Volatility information implied in the term structure of VIX

This study uses multiple maturity-independent variables to examine whether the volatility information implied in the term structure of volatility index can improve the prediction of realized volatility. The empirical results for the S&P 500 index show that, in terms of both the in-sample estimation and out-of-sample forecasting, the term structure variables provide substantial incremental contribution to the models with only level variables. Our empirical results are robust to various forms of volatility, alternative ways to develop the term structure variable, the impact of macroeconomic variables, and alternative underlying assets.     

VIX term structure and VIX futures pricing with realized volatility

Using an extended LHARG model proposed by Majewski et al. (2015, J Econ, 187, 521–531), we derive the closed-form pricing formulas for both the Chicago Board Options Exchange VIX term structure and VIX futures with different maturities. Our empirical results suggest that the quarterly and yearly components of lagged realized volatility should be added into the model to capture the long-term volatility dynamics. By using the realized volatility based on high-frequency data, the proposed model provides superior pricing performance compared with the classic Heston–Nandi GARCH model under a variance-dependent pricing kernel, both in-sample and out-of-sample. The improvement is more pronounced during high volatility periods.     

The market quality of commodity futures markets

To study the market quality of commodity futures markets, we construct a commodity futures market quality index from the perspective of liquidity, efficiency, and volatility. Based on the market quality index, the Chinese commodity futures market operates steadily. The metal futures market is more efficient and stable than the market for agricultural futures. The Chinese commodity futures market is less liquid and more volatile than the U.S. market. We examine the determinants of market quality and find that macroeconomic variables and futures market contracts are significantly related to the market quality of Chinese commodity futures.     

Night trading and market quality: Evidence from Chinese and US precious metal futures markets

Given a dominant exchange, how should other exchanges set their trading hours? We examine the introduction of a night session by the Shanghai Futures Exchange, allowing trading concurrently with daytime trading at the Commodity Exchange in the United States. After developing hypotheses, results for gold and silver show: trading activity has increased; liquidity in Shanghai has risen and prices are less volatile at market opening; the price discovery share of Chinese gold futures has fallen but this is not a sign of weakening market quality; and volatility spillovers increase bidirectionally. Longer trading hours have decreased market segmentation and increased information flow.     

隐含波动率的信息含量及其在我国的应用

国内现有关于波动率的研究多集中于时间序列模型,忽略了另一类预测波动率的方法即隐含波动率法。文章在回顾、评述了国内关于波动率的研究后,对国外关于隐含波动率的研究进行了梳理,为在我国大陆地区发展股指期权市场、通过提高期权市场的效率,以运用隐含波动率法更好地预测波动率提供了理论基础和政策建议。     

Intermediary asset pricing in commodity futures returns

This paper assesses the extent to which intermediary capital (IC) risk contributes toward explaining commodity futures returns. We find that the IC effect is substantially positive and continues to grow as the financialization of commodities deepens. Positive and negative IC risks play asymmetric roles, with the effect of negative IC strengthening in recent subperiods. We further confirm the heterogeneous roles of IC across individual commodities by cross-section analyses. Overall, the effect of the positive IC risk factor varies significantly. Portfolios with low basis, low open interest, low momentum, and low liquidity earn significantly higher returns than counterparty portfolios.     

Volatility forecasts embedded in the prices of crude-oil options

This paper evaluates the ability of alternative option-implied volatility measures to forecast crude-oil return volatility. We find that a corridor implied volatility measure that aggregates information from a narrow range of option contracts consistently outperforms forecasts obtained by the popular Black–Scholes and model-free volatility expectations, as well as those generated by a realized volatility model. This measure ranks favorably in regression-based tests, delivers the lowest forecast errors under different loss functions, and generates economically significant gains in volatility timing exercises. Our results also show that the Chicago Board Options Exchange's “oil-VIX” index performs poorly, as it routinely produces the least accurate forecasts.     

Multivariate realized volatility forecasts of agricultural commodity futures

We forecast the multivariate realized volatility of agricultural commodity futures by constructing multivariate heterogeneous autoregressive (MHAR) models with flexible heteroscedastic error structures that allow for non-Gaussian distribution, stochastic volatility, and heteroscedastic and serial dependence. We evaluate the forecast performances of various models based on both statistical and economic criteria. The in-sample and out-of-sample results suggest that the proposed MHAR models allowing for flexible heteroscedastic covariance structures outperform the benchmark MHAR models. In addition, the proposed Bayesian MHAR models allowing for t innovations improve both in-sample and out-of-sample forecast performance of the corresponding MHAR models with Gaussian innovations.     

资产价格波动与金融稳定研究述评

资产价格波动与金融稳定的关系,一直是学术界研究的热点问题。近年来的研究认为资产价格波动与银行信贷的相互作用加强,进而日趋影响金融稳定;资产价格波动直接影响银行资本金和金融机构经营环境从而影响金融稳定;理论研究日益强调信息不对称以及“委托一代理”问题在资产价格波动影响金融稳定过程中的重要性。同时,大部份的实证研究都支持了资产价格波动对金融稳定具有重要影响的观点。一些学者就如何应对资产价格波动从而保持金融稳定的问题提出了针对性的建议。     

Properties and the predictive power of implied volatility in the New Zealand dairy market

This study develops a dairy implied volatility index (DVIX), derived from New Zealand Exchange traded options on whole milk powder (WMP) futures. We document an inverse return–volatility relation which is asymmetric, where increases in WMP futures prices are associated with larger absolute changes in the DVIX than decreases. In sample, the results strongly suggest that the DVIX has a high information content regarding conditional variance and that the inclusion of historical information further improves the predictive power. Out of sample, we find that the DVIX provides substantial information about future realized volatility. We also document that a combination of historical volatility and the DVIX provides the best out-of-sample forecasts.     

An analysis of illiquidity in commodity markets

We examine the liquidity and insurance premia demanded by hedgers and speculators in commodity markets. We find that hedgers and speculators demand a higher premium for illiquid commodities for providing insurance and liquidity, respectively. Decomposing illiquidity into turnover and size components, we find evidence of a size premium associated with the insurance premium such that speculators demand a larger insurance premium for smaller commodities. We also find that the liquidity premium demanded by hedgers for illiquid commodities varies across bullish and bearish markets with hedgers demanding a larger premium from speculators trading in illiquid commodities in bearish markets.     

Foreign Exchange Intervention and Exchange Rate Volatility in Zambia

The study analyzes the impact of central bank intervention on the volatility of the exchange rate in Zambia during the period of 1996–2013 Bank of Zambia (BoZ). (1996–2013). Annual Reports . Lusaka , Zambia : Author. [Google Scholar]. The empirical findings reveal a statistically weak negative impact of intervention on exchange rate volatility, suggesting that other policy instruments are required to augment foreign exchange interventions in dampening volatility in the exchange rate.     

Price transmission and volatility spillovers in Asian rice markets: Evidence from MGARCH and panel GARCH models

ABSTRACT

This article examines world rice price transmission and volatility spillovers across six major Asian rice markets over the period 2005-13. In addition to the conventional GARCH models, we use a panel GARCH framework to estimate the spillover effects along with the consideration of heterogeneity and interdependence among countries. Empirical results suggest that changes in the world rice price affected not only the price levels of domestic rice markets but also their conditional variances. Moreover, interdependence across rice markets contributed to a strong spillover of a price shock in one country to another within the region.     

Volatility and jump risk in option returns

We examine the importance of volatility and jump risk in the time-series prediction of S&P 500 index option returns. The empirical analysis provides a different result between call and put option returns. Both volatility and jump risk are important predictors of put option returns. In contrast, only volatility risk is consistently significant in the prediction of call option returns over the sample period. The empirical results support the theory that there is option risk premium associated with volatility and jump risk, and reflect the asymmetry property of S&P 500 index distribution.     

The untold story of commodity futures in China

We investigate the behavior of commodity futures risk premia in China. In the presence of retail-dominance and barriers-to-entry, the term structure and momentum premia remain persistent, whereas hedging pressure, skewness, volatility, and liquidity premia are distorted by time-varying margins and strict position limits. Furthermore, open interest, currency, and inflation premia are sensitive to institutional settings. The observed premia cannot be attributed to common risks, sentiment, transactions costs, or data-snooping, but are related to liquidity, anchoring, and regulation-induced limits-to-arbitrage. We highlight the distinctive features of Chinese futures markets and assess the challenges posed to theories of commodity risk premia.     

The Breakdown of Idiosyncratic Volatility Into Expected and Unexpected Components and Its Effects on Stock Returns in Brazil

Based on studies of idiosyncratic volatility developed in the recent literature, this study analyzes its relation with expected returns through the breakdown of idiosyncratic volatility in the Brazilian stock market and presents evidence of the importance of expected idiosyncratic volatility for asset pricing. We study the impact of the expected and unexpected components of idiosyncratic volatility on the returns of shares listed on the BOVESPA between 2004 and 2011. The results show a strong positive and significant relation between expected idiosyncratic volatility and returns. This evidence is highlighted when we use unexpected idiosyncratic volatility to control for unexpected returns. Additional robustness tests, controlling for size and momentum effects, also have positive and significant coefficients, corroborating previous findings.     

Super‐replication in fully incomplete markets

In this work, we introduce the notion of fully incomplete markets. We prove that for these markets, the super‐replication price coincides with the model‐free super‐replication price. Namely, the knowledge of the model does not reduce the super‐replication price. We provide two families of fully incomplete models: stochastic volatility models and rough volatility models. Moreover, we give several computational examples. Our approach is purely probabilistic.     

Real Exchange Rate Volatility on the Short- and Long-Run Trade Dynamics in Colombia

The short- and long-run implications of real exchange rate volatility on Colombian bilateral trade commodities and non-commodities with its major trade partners are analyzed from the perspectives of the Marshall-Lerner condition, a cointegration relation with other aggregate variables, and the J-curve hypothesis. Long-run equilibrium on the Colombian bilateral balance of trade with a country is more common when the trade volume is denominated in terms of one of the world's main currencies—as is the case of commodity trade and trade with a country whose national currency is one of these currencies. No evidence of the J-curve was found in any of the analyzed Colombian bilateral balances of trade. Opposite to the predictions of the J-curve hypothesis, more common are the scenarios of short-run improvements in the bilateral trade balances following a devaluation than are those with instantaneous declines. Improvements in the terms of trade are found to have a long-run deteriorating impact on the Colombian balance of trade, especially in the case of non-commodity trade. Policy makers should consider that continuous improvements in the Colombian terms of trade, as the ones recently observed, will ultimately be a detriment to the country's current balance of trade surplus.     

Exchange-Rate Volatility,Exchange-Rate Regime,and Trade in OIC Countries

The authors examine the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries from 1995 to 2008 using panel estimations to distinguish differences between disaggregate trade, and examine its threshold effects. Results reveal that exchange rate volatility generally has significant negative effect on export and import with lag. However, exports of OIC with flexible exchange rate regime have significant positive exposure to exchange rate volatility. The authors also document a threshold effect for countries with trade value constitutes more than 30% of the real gross domestic product, and the exchange rate volatility becomes significant positive for export but significant negative for import with lag.