly more value in a two-factor interest rate economy than in a single-factor economy, and that ignoring it could lead to significant mispricing.     

Double leverage cycle,interest rate,and financial crisis

We view mortgage as a risky derivative of its underlying house collateral and combine no-arbitrage valuation with equilibrium valuation approaches to develop a dynamic model of leverage cycle and interest rate. This model provides a unified explanation to pro-cyclical optimism, asset prices, and leverage, and counter-cyclical volatility and interest rate. In addition, the model shows that tightening funding margin in the mortgage securities market dampens optimism, asset prices, and leverage, whereas it raises volatility and interest rate in the housing market. A double leverage cycle leads to more volatile markets and a severe leverage cycle, thus resulting in worse financial crises.     

Preference heterogeneity and asset prices: An exact solution

We introduce a general equilibrium model of a multi-agent, pure-exchange economy and find a set of conditions that enable us to obtain explicit closed-form solutions to the equilibrium interest rate, stock price, risk premium and stock market volatility when investors have heterogenous risk aversions. Because the market is dynamically complete, full risk sharing obtains and a representative agent can be constructed, though the risk aversion of this agent fluctuates over time with the state of the economy, as the relative wealth distribution of the individual investors changes. We show that preference heterogeneity can cause asset prices to be significantly more volatile than the underlying dividends and that it can lead to leverage-like effects in volatility, in the sense that volatility increases after stock-market declines.     

Flexible inflation targeting and financial stability: Is it enough to stabilize inflation and output?

We investigate empirically whether a central bank can promote financial stability by stabilizing inflation and output, and whether additional stabilization of asset prices and credit growth would enhance financial stability in particular. We employ an econometric model of the Norwegian economy to investigate the performance of simple interest rate rules that allow a response to asset prices and credit growth, in addition to inflation and output. We find that output stabilization tends to improve financial stability. Additional stabilization of house prices, equity prices and/or credit growth enhances stability in both inflation and output, but has mixed effects on financial stability. In general, financial stability as measured by e.g., asset price volatility improves, while financial stability measured by indicators that depend directly on interest rates deteriorates, mainly because of higher interest rate volatility owing to a more active monetary policy.     

Pricing of discount bonds with a Markov switching regime

We consider a Markov switching regime and price a discount bond using a CIR-type short rate model. An explicit formula is obtained for the bond price which includes the solution of a matrix ODE. Our model is easy to calculate and captures the effect of regime uncertainty in the price and term structure.     

Equilibrium asset pricing: with non-Gaussian factors and exponential utilities

We analyse the equilibrium asset pricing implications for an economy with single period return exposures to explicit non-Gaussian systematic factors, that may be both skewed and long-tailed, and Gaussian idiosyncratic components. Investors maximize expected exponential utility and equilibrium factor prices are shown to reflect exponentially tilted prices for non-Gaussian factor risk exposures. It is shown that these prices may be directly estimated from the univariate probability law of the factor exposure, given an estimate of average risk aversion in the economy. In addition, a residual form of the capital asset pricing model continues to hold and prices the idiosyncratic or Gaussian risks. The theory is illustrated on data for the US economy using independent components analysis to identify the factors and the variance gamma model to describe the probability law of the non-Gaussian factors. It is shown that the residual CAPM accounts for no more than 1% of the pricing of risky assets, while the exponentially tilted systematic factor risk exposures account for the bulk of risky asset pricing.     

Heterogeneous Expectations,Restrictions on Short Sales,and Equilibrium Asset Prices

Under heterogeneous expectations, the mean–variance model of capital market equilibrium is employed to determine the effect restricting short sales has on equilibrium asset prices. Two equivalent markets differing only with respect to short sale restrictions are compared. It is shown that, in general, risky asset prices can either rise or fall due to short sale constraints. However, under a homogeneity of beliefs for the covariance matrix of future prices, short sale constraints will only increase risky asset prices.     

General equilibrium pricing of options on the market portfolio with discontinuous returns

When the price process for a long-lived asset is of a mixedjump-diffusion type, pricing of options on that asset by arbitrageis not possible if trading is allowed only in the underlyingasset and a risk-less bond. Using a general equilibrium framework,we derive and analyse option prices when the underlying assetis the market portfolio with discontinuous returns. The premiumfor the risk of jumps and the diffusions risk forms a significantpart of the prices of the options. In this economy, an attemptedreplication of call and put options by the Black-Scholes typeof trading strategies may require substantial infusion of fundswhen jumps occur. We study the cost and risk implications ofsuch dynamic hedging plans.     

Exchange rate regimes and asset prices

We study the implications of alternative exchange rate regimes for asset prices in a portfolio balance model motivated by the recent US-China experience. We establish that asset price responses to various shocks differ across a flexible regime and a -unilateral- peg but the differences for most shocks tend to be rather small. Moreover, while both monetary and public debt expansions have inflationary effects on equity prices, the latter's impact is stronger under a flexible exchange rate regime. These two findings suggest that a flexible USD/rimni rate would not have limited the recent asset price inflation in the US.     

Pricing credit-risky bonds and spread options modelling credit-spread term structures with two-dimensional Markov-modulated jump-diffusion

The relationship between company hazard rates and the business cycle becomes more apparent after a financial crisis. To address this relationship, a regime-switching process with an intensity function is adopted in this paper. In addition, the dynamics of both interest rates and asset values are modelled with a Markov-modulated jump-diffusion model, and a 2-factor hazard rate model is also considered. Based on this more suitable model setting, a closed-form model of pricing risky bonds is derived. The difference in yield between a risky bond and risk-free zero coupon bond is used to model a term structure of credit spreads (CSs) from which a closed-form pricing model of a call option on CSs is obtained. In addition, the degree to which the explicit regime shift affects CSs and credit-risky bond prices is numerically examined using three forward-rate functions under various business-cycle patterns.     

美联储货币政策对我国资产价格的影响

本文利用事件研究法考察了美联储货币政策对我国资产价格的影响。研究发现美联储货币政策会显著影响我国资产价格,美联储加息会降低我国债券和股票回报,降息则会提高债券和股票回报。将美联储货币政策进行细分后发现,预期到的货币政策调整对债券市场和股票市场的回报都有显著影响,而未预期到的货币政策调整和前瞻性指引只影响债券市场。进一步的研究表明,未预期到的美联储货币政策调整和前瞻性指引还会加剧我国金融市场的波动率。本文的研究结论为美联储货币政策对我国经济金融的影响提供了新的证据,对于投资者提高投资收益、降低投资风险以及货币当局完善我国货币政策调控和维护我国金融市场稳定具有重要意义。     

Real and nominal interest rates: a discrete-time moel and its continuous-time limit

I provide a general equilibrium theory of the term structureof real interest rates in a discrete-time economy. I derivethe prices for one-perid and two-period real bonds and a simplerecursive formula for general k-period bonds, and prove thatthe price formula with appropriately specified parameters conversesto that of the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross model (1985). In addition,I consider the behavior of nominal bond pries in a partial equilibriumsetting in which an exogenous price level process is correlatedwith the real economy. Finally, I provide an illustrative empiricalinvestigation of the model. The results indicate a significantcorrelation between the price level and the growth rate of consumption,which does not support the 'money neutrality' assumption underlyingCox, Ingersoll and Ross's nominal bond prices and related empiricalstudies, such as Gibbons and Ramaswamy (1992), Heston (1991),and Pearson and Sun (1991).     

A Markov model for valuing asset prices in a dynamic bargaining market

This paper proposes a Markov chain model for studying the impact on asset prices of illiquidity associated with search and bargaining in an economy. The economy consists of finitely many agents who can trade only when they find each other, and any trade between agents changes the population of the agent types which affects the asset price in the future. Assuming that the equilibrium utility as well as the trade price is proportional to the asset dividend, we obtain the asset prices in steady state. Through extensive numerical experiments, we observe that the equilibrium prices exhibit the cutoff phenomenon (i.e. crash) as the fraction of pessimistic agents becomes large. Models with a market maker as well as irrational agents are also considered.     

Stock index dynamics and derivatives pricing with stochastic interest rates

The paper analyzes the equilibrium valuation of stock index derivatives in an economy with stochastic interest rates and with a representative agent having time-additive power utility. The equilibrium short interest rate dynamics and the equilibrium term structure of interest rates are described by an affine one-factor term structure model. In equilibrium the value of the stock index is a non-trivial function of the short interest rate. The paper investigates the consequences of the induced stock index dynamics for the theoretical spreads between index forward prices and index futures prices and the consequences for the valuation of options on stock index futures.The paper was written while the author was a visiting scholar at Department of Finance, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. I thank for helpful comments and suggestions from Gurdip Bakshi, Avi Bick, Menachem Brenner (the editor), Zhiwu Chen, San-Lin Chung, Mark Fisher, Andreas Höger, Marti Subrahmanyam, two anonymous referees, and participants at the Western Finance Association meeting in San Diego, the European Financial Management Association meeting in Istanbul, the European Finance Association meeting in Vienna, and the Center of Analytical Finance workshop at University of Aarhus. Financial support from the Danish Natural Science and Social Science Reasearch Councils is gratefully acknowledged.     

A self-exciting switching jump diffusion: properties,calibration and hitting time

A way to model the clustering of jumps in asset prices consists in combining a diffusion process with a jump Hawkes process in the dynamics of the asset prices. This article proposes a new alternative model based on regime switching processes, referred to as a self-exciting switching jump diffusion (SESJD) model. In this model, jumps in the asset prices are synchronized with changes of states of a hidden Markov chain. The matrix of transition probabilities of this chain is designed in order to approximate the dynamics of a Hawkes process. This model presents several advantages compared to other jump clustering models. Firstly, the SESJD model is easy to fit to time series since estimation can be performed with an enhanced Hamilton filter. Secondly, the model explains various forms of option volatility smiles. Thirdly, several properties about the hitting times of the SESJD model can be inferred by using a fluid embedding technique, which leads to closed form expressions for some financial derivatives, like perpetual binary options.     

HARA utility maximization in a Markov-switching bond–stock market

We present a flexible multidimensional bond–stock model incorporating regime switching, a stochastic short rate and further stochastic factors, such as stochastic asset covariance. In this framework we consider an investor whose risk preferences are characterized by the hyperbolic absolute risk-aversion utility function and solve the problem of optimizing the expected utility from her terminal wealth. For the optimal portfolio we obtain a constant-proportion portfolio insurance-type strategy with a Markov-switching stochastic multiplier and prove that it assures a lower bound on the terminal wealth. Explicit and easy-to-use verification theorems are proven. Furthermore, we apply the results to a specific model. We estimate the model parameters and test the performance of the derived optimal strategy using real data. The influence of the investor’s risk preferences and the model parameters on the portfolio is studied in detail. A comparison to the results with the power utility function is also provided.     

Leverage, options liabilities, and corporate bond pricing

The two major problems with typical structural models are the failure to attain a positive credit spread in the very short term, and overestimation of the overall level of the credit spread. We recognize the presence of option liabilities in a firm’s capital structure and the effect they have on the firm’s credit spread. Including option liabilities and employing a regime switching interest rate process to capture the business cycle resolves the above-mentioned drawbacks in explaining credit spreads. We find that the credit spread overestimation problem in one of the structural models, Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein (J Finan 56:1929–1957, 2001), can be resolved by combining option liabilities and the regime-switching interest rate process when dealing with an investment grade bond, whereas with junk bonds, only the regime-switching interest rate process is needed. We also examine vulnerable option values, debt values, and zero-coupon bond values with different model settings and leverage ratios.      

Option pricing and Esscher transform under regime switching

Summary We consider the option pricing problem when the risky underlying assets are driven by Markov-modulated Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM). That is, the market parameters, for instance, the market interest rate, the appreciation rate and the volatility of the underlying risky asset, depend on unobservable states of the economy which are modelled by a continuous-time Hidden Markov process. The market described by the Markov-modulated GBM model is incomplete in general and, hence, the martingale measure is not unique. We adopt a regime switching random Esscher transform to determine an equivalent martingale pricing measure. As in Miyahara [33], we can justify our pricing result by the minimal entropy martingale measure (MEMM).We would like to thank the referees for many helpful and insightful comments and suggestions.Correspondence to: R. J. Elliott