Weekday variations in short-term contrarian profits in futures markets

This article documents and examines weekday patterns in short-term contrarian profits in futures markets. The Lo and Mackinlay (1990) methodology is used to construct contrarian portfolios and to compute daily contrarian profits. Contrarian portfolios are formed using daily closing prices and are based on the previous day's performance relative to a benchmark. Contrarian profits are measured over subsequent half-day intervals. The empirical results suggest that there are weekday patterns in short-term contrarian profits in futures markets. On average, contrarian profits are largest on Fridays, followed by those on Wednesdays, and smallest on Mondays. For currency futures, however, contrarian profits are largest on Mondays and smallest on Fridays.     

Synthetic Trades and Calendar Day Patterns The Case of the Dollar/Sterling Markets

Significant day of the week patterns are shown to exist in the dollar/sterling market. These patterns are associated with the returns to synthetic and actual forward trades as well as to spot trades. These trading strategies, geared to buying or selling sterling, reflect different timing, if not valuation, considerations on the part of traders. Nevertheless, pronounced calendar patterns are observed on Wednesdays for all the trading strategies evaluated. This is attributable to significantly different risks on Wednesdays. The observed end‐of‐the‐week patterns in forward returns persist and reinforce the returns at the start of the next week of trading. Furthermore, the overall returns to forward speculation on Fridays and Mondays are of opposite sign. Our results on calendar day patterns are thus supported by both parametric and non‐parametric tests. We provide evidence that the frequency of synthetic trading opportunities is inversely related to maturity. We also find that the period of market turbulence analyzed did not trigger abnormal opportunities for covered interest arbitrage.     

The Distribution of Foreign Exchange Price Changes: Trading Day Effects and Risk Measurement

This study investigates the nature of price changes in a variety of major and minor foreign exchange markets. The results suggest that the log of price changes over one (trading) day intervals seems to follow a non-normal stable distribution function. Different measures of location (and to lesser extent scale) are present for different days of the week. Dollar denominated price changes are high on Mondays and Wednesdays and low on Thursdays and Fridays for all currencies. The Wednesday-Thursday result is consistent with the settlement procedures used in foreign exchange transactions in the dollar. The Friday-Monday result is consistent with an increase in demand for the dollar prior to the weekend.     

An empirical analysis of the day-of-the-week effect in stock returns: The case of U.S. and Japan

This article employs daily closing index data to investigate the relationship between the U.S. and Japanese equity markets. It reassesses and extends the Becker et al. (1990) methodology over a longer sample space. The article then advances the analysis further by estimating structural equation models and by including the exchange rate as an additional explanatory variable. The resulting multivariate econometric design shows that the U.S. equity market strongly affects the Japanese equity market Monday through Friday while the Japanese market exerts a weaker influence on the U.S. market with the influence observed only on Mondays and Wednesdays.     

Interday variations in volume,variance and participation of large speculators

We use data uniquely available from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to document the intraweek trading patterns of large speculators in five futures markets. These markets include futures traded against the Standard and Poor's 500 stock index, Treasury Bonds, gold, corn, and soybeans. We also examine the influence of large speculator trades on the patterns of volume and volatility for the contracts in our sample. Though we detect the familiar U-shaped and inverted U-shaped patterns across weekdays for volatility and aggregate volume, the association between volume and volatility becomes stronger when we separate large speculator volume from volume associated with other traders. The coefficient on large speculator volume is much larger than the coefficient on other volume in these regressions. Compared with total volume, large speculator volume is greater on Mondays than on the other days of the week in all five markets.     

Reversal of Monday returns

This paper elaborates an interesting aspect of the Monday anomaly: Monday returns are relatively more likely to reverse over the subsequent days. We document that, although the Monday low-return anomaly disappeared, the subsequent reversal of Monday returns remains robust to date. The reversals, measured over a five-day horizon, are pervasive across international stock markets, reasonably stable over time, significant following both positive and negative Monday returns, and not confined to extreme Monday returns. Trading strategies designed to exploit these reversals earn economic profits. We examine potential explanations for the reversal of Monday returns using trading flows data of investor types from Korea. All predictions of the Foster and Viswanathan [J. Finance, 1993, 48, 187–211] model are confirmed: volatility is higher, trading volume is lower, market depth is lower and price impact costs are higher on Mondays. The model implies lower price quality on Mondays, but does not specifically predict reversal of Monday returns. We show that the trading intensity of international/institutional investors is lower on Mondays. This appears to make the market relatively more susceptible to individual investors’ trading, which is negatively correlated with international/institutional investors. Thus, Monday returns are relatively more likely to reverse during the subsequent days of the week when institutional investors trade more aggressively.     

The day of the week effect on stock market volatility and volume: International evidence

This study investigates the day of the week effect on the volatility of major stock market indexes for the period of 1988 through 2002. Using a conditional variance framework, we find that the day of the week effect is present in both return and volatility equations. The highest volatility occurs on Mondays for Germany and Japan, on Fridays for Canada and the United States, and on Thursdays for the United Kingdom. For most of the markets, the days with the highest volatility also coincide with that market's lowest trading volume. Thus, this paper supports the argument made by Foster and Viswanathan [Rev. Financ. Stud. 3 (1990) 593] that high volatility would be accompanied by low trading volume because of the unwillingness of liquidity traders to trade in periods of high stock market volatility.     

Credit default swaps and the market for sovereign debt

In this paper, we analyze the determinants and effects of credit default swap (CDS) trading initiation in the sovereign bond market. CDS trading initiation is associated with a 30–150 basis point reduction in sovereign bond yields, with greater yield reductions accruing to higher default risk economies. For countries with high default risk, rated B or lower by Standard and Poor’s, CDS initiation is also associated with significant price efficiency benefits in the underlying market. CDS trading initiation is more likely following increases in local equity index volatility, index spreads for regional and global CDS markets, or depreciation of the local currency relative to the US dollar, and decreases in a country’s ability to service foreign debt. Our results are robust to selection bias controls based on these factors.     

Asymmetric volatility in the foreign exchange markets

We examine the presence or absence of asymmetric volatility in the exchange rates of Australian dollar (AUD), Euro (EUR), British pound (GBP) and Japanese yen (JPY), all against US dollar. Our investigation is based on a variant of the heterogeneous autoregressive realized volatility model, using daily realized variance and return series from 1996 to 2004. We find that a depreciation against USD leads to significantly greater volatility than an appreciation for AUD and GBP, whereas the opposite is true for JPY. Relative to volatility on days following a positive one-standard-deviation return, volatility on days following a negative one-standard-deviation return is higher by 6.6% for AUD, 6.1% for GBP, and 21.2% for JPY. The realized volatility of EUR appears to be symmetric. These results are robust to the removal of jump component from realized volatility and the sub-samplings defined by structural-changes. The asymmetry in AUD, GBP and JPY appears to be embedded in the continuous component of realized volatility rather than the jump component.     

Industry characteristics and financial risk contagion

This article proposes a new measure of tail risk spillover: the conditional coexceedance (CCX), defined as the number of joint occurrences of extreme negative returns in an industry, conditional on an extreme negative return in the financial sector. The empirical application provides evidence of significant volatility and tail risk spillovers from the financial sector to many real sectors in the U.S. economy from 2001 to 2011. These spillovers increase in crisis periods. The CCX in a given sector is positively related to its amount of debt financing and negatively related to its valuation and investment. Therefore, real economy sectors—which require relatively high debt financing and whose value and investment activity are relatively lower—are prime candidates for stock price volatility and depreciation in the wake of a financial sector crisis. Evidence also suggests that the higher the industry’s degree of competition, the stronger the tail risk spillover from the financial sector.     

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.     

货币政策、宏观审慎与汇率波动--基于时变效应的新视角

本文研究央行政策对人民币外汇市场压力的时变性影响。研究发现,央行数量型货币政策和宏观审慎政策主要通过影响人民币在国际货币市场的"相对"供给水平来影响人民币外汇市场压力的波动,宽松政策在经济高涨时期和经济新常态时期会引起人民币外汇市场贬值压力,在经济萧条时期会引起人民币外汇市场升值压力;央行价格型货币政策主要通过影响人民币在国际货币市场的"相对"需求水平来影响人民币外汇市场压力的波动,宽松政策在经济高涨时期和经济新常态时期会引起人民币外汇市场升值压力,在经济萧条时期会引起人民币外汇市场贬值压力。     

Gold and the Dollar (and the Euro, Pound, and Yen)

Usually, gold and the Dollar are negatively related; when the Dollar price of gold increases, the Dollar depreciates against other currencies. This is intuitively puzzling because it seems to suggest that gold prices are associated with appreciation in other currencies. Why should the Dollar be different? We show here that there is actually no puzzle. The price of gold can be associated with currency depreciation in every country. The Dollar price of gold can be related to Dollar depreciation and the Euro (Pound, Yen) price of gold can be related to Euro (Pound, Yen) depreciation. Indeed, this is usually the case empirically.     

Currency carry trade regimes: Beyond the Fama regression

We show that carry trade strategies resemble FX option strategies that sell out of the money puts on high interest rate currencies. Both strategies collect premiums to generate persistent excess returns that unwind sharply when volatility increases. We also show that the widely documented negative slope coefficient in regressions of exchange rate depreciation on forward currency premiums is an artifact of the volatility regime. In high volatility regimes, the so-called Fama regression produces a positive coefficient greater than unity. We finally document the existence of an intuitive co-movement between currency risk premiums and yield curve risk factors.     

银行体系、技术冲击与中国宏观经济波动

本文运用新凯恩斯的DSGE模型研究金融效率、经济结构变化对技术冲击效应的影响。研究结果印证了传统经济周期理论的核心观点,即技术进步不仅可以刺激产出、消费和投资,还可以降低社会总体价格水平,而金融中介效率、资本收入份额和折旧率的高低都不会影响技术冲击的传导路径。同时,本文的研究还显示,作为金融中介的银行体系效率越高,技术冲击对宏观经济波动的影响越小。该结论意味着,在当前阶段我国应着力提高国内金融体系的效率,以保证宏观经济的平稳健康运行。     

Inter-temporal examination of the trading activities of foreign investors in the Korean stock market

In the full market-opening period of the Korean stock market (1999–2006), when foreign equity ownership reached as high as 40% of the total stock market capitalization, foreign net flows move in the same direction contemporaneously with the domestic market return, while lagged foreign flows are not followed by any significant changes in the domestic market return. On the other hand, an increase (decrease) in foreign net buy is followed by Won appreciation (depreciation) relative to the US dollar; however, the reverse relation does not hold. Throughout the entire sample period (1995–2006), foreign flows are not significantly related to stock market return volatility.     

Impact of exchange rate movements on exports: An analysis of Indian non-financial sector firms

We explore the real effective exchange rate (REER) effects on the share of exports of Indian non-financial sector firms for the period 2000–2010. Our empirical analysis reveals that, on average, there has been a strong and significant negative impact from currency appreciation and currency volatility on Indian firms' export shares. Labor costs are found to intensify the exchange rate effects on trade. Further, there is evidence that the Indian firms considered here respond asymmetrically to exchange rates. For instance, the REER change effect is more likely to be driven by a negative appreciation effect than a depreciation effect. Also, Indian firms that have smaller export shares tend to have a stronger response to both REER change and volatility. Compared with those exporting goods, firms that export services are more affected by exchange rate fluctuations. The findings, especially those on asymmetric responses, have important policy implications.     

Regime switches in exchange rate volatility and uncovered interest parity

We use a regime-switching model to examine how exchange rate volatility is related to the failure of uncovered interest parity. Main findings are as follows. First, exchange rate returns are strongly influenced by regime switches in the relationship between the returns and interest rate differentials. Second, low-yielding currencies appreciate less frequently, but once it occurs, their movements are faster than when they depreciate. Third, depreciation of low-yielding currencies and low volatility are mutually dependent on each other. Finally, these three findings are more evident for shorter horizons. The second and third results are consistent with a market participants’ view: short-term carry trades in a low-volatility environment and their rapid unwinding substantially influence exchange rates. We consider the effects of funding liquidity to explain these results.     

Investor attention in cryptocurrency markets

We examine the relationship between investor attention, and measures of uncertainty, with the market dynamics of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We find that increases in investor attention are associated with higher returns, more volatility, and greater illiquidity in cryptocurrency markets. In contrast, cryptocurrency uncertainty (UCRY) and financial market uncertainty (VIX) are also positively related to volatility and illiquidity but have a negative contemporaneous relationship with returns. The identified relationships are accentuated during the COVID-pandemic, and are robust to different measures of investor attention, volatility, and illiquidity. Our results suggest that monitoring investor attention could assist both investors and policymakers.     

High exchange-rate volatility and low pass-through

Two specifications of an open-economy model are shown to generate high exchange-rate volatility and low exchange-rate pass-through (ERPT). In the model, price discrimination causes ERPT to be incomplete in both the short and the long run. In the short run, a small amount of nominal rigidities is enough to reduce ERPT sharply; still, exchange-rate depreciation worsens the terms of trade, consistent with the evidence. Possible biases from omitted variables and measurement error in the ERPT empirical literature (due to data limitations) are investigated using model-generated time series. Estimates of ERPT coefficients can be quite different from true parameters, and are sensitive to the shocks driving the economies. Estimates can nonetheless detect key structural features of the models.