Macroeconomic announcements,intraday covariance structure and asymmetry in the interest rate futures returns

The effects of scheduled macroeconomic announcements on the real-time intraday return volatilities, covariances, and correlations between the Eurodollar futures and the U.S. Treasury bond futures markets are studied. These announcements are responsible for most of the observed intraday jumps in volatilities, covariances, and correlations. The details of the linkage are intriguing and include announcements timing effect. Further study on intraday asymmetric volatility and correlation-in-volatility indicates that news announcements magnify asymmetric volatility and shed light on why correlations tend to be high when volatilities are high. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:815–844, 2008     

What moves German Bund futures contracts on the Eurex?

The German 10‐year Bund futures contract traded on the Eurex futures and options exchange in Frankfurt became the world's most actively traded derivative product by the end of 1999. In this article, we provide a detailed exploration of the interday and intraday return volatility in the Bund futures contract using a sample of five‐min returns from 1997 to 1998. The evolution of interday volatility is described best by a MA(1)‐fractionally integrated process that allows for the long‐memory features. At the intraday level, we find that macroeconomic announcements from both Germany and the U.S. are an important source of volatility. Among the various German announcements, we identify the IFO industry survey of business climate, industrial production (preliminary), and Bundesbank policy meeting as being by far the most important. The three most significant U.S. announcements include the employment report, the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM) survey, and employment costs. Overall, U.S. macroeconomic announcements have a far greater impact on the Bund futures market than their German counterparts. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:679–696, 2002     

Risk–return relationships in foreign‐currency futures following macroeconomic announcements

This study uses the tick data for foreign‐currency futures to examine risk–return relationships on macroeconomic announcements. This study—different from previous studies—examines the risk–return relationship by capturing the announcement effect on returns with announcement surprises and on volatilities with announcement dummies simultaneously in a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model. Strong risk–return relationships are detected for the first min after the announcements. Furthermore, the return–risk tradeoff ratios differ across currencies and across macroeconomic indicators. The same information can be more profitable when acted on the more liquid currency futures. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22: 729–764, 2002     

Intraday Volatility in Interest‐Rate and Foreign‐Exchange Markets: ARCH,Announcement, and Seasonality Effects

We explore the determinants of intraday volatility in interest‐rate and foreign‐exchange markets, focusing on the importance and interaction of three types of information in predicting intraday volatility: (a) knowledge of recent past volatilities (i.e., ARCH or Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity effects); (b) prior knowledge of when major scheduled macroeconomic announcements, such as the employment report or Producer Price Index, will be released; and (c) knowledge of seasonality patterns. We find that all three information sets have significant incremental predictive power, but macroeconomic announcements are the most important determinants of periods of very high intraday volatility (particularly in the interest‐rate markets). We show that because the three information sets are not independent, it is necessary to simultaneously consider all three to accurately measure intraday volatility patterns. For instance, we find that most of the previously documented time‐of‐day and day‐of‐the‐week volatility patterns in these markets are due to the tendency for macroeconomic announcements to occur on particular days and at particular times. Indeed, the familiar U‐shape completely disappears in the foreign‐exchange market. We also find that estimates of ARCH effects are considerably altered when we account for announcement effects and return periodicity; specifically, estimates of volatility persistence are sharply reduced. Separately, our results show that high volatility persists longer after shocks due to unscheduled announcements than after equivalent shocks due to scheduled announcements, indicating that market participants digest information much more quickly if they are prepared to receive it. However, contrary to results from equity markets, we find no evidence of a meaningful difference in volatility persistence after positive or negative price shocks. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21: 517–552, 2001     

Monetary policy,exchange rate fluctuation,and herding behavior in the stock market

Interest rate and exchange rate are two important macroeconomic variables that exert considerable effects on the stock market. In this study, we investigate whether variations in interest and exchange rates induce herding behavior in the Chinese stock market. Empirical results indicate that interest rate increase and Chinese currency (CNY) depreciation will induce herding and this phenomenon is mainly manifested in down markets. Moreover, the herding level of the highest idiosyncratic volatility quintile portfolio is twice that of the lowest quintile portfolio which we consider evidence of intentional herding. This result is consistent with those of previous studies, which report that retail investors prefer and overweigh lottery-type stocks. Finally, we investigate the effects of monetary policy announcements and extreme exchange rate volatility on herding because these events elicit considerable public attention and may trigger collective behavior in the aggregate market.     

What moves the gold market?

In this article, we provide a detailed characterization of the intraday return volatility in gold futures contracts traded on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The approach allows the study of intraday patterns, interday ARCH effects, and announcement effects in a coherent framework. We show that the intraday patterns exert a profound impact on the dynamics of return volatility. Among the 23 U.S. macroeconomic announcements, we identify employment reports, gross domestic product, consumer price index, and personal income as having the greatest impact. Finally, by appropriately filtering out the intraday patterns, we find that the high‐frequency returns reveal long‐memory volatility dependencies in the gold market, which have important implications on the pricing of long‐term gold options and the determination of optimal hedge ratios. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:257–278, 2001     

Scheduled announcements and volatility patterns: The effects of monetary policy committee announcements on LIBOR and short sterling futures and options

Both the UK spot and futures markets in short‐term interest rates are found to react strongly to surprises in the scheduled announcements of the repo rate and RPI. Therefore, these announcements should also affect the market for options on short‐term interest rate futures. Because the repo rate and RPI announcements are scheduled, the options market can predict the days on which announcement shocks may hit, and build this information into its volatility expectations. It is argued that the volatility used in pricing options should alter over time in a predictable nonlinear manner that varies with contract maturity and the number of forthcoming announcements; but is independent of announcement content. The empirical results support this hypothesis. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:773–797, 2003     

The impacts of public news announcements on intraday implied volatility dynamics

We examine the responses of intraday option-implied volatilities to scheduled announcements of macroeconomic indicators. The increase in implied volatility around macroeconomic news announcements is more pronounced for puts than for calls and is stronger for announcements made during trading hours than for those made during nontrading hours. These effects are also more pronounced in the crisis and postcrisis periods than in the precrisis period. Monetary policy announcements have a more substantial impact on volatility than other announcements have, even after controlling for news surprise components. The impact appears to be greater for policy rate hikes than for policy rate cuts.     

Speculative pressure

The paper investigates the information content of speculative pressure across futures classes. Long-short portfolios of futures contracts sorted by speculative pressure capture a significant premium in commodity, currency, and equity markets but not in fixed income markets. Exposure to commodity, currency, and equity index futures’ speculative pressure is priced in the broad cross-section after controlling for momentum, carry, global liquidity, and volatility risks. The findings are confirmed by robustness tests using alternative speculative pressure signals, portfolio construction techniques, and subperiods interalia. We argue that there is an efficient hedgers-speculators risk transfer in commodity, currency, and equity index futures markets.     

Assessing the asymmetric volatility linkages of energy and agricultural commodity futures during low and high volatility regimes

This study investigated the volatility linkages between energy and agricultural futures, including possible causes for these comovements, such as external macroeconomic and financial shocks during low and high volatility regimes. A combination of Markov-switching regressions and quadrivariate VAR–DCC–GARCH and VAR–BEKK–GARCH modeling revealed that external shocks have an asymmetric effect on the relationship of these assets with higher cross-correlations reported during high volatility regimes. This comovement effect outweighs the substitution effect between energy and agricultural products. Furthermore, the quadrivariate VAR–BEKK–GARCH model provides strong evidence of a bidirectional price volatility spillover between the agricultural and energy markets during periods of high volatility. Overall, the results suggest that energy futures can be effectively used for hedging in a portfolio comprising agricultural futures (and vice versa), while a combination of macroeconomic and financial index futures can serve as an effective hedging tool in investment portfolios comprising both energy and agricultural commodities.     

Mispricing of index futures contracts and short sales constraints

This article examines if changes in short sales constraints affect the extent to which index futures contracts are mispriced. In particular, the study analyzes the mispricing of the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index futures contracts. Tests are conducted over three distinct regulatory regimes relating to the short selling of stocks in Hong Kong. This permits a study of how changes in short selling regulations affect the mispricing of futures contracts. The study indicates that relaxing the constraints on short selling reduces the extent of futures mispricing. Multiple regression analysis is used to test the relationship between the magnitude of mispricing and various economic factors including cash market volatility, time-to-maturity of the contract, trading cost, and dividend payout rates. The study also finds that lifting of the short selling restrictions speeds up market adjustment, especially when a long-hedge (long futures, short stock) signal is detected. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 695–715, 1999     

Exchange rate effects of US government shutdowns: Evidence from both developed and emerging markets

We examine the exchange rate effects of US government shutdowns using historical exchange rate data covering 19 episodes of government shutdowns. We find that major currency exchange rates generally tend to appreciate vis-à-vis the US dollar, and foreign exchange volatility tends to increase in response to shutdowns. We show that the effect of shutdowns is felt most one day after a shutdown and the effect dies out for most currencies within five days of a shutdown. These results pass a range of robustness tests which control for day-of-the-week effects, model specifications, and the Global Financial Crisis.     

A further investigation of the lead–lag relationship between the spot market and stock index futures: Early evidence from Korea

In this article, we investigate possible lead and lag relationship in returns and volatilities between cash and futures markets in Korea. Utilizing intraday data from the newly established futures market in Korea, we find that the futures market leads the cash market by as long as 30 minutes. This result is consistent with previous studies for the U.S. and other countries’ futures markets. With regard to volatility interaction between spot and futures markets, we find that, unlike the above results for returns, a bidirectional causality is more prevalent between cash and futures markets, and this relationship is entirely sample dependent. We also find that the trading volume has significant explanatory power for volatility changes in both spot and futures markets. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 217–232, 1999     

Managed futures,positive feedback trading,and futures price volatility

A major issue in recent years is the role that large, managed futures funds and pools play in futures markets. Many market participants argue that managed futures trading increases price volatility due to the size of managed futures trading and reliance on positive feedback trading systems. The purpose of this study is to provide new evidence on the impact of managed futures trading on futures price volatility. A unique data set on managed futures trading is analyzed for the period 1 December 1988 through 31 March 1989. The data set includes the daily trading volume of large commodity pools for 36 different futures markets. Regression results are unequivocal with respect to the impact of commodity pool trading on futures price volatility. For the 72 estimated regressions (two for each market), the coefficient on commodity pool trading volume is significantly different from zero in only four cases. These results constitute strong evidence that, at least for this sample period, commodity pool trading is not associated with increases in futures price volatility. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 759–776, 1999     

Implied volatility forecasts in the grains complex

This article finds that the implied volatilities of corn, soybean, and wheat futures options 4 weeks before option expiration have significant predictive power for the underlying futures contract return volatilities through option expiration from January 1988 through September 1999. These implied volatilities also encompass the information in out‐of‐sample seasonal Glosten, Jagannathan, and Runkle (GJR;1993) volatility forecasts. Evidence also demonstrates that when corn‐implied volatility rises relative to out‐of‐sample seasonal GJR volatility forecasts, implied volatility substantially overpredicts realized volatility. However, simulations of trading rules that involve selling corn option straddles when corn‐implied volatility is high relative to out‐of‐sample GJR volatility forecasts indicate that none of the trading rules would have been significantly profitable. This finding suggests that these options are not necessarily overpriced. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:959–981, 2002     

The determinants of bid-ask spreads in the foreign exchange futures market: A microstructure analysis

This paper investigates and analyzes the intraday and daily determinants of bid-ask spreads (BASs) in the foreign exchange futures (FXF) market. It is found that the number of transactions and the volatility of FXF prices are the major determinants. The number of transactions is negatively related to the BAS, whereas volatility in general is positively related to it. The study also finds that there are economies of scale in trading FXF contracts. The intraday BAS follows a U-shaped pattern, and they tend to be higher on Mondays and Tuesdays than on other days of the week. Higher spreads at the beginning and end of a trading day are consistent with the presence of adverse selection and the avoidance of the possibility of carrying undesirable inventory overnight, respectively. Seasonal differences in BASs that are related to the delivery date of a contract are also found. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 307–324, 1999     

An examination of the impact of macroeconomic news on the spot and futures treasuries markets

In this study we analyze the reaction of daily cash and futures prices for several Treasury securities to the release of U.S. macroeconomic news. Some important results are reported. First, consistent with the notion of market integration, the futures market is found to be cointegrated with the corresponding cash market. Second, of the 23 types of periodic macroeconomic announcements, 19 of them have a significant influence on either the cash or futures prices. Most notably, surprises in nonfarm payroll and Treasury budget significantly influence the cash and futures market across the entire maturity spectrum. Third, consistent with the Fisher and real activity hypotheses, macroeconomic news that conveys higher inflation and/or economic growth has a negative influence on cash and futures prices. Finally, hedging with Treasury futures appears to offer investors protection from inflation‐related fluctuations in interest rates, but not against fluctuations arising due to variations in real output. Some important policy implications of the results are offered. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:453–478, 2004     

An empirical examination of the relation between futures spreads volatility,volume, and open interest

This study investigates the relation between petroleum futures spread variability, trading volume, and open interest in an attempt to uncover the source(s) of variability in futures spreads. The study finds that contemporaneous (lagged) volume and open interest provide significant explanation for futures spreads volatility when entered separately. The study also shows that lagged volume and lagged open interest, when entered in the conditional variance equation simultaneously, have greater effect on volatility and substantially reduce the persistence of volatility. This finding seems to support the sequential information arrival hypothesis of Copeland (1976). Finally, the findings of this study also suggest a degree of market inefficiency in petroleum futures spreads. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:1083–1102, 2002     

Turn‐of‐the‐month and intramonth effects: Explanation from the important macroeconomic news announcements

This study provides a new and economically plausible explanation for turn‐of‐the‐month and intramonth anomalies. It is suggested that these anomalies arise from clustered information, namely from important macroeconomic news announcements, which are released systematically at a certain point each month. It is verified that both anomalies exist in SP100 returns. However, once the effect of macroeconomic news announcements has been taken into account, these anomalies disappear. A measure is proposed which uses information from option‐implied volatilities to account for the changes in expected risk premium caused by news announcements. This measure is found to capture incompletely the effects of news announcements, which may due to the misreactions observed on the options market or alternative explanations, such as increased liquidity or investors' overreaction resulting in higher realized returns. Consequently, the underlying mechanism remains to some extent inconclusive although the empirical results provide strong support for the macroeconomic news announcement hypothesis. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:105–126, 2007     

Further analysis of the speed of response to large trades in interest rate futures

This study examines the adjustment process in the interest rate futures market following large block trades, by analyzing changes in the levels of quoted prices, bid‐ask spreads, and trading activity. Most of the adjustment in prices and spreads is complete within 12 quote revisions (approximately 70 seconds). Results suggest that block trades stimulate subsequent trading activity, as traders rush to express differences of opinion about the price implication of the block. The market response to block trades exhibits several features in common with the two‐phase response of the US treasury market to macroeconomic announcements described by Fleming, M. J. and Remolona, E. M. (1999). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 30:705–724, 2010