IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfin/v67y2020ics104244312030086x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tail behavior of Bitcoin, the dollar, gold and the stock market index

Author

Listed:
  • Kwon, Ji Ho

Abstract

This paper studies whether Bitcoin can be classified as a currency, a commodity or an investment asset. Inspired by the movement that tail behavior is the key feature to determine the property of asset and for market participants to perceive the asset, I compare the tail behavior of daily return on Bitcoin to that of daily return on the US dollar, gold and the stock market index. Based on the conditional autoregressive Value at Risk proposed by Engle and Manganelli (2004), I find the similarity of the tail behavior between Bitcoin and the dollar, the stock market index with respect to contemporaneous correlation. Additionally, the tail of stock market return turns out to be associated with the risk premium on Bitcoin’s return while Bitcoin is proved to be the element of the time-varying investment opportunity set on the basis of Merton’s (1973) ICAPM setting. These findings suggest that Bitcoin is traded as an alternative for a medium of exchange and a means of investment, being far from a commodity.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwon, Ji Ho, 2020. "Tail behavior of Bitcoin, the dollar, gold and the stock market index," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:67:y:2020:i:c:s104244312030086x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2020.101202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104244312030086X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intfin.2020.101202?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Backus & Mikhail Chernov & Ian Martin, 2011. "Disasters Implied by Equity Index Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 1969-2012, December.
    2. Bollerslev, Tim & Todorov, Viktor & Xu, Lai, 2015. "Tail risk premia and return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 113-134.
    3. Jagannathan, Ravi & Wang, Zhenyu, 1996. "The Conditional CAPM and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 3-53, March.
    4. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-853, October.
    5. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2018. "On the determinants of bitcoin returns: A LASSO approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 235-240.
    6. Han, Heejoon & Linton, Oliver & Oka, Tatsushi & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2016. "The cross-quantilogram: Measuring quantile dependence and testing directional predictability between time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 193(1), pages 251-270.
    7. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    8. Kristjanpoller, Werner & Bouri, Elie & Takaishi, Tetsuya, 2020. "Cryptocurrencies and equity funds: Evidence from an asymmetric multifractal analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 545(C).
    9. Tetsuya Takaishi, 2017. "Statistical properties and multifractality of Bitcoin," Papers 1707.07618, arXiv.org, revised May 2018.
    10. Ji, Qiang & Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Roubaud, David, 2018. "Network causality structures among Bitcoin and other financial assets: A directed acyclic graph approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 203-213.
    11. Bruno C. Giovannetti, 2013. "Asset pricing under quantile utility maximization," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(4), pages 169-179, November.
    12. Raymond Kan & Cesare Robotti & Jay Shanken, 2013. "Pricing Model Performance and the Two‐Pass Cross‐Sectional Regression Methodology," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2617-2649, December.
    13. Bryan Kelly & Hao Jiang, 2014. "Editor's Choice Tail Risk and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(10), pages 2841-2871.
    14. Marie Briere & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2015. "Virtual Currency, Tangible Return: Portfolio Diversification with Bitcoins," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 16(6), pages 365-373.
    15. Selgin, George, 2015. "Synthetic commodity money," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 92-99.
    16. Jamal Bouoiyour & Refk Selmi, 2015. "What Does Bitcoin Look Like?," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 16(2), pages 449-492, November.
    17. Andersen, Torben G. & Fusari, Nicola & Todorov, Viktor, 2015. "The risk premia embedded in index options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 558-584.
    18. Shanken, Jay, 1992. "On the Estimation of Beta-Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(1), pages 1-33.
    19. Robert F. Engle & Simone Manganelli, 2004. "CAViaR: Conditional Autoregressive Value at Risk by Regression Quantiles," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 367-381, October.
    20. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    21. Klein, Tony & Pham Thu, Hien & Walther, Thomas, 2018. "Bitcoin is not the New Gold – A comparison of volatility, correlation, and portfolio performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 105-116.
    22. Wenjun Feng & Yiming Wang & Zhengjun Zhang, 2018. "Can cryptocurrencies be a safe haven: a tail risk perspective analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(44), pages 4745-4762, September.
    23. Bouri, Elie & Hussain Shahzad, Syed Jawad & Roubaud, David, 2020. "Cryptocurrencies as hedges and safe-havens for US equity sectors," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 294-307.
    24. Bouri, Elie & Molnár, Peter & Azzi, Georges & Roubaud, David & Hagfors, Lars Ivar, 2017. "On the hedge and safe haven properties of Bitcoin: Is it really more than a diversifier?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 192-198.
    25. Kinateder, Harald & Papavassiliou, Vassilios G., 2019. "Sovereign bond return prediction with realized higher moments," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 53-73.
    26. Geuder, Julian & Kinateder, Harald & Wagner, Niklas F., 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as financial bubbles: The case of Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    27. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    28. Corbet, Shaen & Meegan, Andrew & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Exploring the dynamic relationships between cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 28-34.
    29. Bouri, Elie & Azzi, Georges & Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2017. "On the return-volatility relationship in the Bitcoin market around the price crash of 2013," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-16.
    30. Baur, Dirk G. & Dimpfl, Thomas & Kuck, Konstantin, 2018. "Bitcoin, gold and the US dollar – A replication and extension," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 103-110.
    31. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    32. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Bitcoin, gold and the dollar – A GARCH volatility analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 85-92.
    33. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    34. Giudici, Paolo & Abu-Hashish, Iman, 2019. "What determines bitcoin exchange prices? A network VAR approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 309-318.
    35. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    36. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    37. Dwyer, Gerald P., 2015. "The economics of Bitcoin and similar private digital currencies," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 81-91.
    38. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    39. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia & Dilip Madan, 2003. "Stock Return Characteristics, Skew Laws, and the Differential Pricing of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 101-143.
    40. Takaishi, Tetsuya, 2018. "Statistical properties and multifractality of Bitcoin," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 506(C), pages 507-519.
    41. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    42. Dyhrberg, Anne Haubo, 2016. "Hedging capabilities of bitcoin. Is it the virtual gold?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 139-144.
    43. Koutmos, Dimitrios, 2018. "Bitcoin returns and transaction activity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 81-85.
    44. Ji, Qiang & Bouri, Elie & Lau, Chi Keung Marco & Roubaud, David, 2019. "Dynamic connectedness and integration in cryptocurrency markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 257-272.
    45. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lucey, Brian, 2019. "Is Bitcoin a better safe-haven investment than gold and commodities?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 322-330.
    46. Aviral Kumar Tiwari & Satish Kumar & Rajesh Pathak, 2019. "Modelling the dynamics of Bitcoin and Litecoin: GARCH versus stochastic volatility models," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(37), pages 4073-4082, August.
    47. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    48. Guesmi, Khaled & Saadi, Samir & Abid, Ilyes & Ftiti, Zied, 2019. "Portfolio diversification with virtual currency: Evidence from bitcoin," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 431-437.
    49. Osamah Al-Khazali & Elie Bouri & David Roubaud, 2018. "The impact of positive and negative macroeconomic news surprises: Gold versus Bitcoin," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 373-382.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ji Ho Kwon, 2021. "On the factors of Bitcoin’s value at risk," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-31, December.
    2. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    3. Bedi, Prateek & Nashier, Tripti, 2020. "On the investment credentials of Bitcoin: A cross-currency perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    5. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2022. "Robust drivers of Bitcoin price movements: An extreme bounds analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Rubaiyat Ahsan Bhuiyan & Afzol Husain & Changyong Zhang, 2023. "Diversification evidence of bitcoin and gold from wavelet analysis," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-36, December.
    7. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    8. Andrea Flori, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies In Finance: Review And Applications," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-22, August.
    9. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    10. Ahmed, Walid M.A., 2020. "Is there a risk-return trade-off in cryptocurrency markets? The case of Bitcoin," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    11. Hanif, Waqas & Areola Hernandez, Jose & Troster, Victor & Kang, Sang Hoon & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2022. "Nonlinear dependence and spillovers between cryptocurrency and global/regional equity markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Chu, Jeffrey & Chan, Stephen & Zhang, Yuanyuan, 2021. "Bitcoin versus high-performance technology stocks in diversifying against global stock market indices," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 580(C).
    13. Haffar, Adlane & Le Fur, Eric, 2021. "Structural vector error correction modelling of Bitcoin price," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 170-178.
    14. repec:eme:jalpps:jal-02-2023-0023 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Bouri, Elie & Roubaud, David & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Lucey, Brian, 2019. "Is Bitcoin a better safe-haven investment than gold and commodities?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 322-330.
    16. Duc Huynh, Toan Luu & Burggraf, Tobias & Wang, Mei, 2020. "Gold, platinum, and expected Bitcoin returns," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    17. Mensi, Walid & Sensoy, Ahmet & Aslan, Aylin & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2019. "High-frequency asymmetric volatility connectedness between Bitcoin and major precious metals markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    18. Maghyereh, Aktham & Abdoh, Hussein, 2020. "Tail dependence between Bitcoin and financial assets: Evidence from a quantile cross-spectral approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Wang, Gang-Jin & Xie, Chi & Wen, Danyan & Zhao, Longfeng, 2019. "When Bitcoin meets economic policy uncertainty (EPU): Measuring risk spillover effect from EPU to Bitcoin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    20. Hsu, Shu-Han & Sheu, Chwen & Yoon, Jiho, 2021. "Risk spillovers between cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies and gold under different global economic conditions," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    21. Kwon, Ji Ho, 2019. "Tail risk and the consumption CAPM," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 69-75.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bitcoin; Tail behavior; CAViaR; ICAPM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:eee:intfin:v:67:y:2020:i:c:s104244312030086x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intfin .

    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.