Forecasting foreign exchange rates using idiosyncratic volatility

Average idiosyncratic stock volatility forecasts the bilateral exchange rates of the US dollar against major foreign currencies in and out of sample. The US dollar tends to appreciate after an increase in US idiosyncratic volatility. Similarly, ceteris paribus, German and Japanese idiosyncratic volatilities positively and significantly correlate with future US dollar prices of the Deutsche mark and the Japanese yen, respectively. Our results suggest that exchange rates are predictable.     

News from the U.S. and Japan: Which moves the yen/dollar exchange rate?

Intra-daily movements in the yen/dollar exchange rate are examined in four non-overlapping segments within each business day from January 1980 to September 1985. The results indicate that the dollar tended to appreciate in the New York segment and depreciate in the European segment. In three of the four subsamples considered, the Tokyo segment made virtually no contribution to annual yen/dollar rate movements. The volatility of the exchange rate also differed across markets. Finally, in examining the relative effects of news from the U.S. and Japan explicitly, U.S. money announcement surprises had the most consistent effects.     

On the determinants of “small” and “large” foreign exchange market interventions: The case of the Japanese interventions in the 1990s

During the past 30 years, central banks have often intervened in foreign exchange markets, and the magnitude of their foreign exchange market interventions has varied widely. We develop a quantitative reaction function model that renders it possible to examine the determinants of “small” and “large” interventions. We apply the model to analyzing the intervention policy of the Japanese monetary authorities (JMA) in the yen/U.S. dollar market during the period from 1991 through 2001. To this end, we use recently released official data on the foreign exchange market interventions of the JMA. We find that the JMA tended to conduct large interventions when the yen/U.S. dollar exchange rate drifted away from an “implicit target exchange rate.”     

The high-frequency response of exchange rates to monetary policy actions and statements

This paper investigates the impact of US monetary policy on the level and volatility of exchange rates using an event study with intraday data for five currencies (the US dollar exchange rate versus the euro, the Canadian dollar, the British pound, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen). I construct two indicators of news about monetary policy stemming separately from policy decisions and from balance of risk statements. Estimation results show that both policy decisions and communication have economically large and highly significant effects on the exchange rates, with the surprise component of statements accounting for most of the explainable variation in exchange rate returns in response to monetary policy. This paper also shows that exchange rates tend to absorb FOMC monetary surprises within 30-40 min from the announcement release.     

The Stochastic Properties of Major Canadian Exchange Rates

This paper extends the results of Akgiray and Booth [2] on the stochastic properties of five major Canadian exchange rates using the EGARCH-M model along with the generalized error distribution (GED). In addition to the issue of first- and second-order dependencies, explored by the authors, the paper (1) addresses the issue of asymmetric volatility, (2) examines the extent to which volatility affects future movements in these exchange rates, (3) measures the amount of kurtosis in the data, and (4) investigates the transmission mechanism of innovations and volatility shocks across the five Canadian exchange rate markets. The five Canadian dollar exchange rates are for the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the British pound, the German mark, and the French franc. Changes in Canadian exchange rates are conditionally heteroskedastic, a finding which is in line with that of Akgiray and Booth [2]. There is no evidence supporting the assertion that volatility triggers such changes. The hypothesis of asymmetric volatility is rejected for all Canadian exchange rates; thus unexpected appreciations and depreciations of the Canadian currency have similar impact on future volatility of these exchange rates. Innovations in the Canadian exchange rate markets for the U.S. dollar, the British pound, and French franc influence the Japanese yen market, while innovations in the markets of the British pound and German mark influence the French franc market. Significant but negative volatility spillovers radiate from the German mark market to the U.S. dollar market and from the French franc market to the German mark market, resulting in lower levels of volatility in both the U.S. and German markets. The distributions of all five series of Canadian exchange rates are highly leptokurtic relative to the normal distribution. The GED distribution provides a good characterization of these distributions.     

央行干预效应之日本证据:1991-2004

本文利用日本央行的外汇实际干预数据对1991-2004年央行干预日元/美元汇率的效应进行了分析。实证结果表明,买入干预的绝对数量对汇率水平影响显著,当干预为日美央行联合买入时,干预对汇率水平的影响更为明显,而单边卖出干预和央行联合卖出干预对汇率水平均不产生显著性影响。同时,日本央行参与入市干预这一举措本身会导致汇率波动的下降,但当干预数量较大时,日本央行的干预将会增大汇率的条件方差。     

Bandwagon effects and run patterns in exchange rates

I analyze the monthly exchange rates of the US dollar against the pound sterling, the Japanese yen, and the Swiss franc. All three exchange rates show bandwagon patterns, changes in one direction tend to be followed by changes in the same direction. This regularity points towards the importance of momentum traders on foreign exchange markets. A recent experimental analysis suggests the following hypothesis regarding the dynamics of bandwagon effects: if there is a repetition of similar occurrences many agents expect this run to continue but reduce the perceived chances of further repetitions when they actually occur. For exchange rates this implies that a continuation of a change in one direction should become weaker if an exchange rate has shown repeated changes in the same direction in the immediate past. This conjecture is supported by the findings of this study.     

从价值尺度的历史视角看货币国际化的机遇

货币的最基本功能是执行价值尺度。随着社会发展,价值尺度的内涵和外延在不断变化,至今经济学没有解决"绝对价值尺度"问题。英镑将其价值尺度与金本位制结合在一起使其成为国际货币;美元不仅延续了英镑的做法(通过布雷顿森林体系),而且通过大宗商品的国际组织逐步扩展网络效应(或称之为"网络外部性"),在其衰退期还击退日元的挑战,保持了美元的霸主地位。日元国际化生不逢时,浮动汇率制使日元难以成为国际价值尺度,如欲获取国际价值尺度功能则会使日本损伤国力。本文通过模型和实证阐述了国际货币的价值效应和网络效应,论证了黄金非货币化时代新兴经济体主权货币国际化的难题。     

人民币汇率政策推出时机抉择: 汇率与股指相关性视角

通过构建T-Copula-GARCH模型从人民币汇率与股市指数相关性视角,分析我国深化金融市场改革开放背景下汇率政策推出时机抉择。结果表明：人民币兑美元、日元汇率贬值时,上证指数下降;而人民币兑美元、日元汇率升值时,上证指数上涨。人民币兑欧元汇率、人民币指数升值时,上证指数下降;而人民币兑欧元汇率、人民币指数贬值时,上证指数上涨。人民币兑美元汇率与上证指数相关性波动趋势跟人民币指数与上证指数相关性波动趋势基本相反,人民币兑日元、欧元汇率与上证指数相关性波动趋势跟人民币指数与上证指数相关性波动趋势基本相同。股票市场趋势性上涨后,我国外汇市场和股票市场关联性进一步降低。因此,为弱化外汇市场和股票市场联动风险,人民币兑美元、日元汇率的改革措施应选择在股票市场趋势性上涨阶段推出,尤其是人民币兑美元汇率改革措施的推出;人民币兑欧元汇率的市场化改革对时机窗口要求不高,故在人民币汇率市场化改革中可优先推行人民币兑欧元汇率市场化改革;人民币汇率综合改革措施则可选择在股票市场趋势性上涨阶段推出。     

Impact of macro-economic surprises on carry trade activity

Can official news and policy announcements affect foreign exchange speculation? A widespread speculative strategy in foreign exchange markets is carry trade. This paper explores the links between macro-economic news and foreign exchange options to identify macro-economic fundamentals most relevant to the pricing of downside risk – measured by risk reversals options contracts – to carry trade activity. Focusing primarily on the Japanese yen carry trade, we identify a significant impact of macro-economic surprises on dollar/yen risk reversals. The effect is sizeable, with news related to bilateral trade balance of particular concern. Moreover, there is a close link between risk reversals and speculative futures positions in Japanese yen. This allows us to quantify a substantial effect of macro-economic news on carry trade activity, with the cost of hedging as the transmission mechanism.     

The Forward Exchange Rate Bias Puzzle Is Persistent: Evidence from Stochastic and Nonparametric Cointegration Tests

An important puzzle in international finance is the failure of the forward exchange rate to be a rational forecast of the future spot rate. We document that even after accounting for nonstationarity, nonnormality, and heteroskedasticity using parametric and nonparametric tests on data for over a quarter century, U.S. dollar forward rates for the major currencies (the British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and the German mark) are generally not rational forecasts of future spot rates. These findings deepen the forward exchange rate bias puzzle, especially as these markets are the most liquid foreign exchange markets with very low trading costs.     

Random walk and monetary causality in five exchange markets

Time series behavior of monthly spot exchange rates for the French franc, the Deutsche mark, the Italian lira, the Japanese yen, and the UK pound, all priced in relation to the US dollar, shows the robustness of the random walk hypothesis. Incremental efficiency is investigated by a new test procedure, based on the reduction of the forecast error variance, which is a direct implementation of the definition of Granger causality. Exchange markets are found to be not only money efficient, but also monetary efficient in that they are efficient with respect to real income and market interest rates in addition to money stock.     

A test of the stability of exchange rate risk: Evidence from the Australian equities market

This paper investigates the sensitivity of equity returns on Australian industry portfolios to an exchange rate factor for the period 1988–1998. Specifically, using daily data, we (1) analyse the exchange rate exposure of the Australian equities market by implementing a basic augmented market model using relevant bilateral exchange rates, (2) investigate the intertemporal stability of the exchange rate exposure by using a dummy variable specification, and (3) attempt to establish the determinants of the exchange rate exposure of Australian industries by undertaking a cross-sectional analysis. A further empirical issue addressed by our study is that of whether the sensitivity is contemporaneous or lagged. We find (a) some evidence of exchange rate exposure, (b) some evidence of intertemporal sensitivity, and (c) a greater sensitivity to movements in the Australian dollar/US dollar exchange rate factor than to movements in the Australian dollar/Japanese yen. Further, we observe a significant lagged effect when employing the basic augmented model. This difference in the response of the industry portfolio returns is not observed, however, in our intertemporal stability investigation. Finally, we do not find significant evidence in terms of the cross-sectional determinants of foreign exchange exposure.     

Assessing co-ordinated Asian exchange rate regimes: Proposal for a possible move towards a common currency

This study assesses prospective Asian exchange rate regimes and finds short- and long-run currency dynamics more conducive to the introduction of a common peg based on a basket of the European euro, the United States dollar and the Japanese yen than the alternative of a United States dollar peg exchange rate regime. Exchange rate systems of 3- 4- and 5-Asian currencies are considered and the dynamics in a set of four European currencies prior to the introduction of the Euro provides benchmark evidence. The evidence for an Asian basket peg exchange rate regime is strengthened when, unlike prior studies, estimates of the long-run parameters account for time-varying volatility effects.     

The Asymmetric Impact of Monetary Policy on Currency Markets

This study examines whether tightening and easing actions of the Federal Reserve symmetrically influence currency markets. Using daily data on four exchange rates from 1989 to 2001, we find that changes in the Fed's interest rate target are positively related to changes in the value of the dollar. Surprises associated with monetary tightening have a larger announcement effect as compared to monetary easing for the British pound, German mark, and Canadian dollar, whereas the opposite is true for the Japanese yen. The results appear to be driven by the reactions of foreign central banks to Fed actions, the Fed's credibility as a policymaker, and by the change in the Fed's disclosure policy beginning in 1994.     

The impact of the global financial crisis on the cross-currency linkage of LIBOR–OIS spreads

This article examines the impact of global financial crisis on cross-currency linkage of the LIBOR–OIS spread, a financial stress measure in interbank markets. The impulse response analysis is conducted in a multivariate setting, adopting the bias-corrected bootstrap as a means of statistical inference. The overall evidence suggests that the crisis has substantially changed the nature of the cross-currency interactions in liquidity stress. Also global money markets have failed to contain stress in US dollar funding and the role of the Japanese yen as a liquidity source appears to be significant, while these two currencies drive the cross-currency system of liquidity stress.     

人民币对“一篮子货币”汇率的波动——非线性Fourier函数分析

本文采用非线性Fourier函数方法分析了2005年7月份以来,人民币对美元及非美元货币(欧元、日元)汇率之间的关系。协整检验分析结果显示,人民币对美元、欧元、日元汇率与物价水平之间存在协整关系,且具有非线性特征;向量误差修正模型分析结果显示,短期内人民币对欧元、日元汇率向长期均衡汇率调整值大于人民币对美元汇率的调整值,且人民币对美元、欧元汇率的短期调整具有非线性波动特征;脉冲响应函数分析结果显示,中国物价水平升高,推动了人民币对美元、日元升值,但减缓了人民币对欧元升值。     

A New Method for Identifying the Effects of Foreign Exchange Interventions

Central banks react even to intraday changes in the exchange rate; however, in most cases, intervention data are available only at a daily frequency. This temporal aggregation makes it difficult to identify the effects of interventions on the exchange rate. We apply the Bayesian Markov‐chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach to this endogeneity problem. We use “data augmentation” to obtain intraday intervention amounts and estimate the efficacy of interventions using the augmented data. Applying this new method to Japanese data, we find that an intervention of 1 trillion yen moves the yen/dollar rate by 1.8%, which is more than twice as much as the magnitude reported in previous studies applying ordinary least squares to daily observations. This shows the quantitative importance of the endogeneity problem due to temporal aggregation.     

人民币汇率及其对日本美国进口价格的传递效应

本文估计了人民币汇率变化对美国和日本从中国进口商品价格的传递效应。实证结果表明,人民币名义升值1%,将导致美国的进口价格短期上涨0.23%,长期上涨0.47%。日本从中国的进口价格对人民币和日元双边汇率的变化更为敏感。如果人民币兑日元名义汇率上升1%,日本的进口价格短期提高0.55%,长期则提高0.99%,具有完全的传递效应。这种高传递效应在食品、原材料、服装、制造和机械等不同类别的进口商品中也存在。但是,进一步分析表明:日本的高传递效应主要归因于中国钉住美元的汇率政策,而美元是中国对日本出口贸易的主要计价货币。在控制了计价货币因素后,自2005年7月以来人民币的累计升值并未传递到日本的总体进口价格或分类商品进口价格上。人民币汇率的这种低传递效应表明,人民币适度升值对中国的贸易顺差影响甚微。     

Higher Moments and Exchange Rate Behavior

This paper uses 15‐minute exchange rate returns data for the six most liquid currencies (i.e., the Australian dollar, British pound, Canadian dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, and Swiss franc) vis‐à‐vis the United States dollar to examine whether a GARCH model augmented with higher moments (HM‐GARCH) performs better than a traditional GARCH (TG) model. Two findings are unraveled. First, the inclusion of odd/even moments in modeling the return/variance improves the statistical performance of the HM‐GARCH model. Second, trading strategies that extract buy and sell trading signals based on exchange rate forecasts from HM‐GARCH models are more profitable than those that depend on TG models.