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Forecasting foreign exchange volatility: Why is implied volatility biased and inefficient? And does it matter?

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  • Neely, Christopher J.

Abstract

Research has consistently found that implied volatility is a conditionally biased predictor of realized volatility across asset markets. This paper evaluates explanations for this bias in the market for options on foreign exchange futures. Several recently proposed solutions - including a model of priced volatility risk - fail to explain a significant portion of the conditional bias found in implied volatility. Further, while implied volatility fails to subsume econometric forecasts in encompassing regressions, these forecasts do not significantly improve delta-hedging performance. Thus this paper argues that statistical metrics are inappropriate measures of the information content of implied volatility. Implied volatility appears much more useful when measured by a more relevant, economic metric.

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  • Neely, Christopher J., 2009. "Forecasting foreign exchange volatility: Why is implied volatility biased and inefficient? And does it matter?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 188-205, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:19:y:2009:i:1:p:188-205
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    3. DeMarzo, Peter M. & Kremer, Ilan & Mansour, Yishay, 2016. "Robust option pricing: Hannan and Blackwell meet Black and Scholes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 410-434.
    4. Keith Pilbeam & Kjell Langeland, 2015. "Forecasting exchange rate volatility: GARCH models versus implied volatility forecasts," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 127-142, March.
    5. Bollerslev, Tim & Zhou, Hao, 2006. "Volatility puzzles: a simple framework for gauging return-volatility regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 123-150.
    6. Hui Guo & Christopher J. Neely & Jason Higbee, 2008. "Foreign Exchange Volatility Is Priced in Equities," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 769-790, December.
    7. Kellard, Neil & Dunis, Christian & Sarantis, Nicholas, 2010. "Foreign exchange, fractional cointegration and the implied-realized volatility relation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 882-891, April.
    8. Wing Hong Chan & Ranjini Jha & Madhu Kalimipalli, 2009. "The Economic Value Of Using Realized Volatility In Forecasting Future Implied Volatility," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 32(3), pages 231-259, September.
    9. Peter Christoffersen & Stefano Mazzotta, 2004. "The Informational Content of Over-the-Counter Currency Options," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-16, CIRANO.
    10. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kellard, Neil M. & Jiang, Ying & Wohar, Mark, 2015. "Spurious long memory, uncommon breaks and the implied–realized volatility puzzle," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 36-54.
    12. Prodosh Simlai, 2021. "Accrual mispricing, value-at-risk, and expected stock returns," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1487-1517, November.
    13. Eui Jung Chang & Benjamin Miranda Tabak, 2007. "Are implied volatilities more informative? The Brazilian real exchange rate case," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(7), pages 569-576.
    14. Tim Bollerslev & Hao Zhou, 2003. "Volatility puzzles: a unified framework for gauging return-volatility regressions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-40, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Joseph K. W. Fung & Ted Z. X. Zeng, 2012. "Are Derivative Warrants Overpriced?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(12), pages 1144-1170, December.
    16. Michael C. Nwogugu, 2020. "Decision-Making, Sub-Additive Recursive "Matching" Noise And Biases In Risk-Weighted Stock/Bond Index Calculation Methods In Incomplete Markets With Partially Observable Multi-Attribute Pref," Papers 2005.01708, arXiv.org.
    17. Vogel, Harold L. & Werner, Richard A., 2015. "An analytical review of volatility metrics for bubbles and crashes," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 15-28.
    18. Viteva, Svetlana & Veld-Merkoulova, Yulia V. & Campbell, Kevin, 2014. "The forecasting accuracy of implied volatility from ECX carbon options," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 475-484.
    19. Slim, Skander & Dahmene, Meriam & Boughrara, Adel, 2020. "How informative are variance risk premium and implied volatility for Value-at-Risk prediction? International evidence," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 22-37.
    20. Ariful Hoque & Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti, 2012. "Modeling moneyness volatility in measuring exchange rate volatility," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 8(4), pages 365-380, September.

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