IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/ibrjnl/v9y2016i9p176-185.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Currency Carry Trade: Selection Skill or Behavioral Bias

Author

Listed:
  • Ian Hudson

Abstract

Many attempts have been undertaken to solve the forward premium puzzle with little to no success. The global currency market is considered the most information efficient and transparent of all financial markets since it demonstrates a balance between over and under-reaction to information with remarkable consistency. The Efficient Market Hypothesis espouses investors cannot systematically outperform a benchmark since all investors have access to the same information. Therefore, the expected long-term rate of return for currencies is essentially zero. The Arbitrage Pricing Theory asserts investment returns are random. As such, traders cannot avail themselves of mispriced currencies. The assertion of Uncovered Interest Rate Parity is that bi-national interest rate variance is equal to the expected differential in exchange rates. This paper asks the following questions: does alpha persistence exist in currency carry trade funds or are its excess returns merely a collection of behavioral biases?

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Hudson, 2016. "The Currency Carry Trade: Selection Skill or Behavioral Bias," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(9), pages 176-185, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:ibrjnl:v:9:y:2016:i:9:p:176-185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/view/61013/33619
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/view/61013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Daniel, Kent & Hodrick, Robert J. & Lu, Zhongjin, 2017. "The Carry Trade: Risks and Drawdowns," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 6(2), pages 211-262, September.
    3. Jeremy J. Siegel, 1972. "Risk, Interest Rates and the Forward Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 86(2), pages 303-309.
    4. Harvey, Campbell R & Huang, Roger D, 1991. "Volatility in the Foreign Currency Futures Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(3), pages 543-569.
    5. P. Lequeux & E. Acar, 1998. "A dynamic index for managed currencies funds using CME currency contracts," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 311-330.
    6. Georgios E. Chortareas & Rebecca L. Driver, 2001. "PPP and the real exchange rate-real interest rate differential puzzle revisited: evidence from non-stationary panel data," Bank of England working papers 138, Bank of England.
    7. 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.
    8. N/A, 2004. "Index for 2004," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(4), pages 511-512, December.
    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. Michael Melvin & Frank Westermann, 2022. "Chinese Exchange Rate Policy: Lessons for Global Investors," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(1), pages 145-168, February.
    2. Lukas Kremens & Ian Martin, 2019. "The Quanto Theory of Exchange Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 810-843, March.
    3. Craig Burnside & Mario Cerrato & Zhekai Zhang, "undated". "Foreign exchange order flow as a risk factor," Working Papers 2023-03, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    4. Melvin, Michael & Prins, John & Shand, Duncan, 2013. "Forecasting Exchange Rates: an Investor Perspective," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 721-750, Elsevier.
    5. Mikhail Chernov & Magnus Dahlquist & Lars Lochstoer, 2023. "Pricing Currency Risks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 693-730, April.
    6. Dahlquist, Magnus & Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2020. "Economic momentum and currency returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 152-167.
    7. Thomas A Maurer & Thuy-Duong Tô & Ngoc-Khanh Tran, 2023. "Market Timing and Predictability in FX Markets," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(1), pages 223-246.
    8. Yamani, Ehab, 2019. "Diversification role of currency momentum for carry trade: Evidence from financial crises," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-19.
    9. Anatolyev, Stanislav & Gospodinov, Nikolay & Jamali, Ibrahim & Liu, Xiaochun, 2017. "Foreign exchange predictability and the carry trade: A decomposition approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 199-211.
    10. Charles W. Calomiris & Harry Mamaysky, 2019. "Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Returns: Time-Varying Risk Regimes," NBER Working Papers 25714, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jamali, Ibrahim & Yamani, Ehab, 2019. "Out-of-sample exchange rate predictability in emerging markets: Fundamentals versus technical analysis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 241-263.
    12. Michael Kunkler, 2023. "Synthetic money: Addressing the budget‐constraint issue," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 3774-3788, October.
    13. Javier Bianchi & Saki Bigio & Charles Engel, 2021. "Scrambling for Dollars: International Liquidity, Banks and Exchange Rates," Working Papers 786, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    14. Liu, De-Chih & Chang, Yu-Chien, 2022. "Systematic variations in exchange rate returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 569-583.
    15. Hassan, Ramin & Loualiche, Erik & Pecora, Alexandre R. & Ward, Colin, 2023. "International trade and the risk in bilateral exchange rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2).
    16. Fabian Ackermann & Walt Pohl & Karl Schmedders, 2017. "Optimal and Naive Diversification in Currency Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3347-3360, October.
    17. Ahmed, Shamim & Liu, Xiaoquan & Valente, Giorgio, 2016. "Can currency-based risk factors help forecast exchange rates?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 75-97.
    18. Alexis Derviz, 2002. "The uncovered parity properties of the czech koruna," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2002(1), pages 17-37.
    19. Ryan Greenaway‐McGrevy & Nelson C. Mark & Donggyu Sul & Jyh‐Lin Wu, 2018. "Identifying Exchange Rate Common Factors," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(4), pages 2193-2218, November.
    20. Yu-chin Chen & Kwok Ping Tsang, 2009. "A Macro-Finance Approach to Exchange Rate Determination," Working Papers UWEC-2009-24-R, University of Washington, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    carry trade; alpha; forward rate bias; behavioral bias; arbitrage pricing theory; uncovered interest rate parity; efficient market hypothesis; forward premium puzzle; behavioral finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:ibn:ibrjnl:v:9:y:2016:i:9:p:176-185. 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: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.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.