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The Carry Trade: Risks and Drawdowns

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  • Daniel, Kent
  • Hodrick, Robert J.
  • Lu, Zhongjin

Abstract

We find important differences in dollar-based and dollar-neutral G10 carry trades. Dollar-neutral trades have positive average returns, are highly negatively skewed, are correlated with risk factors, and exhibit considerable downside risk. In contrast, a diversified dollar-carry portfolio has a higher average excess return, a higher Sharpe ratio, minimal skewness, is unconditionally uncorrelated with standard risk-factors, and exhibits no downside risk. Distributions of drawdowns and maximum losses from daily data indicate a role for timevarying autocorrelation in determining negative skewness at longer horizons.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jnlcfr:104.00000051
    DOI: 10.1561/104.00000051
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Evans, Martin, 2020. "Exchange Rates and Liquidity Risk," MPRA Paper 102702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Zhenzhen Fan & Juan M. Londono & Xiao Xiao, 2019. "US Equity Tail Risk and Currency Risk Premia," International Finance Discussion Papers 1253, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Andrew Clare & James Seaton & Peter N. Smith & Stephen Thomas, 2015. "Carry and Trend Following Returns in the Foreign Exchange Market," Discussion Papers 15/07, Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Souza, Thiago de Oliveira, 2020. "Dollar carry timing," Discussion Papers of Business and Economics 10/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Business and Economics.
    6. Craig Burnside & Mario Cerrato & Zhekai Zhang, 2018. "Foreign exchange order fl ow as a risk factor," Working Papers 2018_04, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    7. Dupuy, Philippe & James, Jessica & Marsh, Ian W., 2021. "Attractive and non-attractive currencies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Michael Melvin & Duncan Shand, 2016. "When Carry Goes Bad: The Magnitude, Causes, and Duration of Currency Carry Unwinds," CESifo Working Paper Series 6210, CESifo.
    9. Lee, Suzanne S. & Wang, Minho, 2019. "The impact of jumps on carry trade returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 433-455.
    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. Bekaert, Geert & Panayotov, George, 2020. "Good Carry, Bad Carry," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(4), pages 1063-1094, June.
    12. 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.
    13. Michael Melvin & Frank Westermann, 2020. "Chinese Exchange Rate Policy: Lessons for Global Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 8493, CESifo.
    14. Lee, Suzanne S. & Wang, Minho, 2020. "Tales of tails: Jumps in currency markets," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    15. Kharrat, Sabrine & Hammami, Yacine & Fatnassi, Ibrahim, 2020. "On the cross-sectional relation between exchange rates and future fundamentals," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 484-501.
    16. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    17. 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.
    18. Dahlquist, Magnus & Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2020. "Economic momentum and currency returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 152-167.
    19. Thomas A. Maurer & Thuy-Duong Tô & Ngoc-Khanh Tran, 2019. "Pricing Risks Across Currency Denominations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5308-5336, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Currency carry trade; Currency risk factors; Market efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

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