IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/4467.html

International Portfolio Holdings and Swiss Franc Asset Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Kugler, Peter
  • Weder di Mauro, Beatrice

Abstract

This Paper revisits the puzzle of low returns on Swiss franc assets using a new dataset of international portfolio holdings at Swiss banks. The main findings are as follows. First, we find that the return anomaly is present only for fixed income assets and not for equity. Second, it is mostly due to a long run deviation from uncovered interest rate parity, not a deviation from purchasing power parity. Third, it is unlikely that foreign demand for Swiss assets (possibly due to banking secrecy) is driving down returns: this demand is quantitatively small especially for Swiss franc fixed income instruments. A dynamic factor analysis confirms that foreign demand had almost no impact on Swiss franc asset prices. Finally, we propose a new explanation for low returns on Swiss fixed income assets, namely the diversification benefits offered by these instruments. Applying reversed portfolio optimization to back out the implied returns reveals that the estimated pattern of this returns conforms very well to the observed pattern.

Suggested Citation

  • Kugler, Peter & Weder di Mauro, Beatrice, 2004. "International Portfolio Holdings and Swiss Franc Asset Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 4467, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4467
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP4467
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David R. Haab & Thomas Nitschka, 2020. "Carry trade and forward premium puzzle from the perspective of a safe‐haven currency," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 376-394, May.
    2. Angelo Ranaldo & Paul Söderlind, 2010. "Safe Haven Currencies," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(3), pages 385-407.
    3. Marco Tronzano, 2020. "Safe-Haven Assets, Financial Crises, and Macroeconomic Variables: Evidence from the Last Two Decades (2000–2018)," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-21, February.
    4. Ricardo Hausmann & Federico Sturzenegger, 2006. "The Implications of Dark Matter for Assessing the US External Imbalance," CID Working Papers 137, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    5. Christoph Sax & Rolf Weder, 2009. "How to Explain the High Prices in Switzerland?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 463-483, December.
    6. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Pensa, Pascal & Wöhle, Claudia B., 2004. "Kapitalstrukturtheorie in Theorie und Praxis: Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenuntersuchung," Working papers 2004/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    7. Kugler, Peter & Weder, Beatrice, 2005. "Why are Returns on Swiss Franc Asset so Low?," Working papers 2005/08, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    8. Jean-Pierre Danthine & Samuel Danthine, 2018. "On the rewards to international investing: a safe haven currency perspective," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-12, December.
    9. Niko Hauzenberger & Daniel Kaufmann & Rebecca Stuart & Cédric Tille, 2022. "What Drives Long-Term Interest Rates? Evidence from the Entire Swiss Franc History 1852-2020," IRENE Working Papers 22-03, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    10. Beatrice Weder & Rolf Weder, 2009. "Switzerland's Rise to a Wealthy Nation: Competition and Contestability as Key Success Factors," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-25, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Ricardo Hausmann & Federico Sturzenegger, 2006. "Global Imbalances or Bad Accounting? The Missing Dark Matter in the Wealth of Nations," CID Working Papers 124, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. Kleiber Christian & Zeileis Achim, 2013. "Reproducible Econometric Simulations," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 89-99, July.
    13. Marco Tronzano, 2022. "Optimal Portfolio Allocation between Global Stock Indexes and Safe Haven Assets: Gold versus the Swiss Franc (1999–2021)," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-24, May.
    14. Jean-Pierre Danthine, 2017. "Taux négatifs: made for Switzerland," Post-Print hal-01884328, HAL.
    15. Christoph Sax, 2006. "Interest Rates and Exchange Rate Movements: Analyzing Short-term Investments in Long-term Bonds," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(2), pages 205-220, June.
    16. Nicolas Stoffels & Cédric Tille, 2007. "Why are Switzerland's foreign assets so low? The growing financial exposure of a small open economy," Staff Reports 283, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    17. Mathias Hoffmann & Rahel Suter, 2010. "The Swiss Franc Exchange Rate and Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: Global vs Domestic Factors," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 146(I), pages 349-371, March.
    18. Jean-Pierre Danthine, 2017. "Taux négatifs: made for Switzerland," Working Papers hal-01884328, HAL.
    19. Ricardo Hausmann & Maya Horii & Federico Sturzenegger, 2008. "The growing current account surpluses in East Asia: the effect of dark matter assets," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 141-161.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:cpr:ceprdp:4467. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.