Contrarian strategy and overreaction in foreign exchange markets

This paper investigates patterns to assist investors to forecast future exchange rate movements. We test for overreaction and underreaction examining exchange rate changes following excess 1-day fluctuations for currencies in two emerging (Turkey, Brazil) and two developed (US, UK) countries. Using euro as the base currency, we identify that the Turkish lira, the Brazilian real and the US dollar overreact, while the British pound underreacts. In the case of British pound, asymmetric responses and lack of volatility are two crucial factors to reject overreaction. Also, we find that contrarian strategy can be used in all currency markets for profitable investments.     

What Drives Stock Price Behavior Following Extreme One-Day Returns

We identify samples of losers and winners by selecting daily stock price returns in excess of 10% (sign ignored) and determine whether these samples over‐ or underreact. We then identify “informed” events, which correspond to announcements in the Wall Street Journal(WSJ), and “uninformed” events, which are not explained in the WSJ. For winners, there is overreaction in response to uninformed events but no overreaction on average in response to informed events. This finding suggests the degree of overreaction to new information depends on whether the cause of the extreme stock price change is publicly released.     

Performance of Currency Trading Strategies in Developed and Emerging Markets: Some Striking Differences

Expanding the currency investment universe makes a lot of sense from a diversification point of view. Nevertheless, 60% of the total foreign exchange turnover is still only traded in three currency pairs (USD/EUR, USD/JPY and USD/GBP). The share of trading in local currencies in emerging markets is only around 5%. This can be explained by the fact that some currency managers fear investing in emerging market currencies. Many believe that political risk is the most dominant driver in these markets and that traditional investment rules do not work. In this paper, I apply four technical trading strategies for the developed market currencies and for the most traded emerging market currencies. The empirical results show some striking differences. They suggest that trend-following rules work better for emerging market currencies, while carry trading strategies perform better across developed market currencies. Nevertheless, it seems that conventional techniques could be successfully applied to both developed and emerging market currencies. I conclude that currency managers should not be afraid to diversify into emerging market currencies. They should, however, adjust their trading style accordingly.     

SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位——汇率市场波动传染与波动聚类的实时甄别

随着人民币国际化进程的逐步推进,SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位引人瞩目。本文基于非线性MSBIARCH模型,实时甄别人民币市场与美元市场、英镑市场、日元市场、欧元市场之间的波动传染关系,以及波动传染作用下汇率市场的波动聚类态势,进而识别SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位,旨在为及时防范并规避人民币市场的波动风险提供参考。研究发现,汇率市场经由“经济基本面”“市场情绪”以及“市场预期”对外发挥波动传染作用,人民币市场与美元市场之间存在双向波动传染关系,与英镑市场、欧元市场以及日元市场之间存在单向波动传染关系。不同汇率市场之间的波动传染关系表现出时间区制转移特征,汇率市场的波动聚类态势也呈现时变特征。汇率市场发挥波动传染作用的时间与汇率市场呈现波动聚类态势的时间相匹配,均集中在极端经济事件期、不规则事件期以及政策颁布事件期。国际汇率市场的波动传染作用导致了人民币市场的波动聚类态势,而人民币市场的波动传染作用仅强化了国际汇率市场的波动聚类态势,SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化程度有待进一步提高。     

Exchange rate volatility across financial crises

This paper studies the impact of global financial turmoil on the exchange rate policies in emerging countries. Spillovers from advanced financial markets to currencies in emerging countries are likely to be exacerbated during crisis periods. To test this hypothesis, we assess the exchange rate policies by currencies’ volatility and investigate their relationship to a global financial stress indicator, measured by the volatility on global markets. We introduce the possibility of nonlinearities by running smooth transition regressions over a sample of 21 emerging countries from January 1994 to September 2009. The results confirm that exchange rate volatility does increase more than proportionally with the global financial stress, for most countries in the sample. We also evidence regional contagion effects spreading from one emerging currency to other currencies in the neighboring area.     

FOREIGN-CURRENCY OPTIONS, EX ANTE EXCHANGE-RATE VOLATILITY, AND MARKET EFFICIENCY: AN EMPIRICAL TEST

“The currency option's attraction results from the volatility of foreign-exchange markets, where rates can move as much as 3 percent in a day” (M. Sesit, Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1984, p. 25). This study compares the foreign-exchange rate implicit volatility of call options and put options that are written on a foreign currency. These implicit volatilities should be equal, and equal to the volatility of the proportional change in the exchange rate, given that option prices are efficient and that the foreign-currency option pricing model described by Biger and Hull holds. The foreign-currency options that are examined in this study are the British pound, Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and West German mark. The results of this study support the notions of market efficiency and put-call parity.     

SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位——汇率市场波动传染与波动聚类的实时甄别

随着人民币国际化进程的逐步推进,SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位引人瞩目。本文基于非线性MSBIARCH模型,实时甄别人民币市场与美元市场、英镑市场、日元市场、欧元市场之间的波动传染关系,以及波动传染作用下汇率市场的波动聚类态势,进而识别SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化定位,旨在为及时防范并规避人民币市场的波动风险提供参考。研究发现,汇率市场经由“经济基本面”“市场情绪”以及“市场预期”对外发挥波动传染作用,人民币市场与美元市场之间存在双向波动传染关系,与英镑市场、欧元市场以及日元市场之间存在单向波动传染关系。不同汇率市场之间的波动传染关系表现出时间区制转移特征,汇率市场的波动聚类态势也呈现时变特征。汇率市场发挥波动传染作用的时间与汇率市场呈现波动聚类态势的时间相匹配,均集中在极端经济事件期、不规则事件期以及政策颁布事件期。国际汇率市场的波动传染作用导致了人民币市场的波动聚类态势,而人民币市场的波动传染作用仅强化了国际汇率市场的波动聚类态势,SDR货币篮子中人民币的国际化程度有待进一步提高。     

Are Open Markets Good for Foreign Investors and Emerging Nations?

Although policymakers of emerging nations routinely brand foreign capital as "hot money" and hold it responsible for the ills of their economies, this article suggests that the experience of opening up their markets to overseas investors has been largely beneficial for the host countries. Based on their own recent study, the authors report that when emerging economies open their markets, the level of stock prices tends to rise without an associated increase in volatility, and more capital becomes available for domestic investment at a lower cost. The stock markets also appear to become more efficient, thus resulting in a better allocation of resources. Furthermore, the inflow of foreign capital does not lead to higher inflation or stronger currencies, nor does the volatility of inflation or exchange rates increase. If some countries experience large capital outflows with damaging consequences, the culprit is not foreign investors, but rather policymakers' futile attempt to defy market forces and the failure of their economies to put the capital to productive uses.
The authors' analysis also suggests that, when the recent turmoil in emerging markets is set in the context of a longer-run historical perspective, nothing appears to have changed that would materially alter the prospects for investing in emerging markets. The recent market volatility and currency crises in emerging nations are by no means extraordinary—indeed, the currencies of many developing countries fall routinely. What distinguishes the Mexican and Thai currency crises from such run-of-the-mill devaluations is that both governments resisted the inevitable until market forces brought about a crash. The recent emerging market currency crises should accordingly be viewed as more or less predictable "road bumps" that can be expected when the policymakers of emerging economies gradually—and grudgingly—relinquish their power to the markets.     

Bitcoin as a Complement to Emerging Market Currencies

Bitcoin is a digital currency that has gained significant traction as an economic instrument. Despite its rise, it has received little attention from the scholarly community. This study is one of the first studies to examine Bitcoin’s use as a complement to emerging markets currencies; more specifically, I analyze the value and volatility of Bitcoin relative to emerging market currencies and explore ways in which Bitcoin can complement emerging market currencies. The results suggest that Bitcoin has characteristics that make it well-suited to work as a complement to emerging market currencies and that there are ways to minimize Bitcoin’s risks.     

Currency momentum strategies

We provide a broad empirical investigation of momentum strategies in the foreign exchange market. We find a significant cross-sectional spread in excess returns of up to 10% per annum (p.a.) between past winner and loser currencies. This spread in excess returns is not explained by traditional risk factors, it is partially explained by transaction costs and shows behavior consistent with investor under- and overreaction. Moreover, cross-sectional currency momentum has very different properties from the widely studied carry trade and is not highly correlated with returns of benchmark technical trading rules. However, there seem to be very effective limits to arbitrage that prevent momentum returns from being easily exploitable in currency markets.     

Currency excess returns and global downside market risk

We assess cross-sectional differences in 23 bilateral currency excess returns in an empirical model that distinguishes between US-specific and global risks, conditional on US bull (upside) or bear (downside) markets. Using the US dollar as numeraire currency, our results suggest that global downside risk is compensated in conditional and unconditional, bilateral currency excess returns. This finding is mostly driven by the emerging markets' currencies in our sample. We also find that the link between the global downside risk and risks associated with a typical carry trade strategy is much weaker for emerging markets' currencies than for developed markets' currencies.     

Impact of stock market trading on currency market volatility spillovers

This research aims to detect the volatility linkages among various currencies during operating and non-operating hours of three major stock markets (Tokyo, London and New York) by employing bivariate VAR-BEKK-GARCH model in selected currency pairs. In particular, the aim is to analyze whether the major stock markets have a differential impact on volatility linkages in currency markets. The results indicate that volatility linkages in intraday are far stronger then in daily results. One remarkable result is that rather than major currencies, some minor and exotic currencies play a leading role in volatility transmission during trading hours of major stock markets.     

中国银行间市场开创卢布交易业务完善市场功能

1994年人民币汇率形成机制改革以来,中国银行间外汇市场挂牌了美元、欧元、日元、英镑和港币等五种国际储备货币。本轮国际金融危机以来,主要货币汇率波动加大,微观主体出于节约汇兑成本的需要,对人民币与新兴市场货币兑换交易的需求不断上升。为满足经济主体的需求,中国人民银行积极探索在银行间外汇市场挂牌人民币对新兴市场货币交易。2010年11月22日,中国银行间外汇市场挂牌人民币对卢布交易。挂牌以来,中国银行间外汇市场人民币对新兴市场货币交易健康发展,报价日益活跃,成交快速增长。截至2011年9月末,银行间外汇市场人民币对卢布成交53.10亿元人民币,2011年下半年以来的交易量也已超过了人民币对英镑的交易量。在我国银行间市场挂牌人民币对卢布交易一周年之际,本刊特推出四家人民币对卢布做市商相关经验与感想的专题文章,供市场参考。     

Interdependence and dynamics in currency futures markets: A multivariate analysis of intraday data

This paper investigates long-term interdependencies and short-term dynamics in currency futures utilizing intraday data for six major foreign currencies: the British Pound, Deutsche Mark, Swiss Franc, Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar, and Japanese Yen. Lack of cointegration (CI) among the foreign exchange futures is found to be the prevailing mode of behavior, but some temporary deviations from the no-CI condition are detected. There is a notable overlap between detected CI relationships and the timing of policy changes, world events, and regime shifts, indicating that the observed CIs are event-driven. The robustness of the CI results is checked with respect to variations in the model, lag structure, data period, sample horizon, and currency basket grouping. Impulse–response functions (IRFs) reveal that currency markets are in general efficient and absorb new information within the day. The interdependence among currencies is found to be asymmetric.     

The time-varying diversifiability of corporate foreign exchange exposure

Estimating comovement measures for a large set of bilateral foreign exchange (FX) rates, I explore the relation between firm-level FX exposure and its time-varying diversifiability. For a sample of U.S. firms, the magnitude of FX exposure appears to increase during periods of low currency risk diversifiability. Additional results suggest that the introduction of the euro exacerbated the effect of diversifiability on developed market currency exposure. Moreover, the low diversifiability of emerging market currencies seems to have a stronger effect on FX exposure than the low diversifiability of developed market currencies.     

Joint dynamics of foreign exchange and stock markets in emerging Europe

This paper proposes an ideal specification for studying joint dynamics of emerging stock and foreign exchange markets, and applies it on European emerging markets where this interaction is of particular significance due to large external deficits. Results show that global developed and emerging stock market returns account for a large proportion of the (permanent) comovement between the stock index and currency value. The residual interaction after controlling for global indexes is small. The sign of the currency-stock market relationship is driven by dependence on foreign capital (predominantly positive for countries which are net receivers of foreign portfolio capital) and depth of the local stock market. Bank of Russia's intensive involvement in the currency market delays Ruble's response to global information. Emerging European currencies predict reversals in global equity indexes several months ahead.     

Monetary policy in emerging markets: Can liability dollarization explain contractionary devaluations?

In emerging markets, external debt is denominated almost entirely in large, developed country currencies such as the U.S. dollar. This liability dollarization offers a channel through which exchange rate variation can lead to business cycle instability. When firms' assets are denominated in domestic currency and liabilities are denominated in foreign currency, an exchange rate depreciation worsens firms' balance sheets, which leads to higher capital costs and contractions in capital spending. To illustrate this, I construct a quantitative, sticky price, small open economy model in which a monetary policy induced devaluation leads to a persistent contraction in output. In this model, fixed exchange rates offer greater stability than an interest rule that targets inflation.     

Dynamic information spillovers in intraregionally-focused spot and forward currency markets

This paper proposes an intraregionally-focused tri-currency modeling framework to investigate dynamic information spillovers across spot and forward exchange rate markets in frontier and emerging country currencies, for both price levels and volatilities. Empirical estimates of structural parameters were obtained using an MGARCH–MSKST model that incorporated the term structure of non-deliverable forward (NDF) and deliverable forward (DF) markets, the dominance of regional currencies, and the influence of differing forward contract maturities (1-, 3-, 6- and 12-months). The currencies for nine countries were grouped into three regions: Northeast Asia (China, Korea and Taiwan); South/Southeast Asia (India, Indonesia and Philippines); and Latin America (Brazil, Chile and Columbia). The currency for each selected country was evaluated within the regionally determined tri-currency system. We found that NDF markets play a dominant role over DF markets with regard to price discovery during periods of tranquility. During periods of crisis, both NDF and DF markets exhibit a more balanced impact on currency market price discovery mechanisms. In addition, distinct differences were observed across regions: currencies in Northeast Asia were shown to be affected by the Chinese renminbi during periods of crisis and the Indian rupee could be regarded as the dominant currency in South/Southeast Asia. No robust results were obtained with regard to the dominance of currencies in Latin America. Finally, our results also suggest important distinctions between the effect of various instrument maturities on NDF and DF market returns – with DF returns being more responsive to longer maturities (6-months and 12-months). During tranquil periods NDF returns are more responsive to shorter maturities, but during crisis periods this effect is diminished.     

El efecto de la volatilidad del peso mexicano en los rendimientos y riesgo de la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores

The effect of heavy tails due to rare events and different levels of asymmetry associated with high volatility clustering in the emerging financial markets requires sophisticated models for statistical modelling of such stylized facts. This article applies extreme value theory (EVT) to quantify tail risk on the daily returns of Mexican stock market under aggregation of foreign exchange rate risk from January 1971 to December 2010. This study focuses on the maximum-block method and generalized extreme value distribution (GEVD) to model the asymptotic behavior of extreme returns in US dollars. The empirical results show that EVT-Based VaR measured at high confidence levels performs better than simulation historical and delta-normal VaR models on capturing fat-tails in the returns of highly volatile stock markets. Additionally, international investors holding long positions in Mexican stock market are more prone to experience larger potential losses than investors with short positions during local currency depreciation and financial crisis periods.     

Flight-to-quality and correlation between currency and stock returns

We document that capital flows in and out of emerging or developed markets are sensitive to global equity market conditions. Capital tends to move out of emerging into developed countries in global down markets, leading to depreciation (appreciation) of emerging (developed) currencies. This generates a positive (negative) correlation between currency and equity in emerging (developed) markets which is amplified by the magnitude of the capital movement. We also verify that hedging currency risks may undo the natural hedge and increase the total return volatility under negative correlation.