IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usg/sfwpfi/201304.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Variance Risk Premiums in Foreign Exchange Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Ammann, Manuel
  • Buesser, Ralf

Abstract

Based on the theory of static replication of variance swaps we assess the sign and magnitude of variance risk premiums in foreign exchange markets. We find significantly negative risk premiums when realized variance is computed from intraday data with low frequency. As a likely consequence of microstructure effects however, the evidence is ambiguous when realized variance is based on high-frequency data. Common to all estimates, variance risk premiums are highly time-varying and inversely related to the risk-neutral expectation of future variance. When we test whether variance risk premiums can be attributed to classic risk factors or fear of jump risk, we find that conditional premiums remain significantly negative. However, we observe a strong relationship between the size of log variance risk premiums and the VIX, the TED spread and the general shape of the implied volatility function of the corresponding currency pair. Overall, we conclude that there is a separately priced variance risk factor which commands a highly time-varying premium.

Suggested Citation

  • Ammann, Manuel & Buesser, Ralf, 2013. "Variance Risk Premiums in Foreign Exchange Markets," Working Papers on Finance 1304, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:sfwpfi:2013:04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/sfwpfi/WPF-1304.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Britten‐Jones & Anthony Neuberger, 2000. "Option Prices, Implied Price Processes, and Stochastic Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 839-866, April.
    2. Andersen T. G & Bollerslev T. & Diebold F. X & Labys P., 2001. "The Distribution of Realized Exchange Rate Volatility," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 42-55, March.
    3. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    4. Peter Christoffersen & Stefano Mazzotta, 2005. "The Accuracy of Density Forecasts from Foreign Exchange Options," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 578-605.
    5. Charlie Charoenwong & Nattawut Jenwittayaroje & Buen Sin Low, 2009. "Who knows more about future currency volatility?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 270-295, March.
    6. Pan, Jun, 2002. "The jump-risk premia implicit in options: evidence from an integrated time-series study," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 3-50, January.
    7. Andersen, Torben G & Bollerslev, Tim, 1997. "Heterogeneous Information Arrivals and Return Volatility Dynamics: Uncovering the Long-Run in High Frequency Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 975-1005, July.
    8. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2000. "Recovering Risk Aversion from Option Prices and Realized Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 433-451.
    9. Heston, Steven L, 1993. "A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility with Applications to Bond and Currency Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 327-343.
    10. Jorion, Philippe, 1995. "Predicting Volatility in the Foreign Exchange Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 507-528, June.
    11. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia, 2003. "Delta-Hedged Gains and the Negative Market Volatility Risk Premium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 527-566.
    12. Carr, Peter & Wu, Liuren, 2007. "Stochastic skew in currency options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 213-247, October.
    13. Bates, David S, 1996. "Jumps and Stochastic Volatility: Exchange Rate Processes Implicit in Deutsche Mark Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(1), pages 69-107.
    14. Guo, Dajiang, 1998. "The Risk Premium of Volatility Implicit in Currency Options," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 498-507, October.
    15. Viktor Todorov, 2010. "Variance Risk-Premium Dynamics: The Role of Jumps," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 345-383, January.
    16. Louis O. Scott, 1992. "The Information Content of Prices in Derivative Security Markets," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 39(3), pages 596-625, September.
    17. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2001. "Expected Option Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 983-1009, June.
    18. Elton A. Daal & Dilip B. Madan, 2005. "An Empirical Examination of the Variance-Gamma Model for Foreign Currency Options," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2121-2152, November.
    19. Pong, Shiuyan & Shackleton, Mark B. & Taylor, Stephen J. & Xu, Xinzhong, 2004. "Forecasting currency volatility: A comparison of implied volatilities and AR(FI)MA models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(10), pages 2541-2563, October.
    20. 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.
    21. George J. Jiang & Yisong S. Tian, 2005. "The Model-Free Implied Volatility and Its Information Content," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1305-1342.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    25. Garman, Mark B. & Kohlhagen, Steven W., 1983. "Foreign currency option values," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 231-237, December.
    26. Low, Buen Sin & Zhang, Shaojun, 2005. "The Volatility Risk Premium Embedded in Currency Options," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(4), pages 803-832, December.
    27. Torben G. Andersen & Luca Benzoni, 2008. "Realized volatility," Working Paper Series WP-08-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    28. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2009. "Variance Risk Premiums," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1311-1341, March.
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:219-265 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Bates, David S., 1996. "Dollar jump fears, 1984-1992: distributional abnormalities implicit in currency futures options," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 65-93, February.
    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. Cheng, Hung-Wen & Chang, Li-Han & Lo, Chien-Ling & Tsai, Jeffrey Tzuhao, 2023. "Empirical performance of component GARCH models in pricing VIX term structure and VIX futures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 122-142.
    2. Jiang, Xue & Han, Liyan & Yin, Libo, 2019. "Can skewness predict currency excess returns?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 628-641.
    3. Johannes Rauch & Carol Alexander, 2016. "Tail Risk Premia for Long-Term Equity Investors," Papers 1602.00865, arXiv.org.
    4. Peter Reinhard Hansen & Zhuo Huang & Chen Tong & Tianyi Wang, 2024. "Realized GARCH, CBOE VIX, and the Volatility Risk Premium," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 187-223.
    5. José Da Fonseca & Edem Dawui, 2021. "Semivariance and semiskew risk premiums in currency markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 290-324, March.
    6. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    7. Manuel Ammann & Mathis Mörke, 2019. "Credit Variance Risk Premiums," Working Papers on Finance 1908, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    8. Yabei Zhu & Xingguo Luo & Qi Xu, 2023. "Industry variance risk premium, cross‐industry correlation, and expected returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 3-32, January.
    9. Corte, Pasquale Della & Kozhan, Roman & Neuberger, Anthony, 2021. "The cross-section of currency volatility premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 950-970.
    10. Gurdip Bakshi & Mario Cerrato & John Crosby, 2016. "Studying the Implications of Consumption and Asset Return Data for Stochastic Discount Factors in Incomplete International Economies," Working Papers 2017_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    11. Jiang, Xue & Han, Liyan & Yin, Libo, 2019. "Currency strategies based on momentum, carry trade and skewness," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 517(C), pages 121-131.
    12. Carol Alexander & Johannes Rauch, 2016. "Model-Free Discretisation-Invariant Swap Contracts," Papers 1602.00235, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2016.
    13. José Da Fonseca & Yahua Xu, 2019. "Variance and skew risk premiums for the volatility market: The VIX evidence," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 302-321, March.

    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. Ammann, Manuel & Buesser, Ralf, 2013. "Variance risk premiums in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 16-32.
    2. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Chang, Bo Young, 2013. "Forecasting with Option-Implied Information," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 581-656, Elsevier.
    3. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    4. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2004. "Variance Risk Premia," Finance 0409015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    6. Jie-Cao He & Hsing-Hua Chang & Ting-Fu Chen & Shih-Kuei Lin, 2023. "Upside and downside correlated jump risk premia of currency options and expected returns," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-58, December.
    7. Christoffersen, Peter & Heston, Steven & Jacobs, Kris, 2010. "Option Anomalies and the Pricing Kernel," Working Papers 11-17, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    8. Bondarenko, Oleg, 2014. "Variance trading and market price of variance risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 81-97.
    9. Busch, Thomas & Christensen, Bent Jesper & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard, 2011. "The role of implied volatility in forecasting future realized volatility and jumps in foreign exchange, stock, and bond markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 48-57, January.
    10. Della Corte, Pasquale & Sarno, Lucio & Tsiakas, Ilias, 2011. "Spot and forward volatility in foreign exchange," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 496-513, June.
    11. Papantonis, Ioannis, 2016. "Volatility risk premium implications of GARCH option pricing models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 104-115.
    12. Audrino, Francesco & Fengler, Matthias R., 2015. "Are classical option pricing models consistent with observed option second-order moments? Evidence from high-frequency data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 46-63.
    13. Maneesoonthorn, Worapree & Martin, Gael M. & Forbes, Catherine S. & Grose, Simone D., 2012. "Probabilistic forecasts of volatility and its risk premia," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 171(2), pages 217-236.
    14. Bakshi, Gurdip & Madan, Dilip & Panayotov, George, 2010. "Returns of claims on the upside and the viability of U-shaped pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 130-154, July.
    15. Chernov, Mikhail, 2007. "On the Role of Risk Premia in Volatility Forecasting," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 411-426, October.
    16. Bams, Dennis & Blanchard, Gildas & Lehnert, Thorsten, 2017. "Volatility measures and Value-at-Risk," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 848-863.
    17. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    18. Konstantinidi, Eirini & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "How does the market variance risk premium vary over time? Evidence from S&P 500 variance swap investment returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 62-75.
    19. Carr, Peter & Wu, Liuren, 2007. "Stochastic skew in currency options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 213-247, October.
    20. Bronka Rzepkowski, 2001. "Pouvoir prédictif de la volatilité implicite dans le prix des options de change," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 148(2), pages 71-97.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign exchange; variance risk premium; variance swap; intraday data; risk- neutral expectation; jump risk.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usg:sfwpfi:2013:04. 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/cfisgch.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.