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The Returns to Currency Speculation

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Author Info
Craig Burnside
Martin Eichenbaum
Isaac Kleshchelski
Sergio Rebelo

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Abstract

Currencies that are at a forward premium tend to depreciate. This 'forward-premium puzzle' represents an egregious deviation from uncovered interest parity. We document the properties of returns to currency speculation strategies that exploit this anomaly. We show that these strategies yield high Sharpe ratios which are not a compensation for risk. In practice bid-ask spreads are an increasing function of order size. In addition, there is price pressure, i.e. exchange rates are an increasing function of net order flow. Together these frictions greatly reduce the profitability of currency speculation strategies. In fact, the marginal Sharpe ratio associated with currency speculation can be zero even though the average Sharpe ratio is positive.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12489.

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Date of creation: Aug 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12489

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Bacchetta, Philippe & Mertens, Elmar & van Wincoop, Eric, 2006. "Predictability in Financial Markets: What Do Survey Expectations Tell Us?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5770, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Enrique Sentana & Antonio Diez de los Rios, 2007. "Testing Uncovered Interest Parity: A Continuous-Time Approach," Working Papers wp2007_0714, CEMFI. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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  5. Emmanuel Farhi & Xavier Gabaix, 2008. "Rare Disasters and Exchange Rates," NBER Working Papers 13805, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric van Wincoop, 2007. "Random Walk Expectations and the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Papers 07.01, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Angelo Ranaldo & Paul Söderlind, 2007. "Safe Haven Currencies," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2007 2007-22, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Christian Wagner, 2008. "Risk-Premia, Carry-Trade Dynamics, and Speculative Efficiency of Currency Markets," Working Papers 143, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank). [Downloadable!]
  9. Hanno Lustig & Nikolai Roussanov & Adrien Verdelhan, 2008. "Common Risk Factors in Currency Markets," NBER Working Papers 14082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Aidan Corcoran, 2009. "The Determinants of Carry Trade Risk Premia," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp287, IIIS. [Downloadable!]
  11. Hanno Lustig & Adrien Verdelhan, 2008. "Note on The Cross-Section of Foreign Currency Risk Premia and Consumption Growth Risk," NBER Working Papers 13812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Joseph E. Gagnon & Alain P. Chaboud, 2007. "What can the data tell us about carry trades in Japanese yen?," International Finance Discussion Papers 899, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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