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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.

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  • 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:

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    3. Evans, Martin, 2020. "Exchange Rates and Liquidity Risk," MPRA Paper 102702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.).
    5. 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.
    6. Souza, Thiago de Oliveira, 2020. "Dollar carry timing," Discussion Papers on Economics 10/2020, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    7. 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.
    8. Dupuy, Philippe & James, Jessica & Marsh, Ian W., 2021. "Attractive and non-attractive currencies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    9. Michael Melvin & Duncan Shand, 2016. "When Carry Goes Bad: The Magnitude, Causes, and Duration of Currency Carry Unwinds," CESifo Working Paper Series 6210, CESifo.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Fan, Zhenzhen & Paseka, Alexander & Qi, Zhen & Zhang, Qi, 2022. "Currency carry trade: The decline in performance after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Geyikçi, Utku Bora & Özyıldırım, Süheyla, 2021. "To hedge or not to hedge: Carry trade dynamics in the emerging economies," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Fan, Zhenzhen & Londono, Juan M. & Xiao, Xiao, 2022. "Equity tail risk and currency risk premiums," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 484-503.
    18. Lee, Suzanne S. & Wang, Minho, 2020. "Tales of tails: Jumps in currency markets," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    19. Dupuy, Philippe, 2021. "Risk-adjusted return managed carry trade," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. 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.
    23. Lee, Namhoon & Choi, Wonseok & Pae, Yuntaek, 2021. "Market efficiency in foreign exchange market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
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    25. 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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