IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/42848.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are CDS spreads predictable? An analysis of linear and non-linear forecasting models

Author

Listed:
  • Avino, Davide
  • Nneji, Ogonna

Abstract

This paper investigates the forecasting performance for CDS spreads of both linear and non-linear models by analysing the iTraxx Europe index during the financial crisis period which began in mid-2007. The statistical and economic significance of the models’ forecasts are evaluated by employing various metrics and trading strategies, respectively. Although these models provide good in-sample performances, we find that the non-linear Markov switching models underperform linear models out-of-sample. In general, our results show some evidence of predictability of iTraxx index spreads. Linear models, in particular, generate positive Sharpe ratios for some of the strategies implemented, thus shedding some doubts on the efficiency of the European CDS index market.

Suggested Citation

  • Avino, Davide & Nneji, Ogonna, 2012. "Are CDS spreads predictable? An analysis of linear and non-linear forecasting models," MPRA Paper 42848, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:42848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/42848/1/MPRA_paper_42848.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Balke, Nathan S & Fomby, Thomas B, 1997. "Threshold Cointegration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(3), pages 627-645, August.
    2. Kilian, Lutz, 1999. "Exchange Rates and Monetary Fundamentals: What Do We Learn from Long-Horizon Regressions?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(5), pages 491-510, Sept.-Oct.
    3. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    4. Alexander, Carol & Kaeck, Andreas, 2008. "Regime dependent determinants of credit default swap spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1008-1021, June.
    5. Charles Engel & Kenneth D. West, 2005. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 485-517, June.
    6. Hong, Harrison & Yogo, Motohiro, 2012. "What does futures market interest tell us about the macroeconomy and asset prices?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 473-490.
    7. Delianedis, Gordon & Geske, Robert, 2001. "The Components of Corporate Credit Spreads: Default, Recovery, Tax, Jumps, Liquidity, and Market Factors," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt32x284q3, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    8. Jeremy Berkowitz & Lorenzo Giorgianni, 2001. "Long-Horizon Exchange Rate Predictability?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 81-91, February.
    9. Jones, E Philip & Mason, Scott P & Rosenfeld, Eric, 1984. "Contingent Claims Analysis of Corporate Capital Structures: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 611-625, July.
    10. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    11. Hamilton, James D & Kim, Dong Heon, 2002. "A Reexamination of the Predictability of Economic Activity Using the Yield Spread," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 340-360, May.
    12. Houweling, Patrick & Vorst, Ton, 2005. "Pricing default swaps: Empirical evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 1200-1225, December.
    13. Black, Fischer & Cox, John C, 1976. "Valuing Corporate Securities: Some Effects of Bond Indenture Provisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 351-367, May.
    14. Diebold, Francis X. & Li, Canlin, 2006. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 337-364, February.
    15. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2007. "Stock Return Predictability: Is it There?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 651-707.
    16. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    17. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    18. Ericsson, Jan & Jacobs, Kris & Oviedo, Rodolfo, 2009. "The Determinants of Credit Default Swap Premia," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 109-132, February.
    19. Leland, Hayne E, 1994. "Corporate Debt Value, Bond Covenants, and Optimal Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1213-1252, September.
    20. Cremers, Martijn & Driessen, Joost & Maenhout, Pascal & Weinbaum, David, 2008. "Individual stock-option prices and credit spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2706-2715, December.
    21. Massimo Guidolin & Allan Timmermann, 2006. "An econometric model of nonlinear dynamics in the joint distribution of stock and bond returns," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 1-22, January.
    22. Dionne, Georges & Gauthier, Geneviève & Hammami, Khemais & Maurice, Mathieu & Simonato, Jean-Guy, 2011. "A reduced form model of default spreads with Markov-switching macroeconomic factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1984-2000, August.
    23. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    24. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George & Tzagkaraki, Emilia, 2008. "Can the evolution of implied volatility be forecasted? Evidence from European and US implied volatility indices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 2401-2411, November.
    25. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    26. Ferreira, Miguel A. & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2011. "Forecasting stock market returns: The sum of the parts is more than the whole," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 514-537, June.
    27. Jing-Zhi Huang & Ming Huang, 2012. "How Much of the Corporate-Treasury Yield Spread Is Due to Credit Risk?," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 153-202.
    28. Cao, Charles & Yu, Fan & Zhong, Zhaodong, 2010. "The information content of option-implied volatility for credit default swap valuation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 321-343, August.
    29. John Y. Campbell & Glen B. Taksler, 2003. "Equity Volatility and Corporate Bond Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2321-2350, December.
    30. Leland, Hayne E & Toft, Klaus Bjerre, 1996. "Optimal Capital Structure, Endogenous Bankruptcy, and the Term Structure of Credit Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 987-1019, July.
    31. Guidolin, Massimo & Timmermann, Allan, 2009. "Forecasts of US short-term interest rates: A flexible forecast combination approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2), pages 297-311, June.
    32. Young Ho Eom, 2004. "Structural Models of Corporate Bond Pricing: An Empirical Analysis," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 499-544.
    33. Longstaff, Francis A & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1995. "A Simple Approach to Valuing Risky Fixed and Floating Rate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 789-819, July.
    34. John H. Cochrane, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1533-1575, July.
    35. Dick van Dijk & Philip Hans Franses, 2003. "Selecting a Nonlinear Time Series Model using Weighted Tests of Equal Forecast Accuracy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(s1), pages 727-744, December.
    36. Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer & Allan Timmermann, 2008. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 122-157, March.
    37. Leung, Mark T. & Daouk, Hazem & Chen, An-Sing, 2000. "Forecasting stock indices: a comparison of classification and level estimation models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 173-190.
    38. Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2009. "Macro Factors in Bond Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5027-5067, December.
    39. Kim, Mi Ae & Jang, Bong-Gyu & Lee, Ho-Seok, 2008. "A first-passage-time model under regime-switching market environment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2617-2627, December.
    40. Keim, Donald B. & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1986. "Predicting returns in the stock and bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 357-390, December.
    41. Benjamin Yibin Zhang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2009. "Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with the Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5099-5131, December.
    42. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    43. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November.
    44. Lars Norden & Martin Weber, 2009. "The Co†movement of Credit Default Swap, Bond and Stock Markets: an Empirical Analysis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(3), pages 529-562, June.
    45. Guo, Feng & Chen, Carl R. & Huang, Ying Sophie, 2011. "Markets contagion during financial crisis: A regime-switching approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 95-109, January.
    46. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Deepak Agrawal & Christopher Mann, 2001. "Explaining the Rate Spread on Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 247-277, February.
    47. Forte, Santiago & Peña, Juan Ignacio, 2009. "Credit spreads: An empirical analysis on the informational content of stocks, bonds, and CDS," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2013-2025, November.
    48. Joost Driessen, 2005. "Is Default Event Risk Priced in Corporate Bonds?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 165-195.
    49. Chan, Kam Fong & Marsden, Alastair, 2014. "Macro risk factors of credit default swap indices in a regime-switching framework," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 285-308.
    50. Biao Guo & David Newton, 2013. "Regime-Dependent Liquidity Determinants Of Credit Default Swap Spread Changes," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 279-298, June.
    51. Roberto Blanco & Simon Brennan & Ian W. Marsh, 2005. "An Empirical Analysis of the Dynamic Relation between Investment‐Grade Bonds and Credit Default Swaps," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2255-2281, October.
    52. Harvey, David & Leybourne, Stephen & Newbold, Paul, 1997. "Testing the equality of prediction mean squared errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 281-291, June.
    53. Krishnan, C.N.V. & Ritchken, Peter H. & Thomson, James B., 2010. "Predicting credit spreads," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 529-563, October.
    54. Guidolin, Massimo & Hyde, Stuart & McMillan, David & Ono, Sadayuki, 2009. "Non-linear predictability in stock and bond returns: When and where is it exploitable?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 373-399.
    55. Haibin Zhu, 2004. "An empirical comparison of credit spreads between the bond market and the credit default swap market," BIS Working Papers 160, Bank for International Settlements.
    56. #Name#, 2001. "Non-Linear Predictability of Stock Market Returns: Evidence from Non-Parametric and Threshold Models," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 200102, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    57. John Douglas (J.D.) Opdyke, 2007. "Comparing Sharpe ratios: So where are the p-values?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(5), pages 308-336, December.
    58. Gargano, Antonio & Timmermann, Allan, 2014. "Forecasting commodity price indexes using macroeconomic and financial predictors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 825-843.
    59. Pierre Collin-Dufresn & Robert S. Goldstein & J. Spencer Martin, 2001. "The Determinants of Credit Spread Changes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2177-2207, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mile Bošnjak & Ivan Novak & Maja Bašiæ, 2019. "Persistence of shocks in CDS returns on Croatian bonds: Quantile autoregression approach," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 37(2), pages 759-775.
    2. Sensoy, Ahmet & Fabozzi, Frank J. & Eraslan, Veysel, 2017. "Predictability dynamics of emerging sovereign CDS markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 5-9.
    3. Buse, Rebekka & Schienle, Melanie, 2019. "Measuring connectedness of euro area sovereign risk," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 25-44.
    4. Griffin, Paul A. & Lont, David H., 2018. "Game changer? The impact of the VW emission-cheating scandal on the interrelation between large automakers’ equity and credit markets," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 179-196.
    5. Chikashi Tsuji, 2016. "Did the expectations channel work? Evidence from quantitative easing in Japan, 2001–06," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1210996-121, December.
    6. Alena Audzeyeva & Xu Wang, 2023. "Fundamentals, real-time uncertainty and CDS index spreads," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 1-33, July.
    7. Saker Sabkha & Christian Peretti & Dorra Hmaied, 2019. "On the informational market efficiency of the worldwide sovereign credit default swaps," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(7), pages 581-608, December.
    8. Giacomo Bulfone & Roberto Casarin & Francesco Ravazzolo, 2021. "Corporate CDS spreads from the Eurozone crisis to COVID-19 pandemic: A Bayesian Markov switching model," Working Paper series 21-09, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    9. Saker Sabkha & Christian de Peretti & Dorra Hmaied, 2018. "Forecasting sovereign CDS volatility: A comparison of univariate GARCH-class models," Working Papers hal-01769390, HAL.
    10. Mustafa Akay & Berat Bayram & Abdullah Kazdal & Muhammed Hasan Yilmaz, 2020. "Investigating Regime-Dependent Dynamics in Country Risk Premium: Evidence from Turkey and Emerging Markets," CBT Research Notes in Economics 2008, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    11. Sabkha, Saker & de Peretti, Christian & Hmaied, Dorra, 2019. "Nonlinearities in the oil effects on the sovereign credit risk: A self-exciting threshold autoregression approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-133.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.
    2. Benjamin Yibin Zhang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2009. "Explaining Credit Default Swap Spreads with the Equity Volatility and Jump Risks of Individual Firms," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5099-5131, December.
    3. repec:wyi:journl:002109 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Annaert, Jan & De Ceuster, Marc & Van Roy, Patrick & Vespro, Cristina, 2013. "What determines Euro area bank CDS spreads?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 444-461.
    5. Han, Bing & Zhou, Yi, 2015. "Understanding the term structure of credit default swap spreads," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 18-35.
    6. Ericsson, Jan & Jacobs, Kris & Oviedo, Rodolfo, 2009. "The Determinants of Credit Default Swap Premia," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 109-132, February.
    7. Yalin Gündüz & Marliese Uhrig-Homburg, 2014. "Does modeling framework matter? A comparative study of structural and reduced-form models," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 39-78, April.
    8. Avino, Davide & Lazar, Emese & Varotto, Simone, 2013. "Price discovery of credit spreads in tranquil and crisis periods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 242-253.
    9. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.
    10. Antonio Di Cesare & Giovanni Guazzarotti, 2010. "An analysis of the determinants of credit default swap spread changes before and during the subprime financial turmoil," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 749, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Stephen Zamore & Kwame Ohene Djan & Ilan Alon & Bersant Hobdari, 2018. "Credit Risk Research: Review and Agenda," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 811-835, March.
    12. Jang, Bong-Gyu & Rhee, Yuna & Yoon, Ji Hee, 2016. "Business cycle and credit risk modeling with jump risks," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 15-36.
    13. Goldstein, Michael A. & Namin, Elmira Shekari, 2023. "Corporate bond liquidity and yield spreads: A review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Becchetti, Leonardo & Carpentieri, Andrea & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2009. "The determinants of option-adjusted delta credit spreads : a comparative analysis of the United States, the United Kingdom and the euro area," Research Discussion Papers 34/2009, Bank of Finland.
    15. Ephraim Clark & Selima Baccar, 2018. "Modelling credit spreads with time volatility, skewness, and kurtosis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 262(2), pages 431-461, March.
    16. Jing-Zhi Huang & Zhan Shi & Hao Zhou, 2020. "Specification Analysis of Structural Credit Risk Models [Corporate bond valuation and hedging with stochastic interest rates and endogenous bankruptcy]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 24(1), pages 45-98.
    17. Becchetti, Leonardo & Carpentieri, Andrea & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2009. "The determinants of option-adjusted delta credit spreads: a comparative analysis of the United States, the United Kingdom and the euro area," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 34/2009, Bank of Finland.
    18. Antonio Trujillo-Ponce & Reyes Samaniego-Medina & Clara Cardone-Riportella, 2014. "Examining what best explains corporate credit risk: accounting-based versus market-based models," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 253-276, April.
    19. Brian BARNARD, 2017. "Rating Migration and Bond Valuation: Decomposing Rating Migration Matrices from Market Data via Default Probability Term Structures," Expert Journal of Finance, Sprint Investify, vol. 5(1), pages 49-72.
    20. Zimmermann, Paul, 2021. "The role of the leverage effect in the price discovery process of credit markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    21. Peña, Juan Ignacio & Forte, Santiago, 2006. "Credit spreads: theory and evidence about the information content of stocks, bonds and cdss," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB wb063310, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Credit default swap spreads; iTraxx; Forecasting; Markov switching; Market efficiency; Technical trading rules;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:42848. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.