The impact of natural disaster risk on the return of agricultural futures

This paper constructs a natural disaster risk index based on natural disaster keywords from news media that can reflect weather, crop diseases, epidemics, and other threats to agricultural prices in China. We then examine the response of agricultural futures returns to the change in natural disaster risk. We find that natural disaster risk has a significant positive impact on soybean, wheat, corn, and sugar futures returns during normal and bullish market conditions. We further investigate the moderating effect of policy intervention and show that the marginal effect of natural disaster risk on soybean futures returns (but not other agricultural futures) is influenced by policy intervention. These results indicate that the adjustment of natural disaster risk assessment will benefit portfolio management.     

Stock market uncertainty and uncovered equity parity deviation: Evidence from Asia

Recently, many empirical studies document that a country's stock market performance relative to the US and its local currency units per US dollar tend to move in opposite direction over the short run, also known as the uncovered equity parity (UEP) condition. However, those studies have applied only to advanced economies to date. This study conducted the same tests to a sample of 18 Asian economies. To one's surprise, we found that the UEP condition reverses its sign among Asian currencies. In addition, measures of stock market uncertainty are suggested as a potential driving force behind this UEP reversal for Asian economies. This surprising result suggests that there might be other mechanisms behind the joint dynamics of equity and currency returns than the portfolio rebalancing caused by incomplete foreign exchange risk hedging. The reasoning is that Asian foreign exchange (FX) markets are even more subject to incomplete foreign exchange risk hedging. Thus, one should expect even stronger UEP evidence from Asian currency markets if the portfolio rebalancing mechanism was the only force at play.     

零杠杆上市公司的股票长期收益趋势研究

与国际发达的资本市场类似,我国资本市场也存在企业零（低）杠杆现象。基于1992-2014年沪深两市全部A股上市公司的财务报表数据及股票收益数据,文章使用事件研究法与日历时间组合法,实证检验了零（低）杠杆公司的财务特征及股票长期收益情况。研究表明,我国A股市场中的零（低）杠杆现象呈现扩大化及增长趋势,且零（低）杠杆公司具有规模小、上市年限短、市账比高、投资水平低及盈利性好等共同特征。研究也发现相较非零（低）杠杆公司,连续三（五）年零（低）杠杆公司具有显著的长期超额收益,说明持续的极端财务保守政策对于股票收益具有重要的影响作用。     

Do Financial Market Variables Show Indicator Properties Relative to Exchange Rate Returns?

This paper assesses the contemporaneous indicator properties of financial market variables relative to movements in six major developed country currency pairs. As indicator variables changes in various relative asset prices, short-term portfolio flows and currency options data are used. We find that changes in equity index differentials, short-term speculative flows and risk reversals on currency options prices exhibit consistent indicator properties for several currency pairs. Since 1999, changes in short-term interest rate differentials have gained importance as indicators. The best indicator variables explain over 50 per cent of monthly returns of the USD/EUR and GBP/USD exchange rates and over 60 per cent of the appreciation and depreciation episodes of the USD/EUR and JPY/EUR currency pairs. JEL no. F31, F32, G15, C35     

Yen carry trades and stock returns in target currency countries

The proliferation of carry trade – a strategy of simultaneously shorting a low-yielding currency and longing a high-yielding currency raises the concern on its impact on global asset prices. In this exercise, we examine the implications of yen carry trade for stock markets in a few selected target currency countries. Three alternative proxies for carry trade activity – a currency-specific profit measure, a currency-specific futures position variable, and the Deutsche Bank G10 Currency Futures Harvest Index – are used. It is found that the three measures of carry trade display various degrees of influences on stock returns in Australia, Canada, Britain, Mexico, and New Zealand. The empirical carry trade effect is robust to the inclusion of three control variables; namely the US stock return, the VIX Index that represents market volatility, and commodity prices. Further, the estimation results suggest that the three measures of carry trade share some common information about stock returns in target currency countries.     

基差偏离度对中国商品期货市场定价的影响 —基于横截面检验的实证分析

构建了中国商品期货市场上最近月合约的基差偏离度指标,并以此构造多空组合进行横截面检验.研究结果发现:基差偏离度较高的期货组合未来会获得较低的收益,而基差偏离度较低的期货组合未来会获得较高的收益;中国商品期货市场上现货溢价的现象较为普遍,由基差偏离度构造的多空组合其超额收益主要来自于组合的多头.这说明基差偏离度是中国商品期货市场上的重要定价因子和风险指标.     

Estimating time-varying currency betas with contagion: New evidence from developed and emerging financial markets

This paper examines the conditional time-varying currency betas from five developed and six emerging financial markets with contagion and spillover effects. We employ a trivariate asymmetric BEKK-type GARCH-in-Mean (MGARCH-M) approach to estimate the time-varying conditional variance and covariance of returns of stock market index, the world market portfolio and bilateral exchange rate between the US dollar and the local currency. The results show that the world market and currency risks are not only priced in the stock markets, but also time-varying. It is found that currency betas are much more volatile than the world market betas, and currency betas in the emerging markets are more volatile than those in the developed markets. We find empirical evidence of contagion effect and spillovers between stock market and foreign exchange market during the recent global financial crisis, and the effect is stronger in the emerging markets than that in the developed markets. Two applications are provided to illustrate the usefulness of time-varying currency betas.     

Optimal currency shares in international reserves: The impact of the euro and the prospects for the dollar

Foreign exchange reserve accumulation has risen dramatically in recent years. The introduction of the euro, greater liquidity in other major currencies, and the rising current account deficits and external debt of the United States have increased the pressure on central banks to diversify away from the US dollar. A major portfolio shift would significantly affect exchange rates and the status of the dollar as the dominant international currency. We develop a dynamic mean-variance optimization framework with portfolio rebalancing costs to estimate optimal portfolio weights among the main international currencies. Making various assumptions on expected currency returns and the variance–covariance structure, we assess how the euro has changed this allocation. We then perform simulations for the optimal currency allocations of four large emerging market countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), adding constraints that reflect a central bank's desire to hold a sizable portion of its portfolio in the currencies of its peg, its foreign debt and its international trade. Our main results are: (i) The optimizer can match the large share of the US dollar in reserves, when the dollar is the reference (risk-free) currency. (ii) The optimum portfolios show a much lower weight for the euro than is observed. This suggests that the euro may already enjoy an enhanced role as an international reserve currency (“punching above its weight”). (iii) Growth in issuance of euro-denominated securities, a rise in euro zone trade with key emerging markets, and increased use of the euro as a currency peg, would all work towards raising the optimal euro shares, with the last factor being quantitatively the most important. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 508–547.     

Currency Exposure in China under the New Exchange Rate Regime: National Level Evidence

The present paper studies China's national level currency exposure since 2005 when the country adopted a new exchange rate regime allowing the renminbi (RMB) to move towards greater flexibility. Using generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic and constant conditional correlation‐generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic methods to estimate the augmented capital asset pricing models with orthogonalized stock returns, we find that China equity indexes are significantly exposed to exchange rate movements. In a static setting, there is strong sensitivity of stock returns to movements of China's tradeweighted exchange rate, and to the bilateral exchange rates except the RMB/dollar rate. However, in a dynamic framework, exposure to all the bilateral currency pairs under examination is significant. The results indicate that under the new exchange rate regime, China's gradualist approach to moving towards greater exchange rate flexibility has managed to keep exposure to a moderate level. However, we find evidence that in a dynamic setting, the exposure of the RMB to the dollar and other major currencies is significant. For China, the challenge of managing currency risk exposure is looming greater.     

Central Banks' Management of Foreign Exchange Reserves

This paper analyzes whether currency instability results from official reserves management, as central banks strive to minimize risk, keep a degree of liquidity degree, minimize risk, and a good return on their portfolio. In recent years the dollar share in official reserves increased, at the expense of the Deutsche mark and yen. The evidence suggests that movements in the exchange rate exert the only influence on reserve currency shares; the long-term interest rate does not have a significant impact on reserves composition. These results confirm the World Gold Council thesis, according to which central banks, by investing excess reserves in short-terms assets, are believed to have optimized their portfolio return.     

Optimal Cross-Hedging Alternatives for the CFA Franc

Abstract: Multinational corporations and policy makers in the African Franc Zone face currency risk while participating in international trade or borrowing abroad. This paper investigates managing this currency risk through the foreign currency futures market. An optimal cross-hedging model is derived and empirically tested for alternative overlapping and nonoverlapping cross hedges of one, two, four, and twelve weeks in the British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and Deutsche mark futures contracts. The results indicate that spot positions in CFA francs can effectively be cross hedged in the Deutsche mark or Swiss franc futures contracts. This research demonstrates that the foreign currency futures market offers potential for less developed countries to reduce their currency risks effectively. Résumé: Les entreprises multinationals et les chargés de politiques dans la Zone Franc Africaine sont exposés au risque de changes en participant dans le commerce international ou empruntant à l'étranger. Cet article examine la gestion du risque de changes extérieurs à travers le marchéà terme des monnaies. Un modéle de couverture croisée optimale est dérivé et empiriquement testé pour des interventions alternatives d'une, de deux, de quatre, et de douze semaines dans les contrats à terme de la livre Anglaise, du yen Japonais, du franc Suisse, et du mark Allemand. Les résultats indiquent que les positions de changes au comptant libelées en francs CFA peuvent être effectivement couvertes dans les contrats à terme du mark Allemand ou du franc Suisse. Cette recherche démontre que les marchés à termes des monnaies offrent l'opportunite aux pays en développement de se couvrir effectivement contre le risque de changes.     

East Asian equity markets,financial crises,and the Japanese currency

The paper studies the interactions between the US and four East Asian equity markets. The focus is on the change in the information structure/flow between these markets triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It is shown that the information structure during the crisis period is different from that in the non-crisis periods. While the US market leads the four East Asian markets before, during, and after the crisis, it is Granger-caused by these markets during the financial crisis period but not in the post-crisis sample. Further, in accordance with concerns reported in the market, the Japanese currency is found to affect these equity markets during the crisis period. The Japanese yen effect, however, disappears in the post-crisis sample. The Japanese currency effect is quite robust as it is found from both local currency and US dollar return data and in the presence of Japanese stock returns. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (1) (2007) 138–152.     

LONG MEMORY IN THE VOLATILITY OF AN EMERGING FIXED‐INCOME MARKET: EVIDENCE FROM SOUTH AFRICA

This paper tests for long memory in volatility of fixed‐income returns; specifically, South Africa's local currency 10‐year government bond, given that the characterisation of stochastic long‐memory volatility is of interest and importance in portfolio and risk management. The long‐memory parameter is estimated using methods based on wavelets, which have gained prominence in recent years. Evidence of long memory in fixed‐income return volatility is conclusively demonstrated across a variety of volatility measures and wavelet forms. This finding suggests a pattern of time dependence, which may potentially be exploited to generate improved volatility forecasting performance especially over long horizons. This paper further extends the extant literature by comparing the predictive power of long‐memory forecasts with those obtained from a standard (short‐memory) generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) process. The results of this exercise suggest that the information content of long‐memory models does not lead to improved forecast accuracy. The GARCH(1,1) model is shown to provide the best forecasts across most horizons (i.e. daily, weekly and monthly). Forecast performance is further revealed to be sensitive to the choice of volatility proxy used. Finally, the derived volatility forecasts are generally very close, and in some cases, almost indistinguishable.     

Portfolio optimization under asset pricing anomalies

Fama and French (1993) find that the SMB and the HML factors explain much of the cross-section stock returns that are unexplained by the CAPM, whereas Daniel and Titman (1997) show that it is the characteristics of the stocks that are responsible rather than the factors. But both arguments are largely based only on expected return comparisons, and little is known about how important each of the two explanations matters to an investor's investment decisions in general and portfolio optimization in particular. In this paper, we show that a mean-variance maximizing investor who exploits the asset pricing anomaly of the CAPM can achieve substantial economic gain than simply holding the market index. Indeed, using monthly Japanese data on the first 50 largest stocks over the period 1980–1997, we find the optimized portfolio constructed from characteristics-based model is the best performing one and has monthly returns more than 0.81 percent (10.16 percent annualized) over the Nikkei 225 index with no greater risk.     

Why Do Large Firms' Prices Anticipate Earnings Earlier than Small Firms' Prices?*

This paper presents evidence that the positive association between firm size and price leads of earnings is not solely a function of private search incentives for firm‐specific information. Specifically, we find that small‐firm prices also lag large‐firm prices with respect to industry‐wide information. Our empirical analysis extends Collins, Kothari, and Rayburn 1987 and Freeman 1987, who document that security‐price leads of earnings are positively associated with market capitalization. In particular, we examine the association between firm size and the timing of security returns for two components of annual earnings changes: the average change for a firm's industry and the firm's idiosyncratic change. We find that large firms' prices have a longer lead than small firms' prices with respect to both components. Large firms' early lead on industry‐wide earnings suggests that returns of large firms predict returns of same‐industry small firms. To test this implication, we construct a portfolio of long (short) positions in small firms when the prior month's returns of large firms in their industry are above (below) average for large firms in other industries. This zero investment portfolio earns 4.5 percent over 12 months.     

基于股票组合的股指期货套利实证研究

沪深300股指期货的推出,给投资者带来了一定的投资机会。本文采用分层抽样的方法复制沪深300指数。在此基础上,进行了基于股票股票组合的股指期货套利进行实证研究。结果发现,股指期货的推出初期,的确存在套利机会。     

Efficient market implications for foreign exchange exposure management

Summary Under the hypothesis of efficient foreign exchange markets, the validity of the Purchasing Power Parity theorem may take care of the company’s uncertainty with respect to the mean value of its foreign currency portfolio. The remaining uncertainty, i.e. the variance of the value of the foreign currency portfolio around its mean, can be reduced by hedging. Assuming efficient markets, the expected cost of hedging is equal to the transaction costs incurred. Taking into account the low cost of hedging, one can substantially reduce the foreign exchange risk at a relatively low cost. Hedging should be used more extensively than is common practice.     

Effect of exchange rate return on volatility spill-over across trading regions

This paper examines the effect of realized exchange rate returns on the volatility spill-over between the euro–US dollar and US dollar–yen currency pairs across the five trading regions: Asia, Asia–Europe overlap, Europe, Europe–America overlap and America. Modelling the interaction between returns and volatility in an autoregressive five-equation system, we find evidence that depreciation of the US dollar against the yen has a greater impact on the US dollar–yen volatility spill-over than appreciation in the subprime crisis period. Appreciation and depreciation of the US dollar against the euro does not appear to have an asymmetric effect on the euro–US dollar volatility spill-over. Our results support the notion that the yen may have been preferred to the euro as a ‘safe-haven’ currency relative to the US dollar during the subprime crisis period.     

Hedging and nonlinear risk exposure

This paper documents some empirical evidence of nonlinear spot-futuresexchange rates relationships and develops an expected utilitymodel of an exporting firm to examine the associated economicimplications. The model shows that the firm should export more(less) and adopt an over (under) hedge in an unbiased currencyfutures market if the spot-futures exchange rates relationshipsis convex (concave) rather than linear. When fairly priced currencyoptions on futures are available, the firm should use them inconjunction with the currency futures so as to achieve betterhedging against its nonlinear exchange rate risk exposure. Thisprovides a rationale for the hedging role of options when theunderlying uncertainty is nonlinear in nature.     

Constrained Mean-Variance Portfolio Optimization with Alternative Return Estimation

This paper studies the problem of asset allocation in a mean-variance framework. The theoretical model of portfolio optimization is specified and then applied to a long panel data set from historic to most recent times, March 1990 – March 2013. The paper contributes in three ways. First, an alternative asset return model is proposed that combines the historical returns, capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and returns estimated based on firm fundamentals. These return estimates enter the optimization problem. The second contribution is the application of an improved covariance matrix estimator that has superior properties compared to the typical sample covariance estimator. Third, the paper proposes two investments strategies. The first proposition suggests always choosing the maximized Sharpe ratio portfolio and the second one, the portfolio with the highest information ratio. The nature of both strategies is designed for investors with different appetites for risk. The performance of these choices is analyzed in light of four types of constraints: upper/lower investment limits, group constraints and transaction costs. The one-period optimal investment portfolio is rebalanced at quarterly intervals. Both strategies are benchmarked against an alternative investment choice such as holding the S&P 500 index, or investing in a risk-free asset such as a bond. Portfolio analysis and backtesting reveal that the strategies are superior to simply holding an equally weighted portfolio, a risk-free asset or the S&P 500 index.