IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1197.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Profitability of Currency Speculation

Author

Listed:
  • John F. O. Bilson
  • David A. Hsieh

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a post-sample simulation of a speculative strategy using a portfolio of foreign currency forward contracts.The main new features of the speculative strategy are (a)the use of Kalman filters to update the forecasting equation, (b) the allowance for transactions,costs and margin requirements and (c) the endogenous determination of the leveraging of the portfolio. While the forecasting model tended to overestimate profit and underestimate risk, the strategy was still profitable over a three year period and it was possible to reject the hypothesis that the sum of profits was zero. Furthermore, the currency portfolio was found to have an extremely low market risk. Combinations of the speculative currency portfolio with traditional portfolios of U.S. equities resulted in considerable improvements in risk-adjusted returns on capital.

Suggested Citation

  • John F. O. Bilson & David A. Hsieh, 1983. "The Profitability of Currency Speculation," NBER Working Papers 1197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1197
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1197.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1984. "An investigation of risk and return in forward foreign exchange," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 5-29, April.
    2. Krasker, William S., 1980. "The `peso problem' in testing the efficiency of forward exchange markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 269-276, April.
    3. Taylor, Dean, 1982. "Official Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market, or, Bet against the Central Bank," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 356-368, April.
    4. McKinnon, Ronald I., 1979. "Money in International Exchange: The Convertible Currency System," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195024098.
    5. Bilson, John F O, 1981. "The "Speculative Efficiency" Hypothesis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 435-451, July.
    6. John F. O. Bilson, 1981. "Profitability and Stability in International Currency Markets," NBER Working Papers 0664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Sager, Michael & Taylor, Mark P., 2014. "Generating currency trading rules from the term structure of forward foreign exchange premia," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 230-250.
    2. MacDonald, Ronald, 2000. "Is the foreign exchange market 'risky'? Some new survey-based results," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Marsh, Ian W. & Power, David M., 1996. "A note on the performance of foreign exchange forecasters in a portfolio framework," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 605-613, April.
    5. Sisimonda Kinya Mwanja, 2021. "Effect of operational and market risk exposures on financial performance of DT-Saccos in Kenya," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 10(5), pages 107-118, July.
    6. LeBaron, Blake, 1999. "Technical trading rule profitability and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 125-143, October.
    7. John Anderson, 2003. "A Test of Weak-Form Market Efficiency in Australian Bank Bill Futures Calendar Spreads," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 134, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    8. Stephen J. Taylor, 1992. "Rewards Available to Currency Futures Speculators: Compensation for Risk or Evidence of Inefficient Pricing?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 68(S1), pages 105-116, December.
    9. Anderson, John A. & Faff, Robert W., 2008. "Point and Figure charting: A computational methodology and trading rule performance in the S&P 500 futures market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 198-217.
    10. Kees Koedijk & Clemens Kool, 1993. "Betting on the EMS," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 151-173, June.

    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. Karen K. Lewis, 2011. "Global Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 435-466, December.
    2. Richard M. Levich, 1983. "Empirical Studies of Exchange Rates: Price Behavior, Rate Determinationand Market Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 1112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1986. "Interpreting Tests of Forward Discount Bias Using Survey Data on Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1963, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    5. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1985. "Using Survey Data to Test Some Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1984. "An investigation of risk and return in forward foreign exchange," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 5-29, April.
    7. Gregory, Allan W. & McCurdy, Thomas H., 1986. "The unbiasedness hypothesis in the forward foreign exchange market: A specification analysis with application to France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and West Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 365-381, April.
    8. Kerstin Bernoth & Jürgen von Hagen & Casper G. de Vries, 2007. "The Forward Premium Puzzle only emerges gradually," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-033/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Levine, Ross, 1989. "An International Arbitrage Pricing Model with PPP Deviations," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(4), pages 587-599, October.
    10. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    11. Vajanne, Laura, . "The Exchange Rate Under Target Zones," ETLA A, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, number 16, June.
    12. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Froot, Kenneth A., 1987. "Short-term and long-term expectations of the yen/dollar exchange rate: Evidence from survey data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 249-274, September.
    13. Menzie Chinn & Jeffery Frankel, 1995. "More survey data on exchange rate expectations: More currencies, more horizons, more tests," International Finance 9508003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J., 1993. "On biases in the measurement of foreign exchange risk premiums," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 115-138, April.
    15. Juan Jose Echavarria & Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas, 2016. "Great expectations? evidence from Colombia’s exchange rate survey," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 25(1), pages 1-27, December.
    16. Verschoor, Willem F. C. & Wolff, Christian C. P., 2001. "Exchange risk premia, expectations formation and "news" in the Mexican peso/U.S. dollar forward exchange rate market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 157-174.
    17. Guy Meredith & Menzie D. Chinn, 1998. "Long-Horizon Uncovered Interest Rate Parity," NBER Working Papers 6797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Simpson, Marc W. & Grossmann, Axel, 2014. "An examination of the forward prediction error of U.S. dollar exchange rates and how they are related to bid-ask spreads, purchasing power parity disequilibria, and forward premium asymmetry," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 221-238.
    19. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1987. "Foreign currency futures," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-2), pages 1-24, February.
    20. Ross Levine, 1988. "The forward exchange rate bias: a new explanation," International Finance Discussion Papers 338, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    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:nbr:nberwo:1197. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.