IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/quantf/v4y2004i4p399-415.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technical trading and the volatility of exchange rates

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Bauer
  • Bernhard Herz

Abstract

The microeconomic structure of foreign exchange markets can cause excessive volatility in flexible exchange rate regimes. The market entry of chartists changes the composition of the foreign exchange market and leads to excessive volatility. Our chartist model predicts a continuum of equilibria and a U-shaped relation between exchange rate volatility and the measured trend, which is supported by the empirical evidence. The data show a positive nonlinear relation between trend and volatility as predicted by the model. In such a situation monetary policy may be able to smooth the exchange rate without changing macroeconomic fundamentals.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Bauer & Bernhard Herz, 2004. "Technical trading and the volatility of exchange rates," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 399-415.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:4:y:2004:i:4:p:399-415
    DOI: 10.1080/14697680400008650
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14697680400008650
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14697680400008650?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. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Order Flow and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 6, pages 247-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Lewis, Karen K., 1995. "Puzzles in international financial markets," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 1913-1971, Elsevier.
    3. Krugman, Paul & Miller, Marcus, 1993. "Why have a target zone?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 279-314, June.
    4. Flood, Robert P. & Rose, Andrew K., 1995. "Fixing exchange rates A virtual quest for fundamentals," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 3-37, August.
    5. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    6. De Ceuster, Marc J. K. & Dhaene, Geert & Schatteman, Tom, 1998. "On the hypothesis of psychological barriers in stock markets and Benford's Law," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 263-279, September.
    7. Kilian, Lutz & Taylor, Mark P., 2003. "Why is it so difficult to beat the random walk forecast of exchange rates?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 85-107, May.
    8. Gennotte, Gerard & Leland, Hayne, 1990. "Market Liquidity, Hedging, and Crashes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 999-1021, December.
    9. Ben S. Bernanke & Kenneth S. Rogoff (ed.), 2001. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262523140, April.
    10. Donaldson, R.G., 1990. "International Evidence On Psychological Barriers In Asset Prices And The Efficient Market Hypothesis," Papers 116, Princeton, Department of Economics - Financial Research Center.
    11. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    12. Sarno,Lucio & Taylor,Mark P., 2003. "The Economics of Exchange Rates," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521485845, October.
    13. Eckhard Platen & Martin Schweizer, 1998. "On Feedback Effects from Hedging Derivatives," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 67-84, January.
    14. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Foresi, Silverio & Hait, David J., 1997. "Price Barriers and the Dynamics of Asset Prices in Equilibrium," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 137-159, June.
    15. Engle, Robert F & Ng, Victor K, 1993. "Measuring and Testing the Impact of News on Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1749-1778, December.
    16. Rose, Andrew K, 1996. "After the Deluge: Do Fixed Exchange Rates Allow Inter-temporal Volatility Tradeoffs?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 47-54, January.
    17. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 339-412, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2002. "Predicting exchange rate volatility: genetic programming versus GARCH and RiskMetrics," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 84(May), pages 43-54.
    19. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Paul Labys, 2003. "Modeling and Forecasting Realized Volatility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(2), pages 579-625, March.
    20. Baillie, Richard T. & Bollerslev, Tim & Mikkelsen, Hans Ole, 1996. "Fractionally integrated generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 3-30, September.
    21. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Bertola, Giuseppe & Foresi, Silverio, 1995. "Asset Price Dynamics and Infrequent Feedback Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1747-1766, December.
    22. Cyree, Ken B. & Domian, Dale L. & Louton, David A. & Yobaccio, Elizabeth J., 1999. "Evidence of psychological barriers in the conditional moments of major world stock indices," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 73-91, June.
    23. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    24. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    25. Mussa, Michael, 1986. "Nominal exchange rate regimes and the behavior of real exchange rates: Evidence and implications," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 117-214, January.
    26. Olivier Jeanne & Andrew K. Rose, 2002. "Noise Trading and Exchange Rate Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 537-569.
    27. Flood, Robert P & Rose, Andrew K, 1999. "Understanding Exchange Rate Volatility without the Contrivance of Macroeconomics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(459), pages 660-672, November.
    28. Menkhoff, L., 1998. "The noise trading approach -- questionnaire evidence from foreign exchange," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 547-564, June.
    29. Campa, Jose M. & Chang, P. H. Kevin & Reider, Robert L., 1998. "Implied exchange rate distributions: evidence from OTC option markets1," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 117-160, February.
    30. Hau, Harald, 1998. "Competitive Entry and Endogenous Risk in the Foreign Exchange Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(4), pages 757-787.
    31. Carol L. Osler, 2000. "Support for resistance: technical analysis and intraday exchange rates," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jul, pages 53-68.
    32. Lastrapes, William D, 1989. "Exchange Rate Volatility and U.S. Monetary Policy: An ARCH Application," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 21(1), pages 66-77, February.
    33. Rüdiger Frey & Alexander Stremme, 1997. "Market Volatility and Feedback Effects from Dynamic Hedging," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(4), pages 351-374, October.
    34. Donaldson, R. Glen & Kim, Harold Y., 1993. "Price Barriers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 313-330, September.
    35. Grossman, Sanford J & Zhou, Zhongquan, 1996. "Equilibrium Analysis of Portfolio Insurance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1379-1403, September.
    36. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2002. "The Exchange Rate and its Fundamentals. A Chaotic Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 639, CESifo.
    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. Jackson, Antony & Ladley, Daniel, 2016. "Market ecologies: The effect of information on the interaction and profitability of technical trading strategies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 270-280.
    2. Gilles Zumbach, 2010. "Volatility conditional on price trends," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 431-442.
    3. Xing Gao & Daniel Ladley, 2022. "Noise trading and market stability," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(13-15), pages 1283-1301, October.
    4. Ying-Sing Liu, 2021. "The Impact of Trading Information Sets on Exchange Rate Change and Volatility: Evidence From Taiwan," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, November.

    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. Pierdzioch, Christian, 2000. "Noise Traders? Trigger Rates, FX Options, and Smiles," Kiel Working Papers 970, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Bauer, Christian & De Grauwe, Paul & Reitz, Stefan, 2009. "Exchange rate dynamics in a target zone--A heterogeneous expectations approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 329-344, February.
    4. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    5. Annina Kaltenbrunner & Machiko Nissanke, 2009. "The Case for an Intermediate Exchange Rate Regime with Endogenizing Market Structures and Capital Mobility: The Empirical Study of Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-29, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Olivier Jeanne & Andrew K. Rose, 2002. "Noise Trading and Exchange Rate Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 537-569.
    7. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2014. "Exchange Rate Puzzles: A Tale of Switching Attractors," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and Global Financial Policies, chapter 3, pages 71-117, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Charles Engel & Feng Zhu, 2019. "Exchange rate puzzles: evidence from rigidly fixed nominal exchange rate systems," BIS Working Papers 805, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2003. "Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market in a Model with Noise Traders," Working Papers 162003, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    10. Xu, Juanyi, 2010. "Noise traders, exchange rate disconnect puzzle, and the Tobin tax," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 336-357, March.
    11. Roche, M.J. & Moore. M.J., 2002. "Volatile and persistent real exchange rates without the contrivance of sticky prices," Economics Department Working Paper Series n1160402, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    12. Grossmann, Axel & Orlov, Alexei G., 2022. "Exchange rate misalignments, capital flows and volatility," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    13. Raquel Almeida Ramos & Federico Bassi & Dany Lang, 2020. "Bet against the trend and cash in profits," CEPN Working Papers halshs-02956879, HAL.
    14. Maggiori, Matteo, 2021. "International Macroeconomics With Imperfect Financial Markets," SocArXiv z8g6r, Center for Open Science.
    15. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie David, 2001. "Currency traders and exchange rate dynamics: a survey of the US market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 439-471, August.
    16. Stefan Reitz & Mark Taylor, 2012. "FX intervention in the Yen-US dollar market: a coordination channel perspective," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 111-128, June.
    17. Reitz, Stefan & Taylor, Mark P., 2008. "The coordination channel of foreign exchange intervention: A nonlinear microstructural analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 55-76, January.
    18. Stefan Reitz & M.P Taylor, 2006. "The Coordination Channel of Foreign Exchange Intervention," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 16, Society for Computational Economics.
    19. Hau, Harald, 2002. "Real Exchange Rate Volatility and Economic Openness: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(3), pages 611-630, August.
    20. Moore, Michael J. & Roche, Maurice J., 2010. "Solving exchange rate puzzles with neither sticky prices nor trade costs," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1151-1170, October.

    More about this item

    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:taf:quantf:v:4:y:2004:i:4:p:399-415. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RQUF20 .

    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.