[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15523.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Currency Carry Trade Regimes: Beyond the Fama Regression

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Clarida
  • Josh Davis
  • Niels Pedersen
Abstract
We examine the factors that account for the returns on currency carry trade strategies. Using a dataset of daily returns spanning 18 years for 5 different long - short currency carry portfolios, we first document a robust empirical relationship between carry trade excess returns and exchange rate volatility, both realized and implied. Specifically, we extend and refine the results in Bhansali (2007) by documenting that currency carry trade strategies implemented with forward contracts have payoff and risk characteristics that are similar to those of currency option strategies that sell out of the money puts on high interest rates currencies. Both strategies have the feature of collecting premiums or carry to generate persistent excess returns that unwind sharply resulting in losses when actual and implied volatility rise. We next also document significant volatility regime sensitivity for Fama regressions estimated over low and high volatility periods. Specifically we find that the well known result that a regression of the realized exchange rate depreciation on the lagged interest rate differential produces a negative slope coefficient (instead of unity as predicted by uncovered interest parity) is an artifact of the volatility regime: when volatility is in the top quartile, the Fama regression produces a positive coefficient that is greater than unity. The third section of the paper documents the existence of an intuitive and significant co-movement between currency risk premium and risk premia in yield curve factors that drive bond yields in the countries that comprise carry trade pairs. We show that yield curve level factors are positively correlated with carry trade excess returns while yield curve slope factors are negatively correlated with carry trade excess returns. Importantly, we show that this correlation is robust to the current crisis and to the inclusion of equity volatility in the model. What distinguishes carry trade returns in the current crisis from non crisis periods is not changed loading on yield curve factors but a much larger loading on the equity factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Clarida & Josh Davis & Niels Pedersen, 2009. "Currency Carry Trade Regimes: Beyond the Fama Regression," NBER Working Papers 15523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15523
    Note: IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15523.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    2. Baba, Naohiko & Packer, Frank, 2009. "From turmoil to crisis: Dislocations in the FX swap market before and after the failure of Lehman Brothers," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1350-1374, December.
    3. Geert Bekaert & Robert J. Hodrick, 2001. "Expectations Hypotheses Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1357-1394, August.
    4. David Backus & Silverio Foresi & Chris I. Telmer, 1996. "Affine Models of Currency Pricing," NBER Working Papers 5623, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 2002. "A simple framework for international monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 879-904, July.
    6. Clarida, Richard H. & Sarno, Lucio & Taylor, Mark P. & Valente, Giorgio, 2003. "The out-of-sample success of term structure models as exchange rate predictors: a step beyond," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 61-83, May.
    7. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    8. Baba, Naohiko & Packer, Frank, 2009. "Interpreting deviations from covered interest parity during the financial market turmoil of 2007-08," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1953-1962, November.
    9. Shiller, Robert J. & Huston McCulloch, J., 1990. "The term structure of interest rates," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 627-722, Elsevier.
    10. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    11. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Isaac Kleshchelski & Sergio Rebelo, 2006. "The Returns to Currency Speculation," 2006 Meeting Papers 864, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Ichiue, Hibiki & Koyama, Kentaro, 2011. "Regime switches in exchange rate volatility and uncovered interest parity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1436-1450.
    13. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    14. Richard H. Clarida & Daniel Waldman, 2008. "Is Bad News about Inflation Good News for the Exchange Rate? And, If So, Can That Tell Us Anything about the Conduct of Monetary Policy?," NBER Chapters, in: Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, pages 371-396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Cumby, Robert E & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1981. "A Note on Exchange-Rate Expectations and Nominal Interest Differentials: A Test of the Fisher Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(3), pages 697-703, June.
    16. Froot, Kenneth A & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Foreign Exchange," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 179-192, Summer.
    17. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    18. David K. Backus & Silverio Foresi & Chris I. Telmer, 2001. "Affine Term Structure Models and the Forward Premium Anomaly," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 279-304, February.
    19. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel & Lasse H. Pedersen, 2009. "Carry Trades and Currency Crashes," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 313-347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Campbell, John Y. (ed.), 2008. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226092119, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Engel, Charles, 2014. "Exchange Rates and Interest Parity," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 453-522, Elsevier.
    2. Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min & Xing, Yuhang, 2007. "Uncovered interest rate parity and the term structure," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1038-1069, October.
    3. Wagner, Christian, 2012. "Risk-premia, carry-trade dynamics, and economic value of currency speculation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1195-1219.
    4. Yung, Julieta, 2021. "Can interest rate factors explain exchange rate fluctuations?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 34-56.
    5. Tarek A Hassan & Rui C Mano, 2019. "Forward and Spot Exchange Rates in a Multi-Currency World," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 397-450.
    6. Hanno Lustig & Nikolai Roussanov & Adrien Verdelhan, 2011. "Common Risk Factors in Currency Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3731-3777.
    7. Jordà, Òscar & Taylor, Alan M., 2012. "The carry trade and fundamentals: Nothing to fear but FEER itself," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 74-90.
    8. Lucio Sarno & Giorgio Valente & Hyginus Leon, 2006. "Nonlinearity in Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: An Explanation of the Forward Bias Puzzle," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 10(3), pages 443-482, September.
    9. Rosen Valchev, 2015. "Exchange Rates and UIP Violations at Short and Long Horizons," 2015 Meeting Papers 1446, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Sarno, Lucio & Schneider, Paul & Wagner, Christian, 2010. "Properties of Foreign Exchange Risk Premia," MPRA Paper 21302, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Norman C. Miller, 2014. "Exchange Rate Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14981.
    12. Anella Munro, 2014. "Exchange rates, expected returns and risk," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2014/01, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    13. Nucera, Federico & Valente, Giorgio, 2013. "Carry trades and the performance of currency hedge funds," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 407-425.
    14. Fong, Wai Mun, 2010. "A stochastic dominance analysis of yen carry trades," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1237-1246, June.
    15. Sarno, Lucio & Schneider, Paul & Wagner, Christian, 2012. "Properties of foreign exchange risk premiums," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 279-310.
    16. Antonio Diez De Los Rios, 2009. "Can Affine Term Structure Models Help Us Predict Exchange Rates?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 755-766, June.
    17. Craig Burnside & Bing Han & David Hirshleifer & Tracy Yue Wang, 2011. "Investor Overconfidence and the Forward Premium Puzzle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(2), pages 523-558.
    18. Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David & Wang, Tracy Yue, 2005. "Investor Overconfidence and the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Paper Series 2005-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    19. Zsolt Darvas & Gábor Rappai & Zoltán Schepp, 2007. "Uncovering Yield Parity: A New Insight into the UIP Puzzle through the Stationarity of Long Maturity Forward Rates," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 84, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    20. Emmanuel Farhi & Xavier Gabaix, "undated". "Rare Disasters and Exchange Rates," Working Paper 71001, Harvard University OpenScholar.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15523. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.