IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/47987.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Currency Carry Trades, Position-Unwinding Risk, and Sovereign Credit Premia

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Huichou
  • MacDonald, Ronald

Abstract

This is the first study that employs option pricing model to measure the position-unwinding risk of currency carry trade portfolios, which covers moment information as the proxy for crash risk. We show that high interest-rate currencies are exposed to higher position-unwinding risk than low interest-rate currencies. I also investigate the sovereign CDS spreads as the proxy for countries' credit conditions and find that high interest rate currencies load up positively on sovereign default risk while low interest rate currencies provide a hedge against it. Sovereign credit premia as the dominant economic fundamental risk, together with position-unwinding likelihood indicator as the market risk (non-neutrality) sentiment, captures over 90% cross-sectional variations of carry trade excess returns. I identify sovereign credit risk as the impulsive country-specific risk that drives market volatility, and also the global contagion channels. Then I propose an alternative carry trade strategy that is immunized from crash risk, and a composite story of sovereign credit premia, global liquidity imbalances and liquidity reversal/spiral for explaining the forward premium puzzle.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Huichou & MacDonald, Ronald, 2012. "Currency Carry Trades, Position-Unwinding Risk, and Sovereign Credit Premia," MPRA Paper 47987, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Jan 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:47987
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/47987/1/MPRA_paper_47987.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48487/1/MPRA_paper_48487.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48764/1/MPRA_paper_48764.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/51207/1/MPRA_paper_48764.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hanno Lustig & Nikolai Roussanov & Adrien Verdelhan, 2011. "Common Risk Factors in Currency Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3731-3777.
    2. Lukas Menkhoff & Lucio Sarno & Maik Schmeling & Andreas Schrimpf, 2012. "Carry Trades and Global Foreign Exchange Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 681-718, April.
    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. 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. Vitaly Orlov, 2018. "Solvency Risk Premia and the Carry Trades," Working Papers on Finance 1802, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    3. Huang, Huichou & MacDonald, Ronald & Zhao, Yang, 2012. "Global Currency Misalignments, Crash Sensitivity, and Downside Insurance Costs," MPRA Paper 53745, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Nov 2013.
    4. Ivelina Pavlova & Maria E. de Boyrie, 2015. "Carry Trades and Sovereign CDS Spreads: Evidence from Asia‐Pacific Markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(11), pages 1067-1087, 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. Hassan, Tarek A. & Mertens, Thomas M. & Zhang, Tony, 2016. "Not so disconnected: Exchange rates and the capital stock," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(S1), pages 43-57.
    2. Chan, Kalok & Yang, Jian & Zhou, Yinggang, 2018. "Conditional co-skewness and safe-haven currencies: A regime switching approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 58-80.
    3. Mittnik, Stefan & Robinzonov, Nikolay & Spindler, Martin, 2015. "Stock market volatility: Identifying major drivers and the nature of their impact," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-14.
    4. Kim, Young Min & Lee, Seojin, 2023. "Spillover shifts in the FX market: Implication for the behavior of a safe haven currency," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Ahmed, Shamim & Liu, Xiaoquan & Valente, Giorgio, 2016. "Can currency-based risk factors help forecast exchange rates?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 75-97.
    6. Engel, Charles & Kazakova, Katya & Wang, Mengqi & Xiang, Nan, 2022. "A reconsideration of the failure of uncovered interest parity for the U.S. dollar," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    7. Nucera, Federico & Valente, Giorgio, 2013. "Carry trades and the performance of currency hedge funds," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 407-425.
    8. repec:gla:glaewp:2023-03 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Irina Zviadadze, 2017. "Term Structure of Consumption Risk Premia in the Cross Section of Currency Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1529-1566, August.
    10. Rubaszek, Michał & Beckmann, Joscha & Ca' Zorzi, Michele & Kwas, Marek, 2022. "Boosting carry with equilibrium exchange rate estimates," Working Paper Series 2731, European Central Bank.
    11. Mulder, Arjen & Tims, Ben, 2018. "Conditioning carry trades: Less risk, more return," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-19.
    12. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael, 2014. "Switching Risk Off: FX Correlations and Risk Premia," CEPR Discussion Papers 10214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Choi, Jin Ho & Suh, Sangwon, 2021. "A filtered currency carry trade," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    14. Sarno, Lucio & Schneider, Paul & Wagner, Christian, 2012. "Properties of foreign exchange risk premiums," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 279-310.
    15. Habib, Maurizio M. & Stracca, Livio, 2012. "Getting beyond carry trade: What makes a safe haven currency?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 50-64.
    16. Tarek A Hassan & Rui C Mano, 2019. "Forward and Spot Exchange Rates in a Multi-Currency World," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 397-450.
    17. Nucera, Federico, 2017. "Unemployment fluctuations and the predictability of currency returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 88-106.
    18. Lee, Kyuseok, 2018. "Systematic exchange rate variation: Where does the dollar factor come from?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 288-307.
    19. Gino Cenedese & Richard Payne & Lucio Sarno & Giorgio Valente, 2016. "What Do Stock Markets Tell Us about Exchange Rates?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(3), pages 1045-1080.
    20. Charlotte Christiansen & Maik Schmeling & Andreas Schrimpf, 2012. "A comprehensive look at financial volatility prediction by economic variables," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 956-977, September.
    21. Fernando Eguren-Martin & Andrej Sokol, 2022. "Attention to the Tail(s): Global Financial Conditions and Exchange Rate Risks," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(3), pages 487-519, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carry Trades; Position-unwinding Risk; Sovereign CDS Spreads; Currency Options; Forward Premium Puzzle.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F37 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Finance Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • 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:pra:mprapa:47987. 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.