Revisiting the price-volume relationship: a cross-currency evidence

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the contemporaneous and causal relationship between returns (volatility) and trading volume in the Indian currency futures market for selected currency pairs; USD-INR, EUR-INR, GBP-INR and JPY-INR, from August 2008 to December 2014. Design/methodology/approach - The data for all the currency futures series has been taken from National Stock Exchange of India Limited which represents the daily settlement prices along with trading volume. The contemporaneous returns-volume relation is tested using the generalized method of moments, and Granger-causality framework impulse response function is used to test the predictive ability of returns (volatility) and volume for each other. Findings - The author reports a positive contemporaneous relationship between futures returns and trading volume which persists even after controlling for heteroskedasticity providing support to mixture of distribution hypothesis. The results show a unidirectional Granger causality from futures returns to volume. However, there is a significant bidirectional Granger causality between returns volatility and volume lending support to sequential arrival of information hypothesis. Next, the results for cross-currencies show significant influence of US dollar on the volume and returns of all other currencies. Overall, the author suggests that the short- to medium-term movements in the currency markets are dominated by market microstructure and not by fundamentals. Practical implications - The findings of this paper are very important for the participants in the market and regulators. The participants in the market require alternatives to diversify their risk. The significant relationship between futures returns (volatility) and trading volume implies that the current trading volume help predict the futures prices and should lead to creation of more reliable hedging strategies for investment purposes. Further, it may interest the regulators who need to decide upon the appropriateness of their policies in the currency futures market. Based on returns-volume relation, they need to set forth market restrictions such as daily price movement and position limits. Originality/value - To the best of the knowledge, no study has yet investigated the forecast ability of trading volume to price changes and their volatility in the Indian currency futures market. Given that currency futures market is one of the largest markets in the world, and Indian rupee has seen wide fluctuations in the recent years, it seems exciting to explore the price-volume relationship in the Indian currency futures market.