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Despite an attractive interest rate differential between China and foreign countries, existing capital control might prevent currency carry trade strategies to be executed. We focus on the copper market to study if trades are taken in order to execute carry trade strategies. We find that copper value is related to carry trade through the onshore-offshore interest differential, while the pegged nature of the USD/CNY exchange rate makes traders indifferent to the forward risk premium. We rule out the possibility of high average payoff due to peso problems, because risk factors are insignificant, implying that carry traders are either fully hedged on FX risks, or they are unconcerned about FX risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We empirically study the relationship between currency excess returns and current account uncertainty, measured as forecast dispersion. We find that investment currencies deliver low returns, whereas funding currencies offer a hedge when current account uncertainty is unexpectedly high. Moreover, an increase in current account uncertainty is associated with higher expected future excess returns on investment currencies. This mechanism is consistent with the recent advances in exchange rate theory based on capital flows in imperfect financial markets. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance. Funding: A. Krecetovs thanks the Brevan Howard Centre at Imperial College London for financial support. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4949. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on carry trade by investigating the dynamic correlation and the dependence structure between the US-dollar carry trade and equity markets in the (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS)) economies during sample observations that include regular and crisis periods. Furthermore, the nonlinear Granger causality test based on the feed-forward neural networks (FFNN) model assesses how global volatility predicts the dynamic correlation between the US-dollar carry trade and equity markets in BRICS. The paper finds the dynamic correlations between carry trade and equity markets in BRICS are more pronounced during most global crises. Moreover, the results of the symmetrised Joe Clayton (SJC) copula model showed that the lower tail dependence between the two series is higher during the various crises. Furthermore, the results of the empirical analysis show that global volatility predicts the dynamic correlations between carry trade and equity markets in BRICS only during crises. Asset managers and investors can benefit from this paper's findings regarding portfolio diversification, risk management, asset allocation, and hedging when dealing with equity assets and carry trades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a heterogeneous agent model including the fundamentalists, chartists, and carry traders, to describe the dynamics of exchange rates, and examine the effects of Tobin Tax on the equilibrium exchange rates. A theoretical analysis shows that an increase of Tobin tax always reduces the trading volume, and its impact on the equilibrium exchange rate depends on the agents' expectations of exchange rate movements and their weights in the markets. Our simulation exercise shows that an increase in Tobin tax may lead to an increase in volatility and price distortion and a decrease in the kurtosis and the trading volume. Our results suggest that the Tobin tax could be an emergency measure, but not a long-term policy tool to suppress speculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many recent papers have investigated the role played by volatility in determining the cross-section of currency returns. This paper employs two time-varying factor models: a threshold model and a Markov-switching model to price the excess returns from the currency carry trade. We show that the importance of volatility depends on whether the currency markets are unexpectedly volatile. Volatility innovations during relatively tranquil periods are largely unrewarded in the market, whereas during the unexpected volatile period, this risk has a substantial impact on currency returns. The empirical results show that the two time-varying factor models fit the data better and generate a smaller pricing error than the linear model, while the Markov-switching model outperforms the threshold factor models not only by generating lower pricing errors but also distinguishes two regimes endogenously and without any predetermined state variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I document that Federal Reserve expansionary monetary policy has a positive impact on the excess returns arising from currency carry trades. I show that expansive monetary surprises are associated with an increase in future real interest differentials between high interest rate currencies and the US dollar, which leads to higher capital flows toward those currencies and an increase in their returns. Since this increase is not fully compensated by a decrease in the returns from the short position in low interest rate currencies, unexpected monetary expansions in the US result in higher carry trade returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between currency excess returns and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model. GDPs are observable systematic risk factors in our asset pricing equations. The correlation between the unobservable systematic factors is explored by Seemingly Unrelated Regressions estimations. The sample comprises the period from 1999:M01 to 2019:M12 and 48 countries. Results show that GDP growth risk is significant for most currency pairs and portfolios. We also find that they are priced in the cross‐section of excess returns. Furthermore, currency returns are directly affected by regional business cycles (Europe, America, and Asia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the extent to which carry trade operations affect the performance of equity and bond markets in a target country, South Africa, by considering the US and the euro area as the funding countries. A two- and three-factor capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is employed to assess whether the pricing of equity and bond markets in South Africa depends on the US dollar/rand and euro/rand carry trade returns. Moreover, the paper uses the quantile regression technique to assess whether this pricing varies with the distribution of the equity and bond returns. The findings support that the US- and euro-funded carry trade are essential factors for the pricing of equity and bond markets in South Africa. Moreover, the results of the two-factor model show a negative relationship between the equity excess return and the US-carry trade returns at lower quantiles of the equity market returns. The positive relationship is observed in the upper quantiles of the equity market. The negative relationship means that carry trade activities reduce equity market returns during a bear market as investors close out their position when conditions in the equity market become unfavourable. The results of the three-factor model, controlling for the global volatility or uncertainty, show that carry trade investors exit the equity market to invest in the bond market when global uncertainty rises. This finding shows that carry trade investors choose less risky assets during rising global uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies optimal currency allocation of the carry trade in foreign exchange (FX). A number of empirical studies have documented a phenomenon referred to as the 'forward premium puzzle', which states that the carry trade is profitable on average. However, the carry reversal during the 2008 global crisis periods wiped out the profits earned by the trade. To account for the regime shifts in the joint distribution of returns on the carry trade with FX market portfolios, we adopt a Markov regime switching model. We find evidence of two economic regimes: one state captures periods of the forward premium puzzle and UIP being violated, whilst the other reports high FX volatility and negative return of carry trade portfolio. Furthermore, to quantify the economic significance of regimes in returns on currency portfolios, we consider their importance in investors' optimal portfolio allocation problem. We find strong evidence that optimal currency portfolio holdings vary significantly across regimes and across short and long investment horizons, as investors anticipate a shift out of the current state. Our results also show that the regimes partially anticipate peso events as well as the changes of funding liquidity measured by the TED spreads. A strategy that accounts for regimes, thus, generates overall stronger performance than the single-state Gaussian IID model, a carry trade procedure as well as a buy-and-hold strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carry trade refers to a risky arbitrage in interest rate differentials between two currencies. Persistent excess carry trade returns pose a challenge to foreign exchange market efficiency. Using a data set of 10 currencies between 1990 and 2017, we find (i) a machine learning model, long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, forecast carry trade returns better than linear and threshold models and other machine learning models; and (ii) excess carry trade returns deteriorate after the 2007–2008 global financial crisis in all model forecasts, indicating that the uncovered interest rate parity may still hold in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the asymmetric effects of exchange rate volatility in currency markets using high-frequency, intraday data of the most actively traded currencies over 2004–2017. The analysis is conducted by combining the quantile regression model with the heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model and its extensions where realized variance is decomposed into positive and negative semivariances. We find that safe haven currencies exhibit behavior different from that of other currencies. For safe haven currencies, negative realized semivariance associated with appreciation plays an important role in explaining the quantile-dependent volatility dynamics. This behavior is more pronounced during high volatility phases. The opposite holds for other currencies, i.e., positive realized semivariance associated with depreciation matters more. The results also reveal that while negative jumps associated with the appreciation of safe haven currencies lead to higher future volatility, positive jumps associated with the depreciation of other currencies lead to higher future volatility, especially during high volatility phases. We formally test whether the volatility dynamics are quantile dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we derive a new model on exchange rate response to a lasting higher interest rate level. Contemporary models do not provide a convincing explanation for this relationship, but recent research suggests that models based on demand-pull effects to be somewhat confined to small funding cost increases. This would make cost-push effects more relevant when the interest rate differential (IRD) is larger and longer-lasting. The new model accounts for cost-push effects and suggests that a persistent higher IRD can evoke multiple responses, including currency depreciation, specialization, inflation, and wage drift. The model suggests that excessive long-lasting IRD can spark a chronic interaction between inflation and currency depreciation. Empirical data substantiate the prediction capability of the new model. We also demonstrate how the uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) principle is a special case, which can explain its empirical research anomalies, and when carry trade is a profitable investment strategy.

This study investigates asymmetric dependence and its dynamics across returns to carry trades, stocks, and bonds using a copula‐based model. We show evidence for a significant increase in carry trade‐stock dependence and substantially negative carry trade‐bond and stock‐bond comovements since the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. We also assess the out‐of‐sample predictability of dependence in the context of asset‐allocation strategies, and find that risk‐averse investors obtain significant economic values by incorporating asymmetry and dynamics into dependence timing, particularly in the 2007–2008 crisis. These findings provide new implications for asset‐allocation strategies and risk management during turbulent market phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The returns to carry trades are controversially discussed. There seems to be no unifying risk-based explanation of currency returns and stock returns, while the countries' interest rate differential plays a leading part in the carry-trade performance. Therefore, this paper addresses carry-trade returns from a risk-pricing perspective and examines if these returns can be connected to cross-country differences in risk pricing in the interest-rate market compared to the stock market. Data from Thomson Reuters Datastream and Federal Reserve Economic Data covering Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States were analyzed based on GMM estimation. The results indicate significant and persistent cross-country differences in risk aversion in the interest-rate market compared to the implied risk aversion in the stock market. This may offer opportunities for risk arbitrage and, therefore, a risk pricing-related explanation of carry-trade returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct and compare the results of exploiting individual investment strategies: carry trade, momentum, and value and estimate the benefits from strategy diversification. Our analysis is based on the set of 10 major currencies and the expanded sample additionally including 16 emerging market currencies. We implement strategies in FX markets against the ruble instead of the US dollar, as is common in the currency literature. We find that the performance of strategies varies with the change of the ruble regime. We also provide proof that combining strategies, based on volatility, offers significant improvement in risk-adjusted returns compared to either of the two strategies independently or to benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use principal component analysis on 55 bilateral exchange rates of 11 developed currencies to identify two important global risk sources in foreign exchange (FX) markets. The risk sources are related to Carry and Dollar but are not spanned by these factors. We estimate the market prices associated with the two risk sources in the cross-section of FX market returns and construct FX market-implied country-specific stochastic discount factors (SDFs). The SDF volatilities are related to interest rates and expected carry trade returns in the cross-section. The SDFs price international stock returns and are related to important financial stress indicators and macroeconomic fundamentals. The first principal risk is associated with the Treasury-EuroDollar (TED) spread, quantities measuring volatility, tail and contagion risks, and future economic growth. It earns a relatively small implied Sharpe ratio. The second principal risk is associated with the default and term spreads and quantities capturing volatility and illiquidity risks. It further correlates with future changes in the long-term interest rate and earns a large implied Sharpe ratio. This paper was accepted by Lauren Cohen, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard carry trades, which consist of purchasing high- and selling low-yield currencies, provide an economic diversification effect. However, the diversification effect is not robust, and is not borne out by much statistical evidence. We introduce optimized carry trades, which incorporate risk components such as currency volatility or currency skewness in the selection process. These optimized carry trades provide a robust economic diversification effect observed by a larger Sharpe ratio, a reduced portfolio volatility, a smaller drawdown, or a reduced tail risk with respect to a benchmark portfolio. Moreover, a significant improvement of the mean-efficient frontier is observable, with the result that minimum-variance and tangency portfolio are enhanced. The empirical results reveal that optimized carry trades have a larger diversification effect than standard carry trades and their modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most common measures of carry trade attractiveness is the carry-to-risk ratio. On analysing the speculative activity, this ratio presents two issues: First, emerging market currencies could merit a legitimate risk premium in a carry trade strategy due to the sovereign risks involved. In order to correct the measure, we include the credit risk in the measure using credit default swaps. Second, we gather more information about potential volatility asymmetries including a directional speculation indicator known as the risk reversal. We prove that the enhanced measure for the Mexican peso (MXN) is well represented by an ARIMA model with appropriate features since 2009. Due to the output of the analysis, we deduce that the Bank of Mexico might use this measure or a similar indicator, not only to understand the attractiveness of the carry trade strategy but to curb destabilizing carry trade activities. The case is compelling for the Mexican peso due to its dual role as emerging market currency and full convertible currency. We conclude that this institution may effectively manage the enhanced carry-to-risk measures in order to achieve financial stability and proper exchange credibility, and recognize its potential utility for other central banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sharpe Ratio offers an excellent summary of the excess return required per unit of risk invested. This work presents an adaptation of the ex-ante Sharpe Ratio for currencies where we consider a random walk approach for the currency behavior and implied volatility as a proxy for market expectations of future realized volatility. The outcome of the proposed measure seems to gauge some information on the expected required return attached to the “peso problem”.

Abstract This paper documents that momentum, carry trade, and skewness strategies do not contain exactly the same information, which inspires us to construct a novel, triple-screen strategy and test its profitability. We first investigate the properties of payoffs to the above three currency speculation strategies. We then conduct double sorting and cross-sectional regression analyses to disentangle these strategies and find that they are not completely overlapping. Finally, we combine the momentum, carry trade, and skewness strategies to create a triple-screen strategy. The results show that triple-screen strategies generally perform better than single- and double-screen strategies. Our empirical findings are also robust to subsamples (advanced, emerging, non-Euro and Group of Twenty economies). Our research findings provide experimental investigation on the effectiveness of combining momentum, carry trade, and skewness strategies, as well as ways to bring more benefits to investors. Highlights • We construct a novel, triple-screen strategy and test its profitability. • Double sorting and cross-sectional regression analyses are conducted. • Three currency speculation strategies are not completely overlapping. • Triple-screen strategies generally perform better than single- and double-screen strategies. • Results are robust to subsamples (advanced, emerging, non-Euro and G20 economies). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has foci on the global drivers of currencies and their relationship to economic jurisdiction in the presence of global risk appetite. We focus on a comprehensive basket of global currencies, deriving three statistically motivated currency market factors. We cluster on these factor loadings and find three currency groupings - Developed/European, Emerging/Commodity as well as an Asian currency cluster. Constructing ‘risk states’ based on the VIX Volatility Index, we find that Developed/European and Emerging/Commodity cluster currencies are better explained by the first three principal components when in the ‘Low’ and ‘High’ risk states respectively. As previously corroborated in the literature, we find evidence that the second principal component is a ‘carry trade factor’. We detail that the impact of this factor on currencies in the Emerging/Commodity cluster is heightened (for both positive and negative changes) by ‘High’ risk states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a mixed effect model to investigate the relationship between international equity returns and forward discount sorted currency returns from three base currencies (i. e., US dollar, euro, and pound sterling). Empirical results using the portfolio approach show that high-interest rate currencies co-move positively while low-interest rate currencies co-move negatively, suggesting that foreign equity excess returns can help to explain investment in currency markets, providing a partial resolution to the uncovered interest parity conundrum. Furthermore, we show that global equity market returns, volatility, and liquidity correlate well with currency returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Drawdown periods of standard carry trades are primarily the result of losses in classic carry trade currencies. These periods coincide with an increased financial stress, such as the recent financial crisis. The introduced optimized carry trades employ a dynamic weighting scheme for currencies, which incorporates general risk components. Optimized carry trades are therefore less exposed to losses under financial stress, and provide an enhanced risk‐return profile over the entire and second half of the sample period and during periods of volatile markets. These results find robust statistical evidence. Furthermore, optimized carry trades have a lower correlation with traditional asset classes than standard carry trades. Traditional models of risk are less successful in explaining the returns of optimized carry trades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mexican Journal of Economics & Finance / Revista Mexicana de Economia y Finanzas is the property of Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this article is to verify the research hypothesis that assumes the existence of profitable carry trade operations based on USD or EUR loans in Poland in the years 2006–2010. Summarizing the results of an empirical test should be noted that investors operating on the Polish money and currency markets could reach up substantial profits from carry trade operations. The achieved results therefore indicate that the International Fisher Effect is not a good tool for forecasting exchange rates in the short term. The results of the empirical test indicate that the decisive role in investors decisions was played by the expectations for the evolution of exchange rates in the future. Due to the unstable USD/PLN and EUR/PLN exchange rates it can therefore be concluded that (the not secured against currency risk) carry trade operations largely accounted for currency speculation.

This paper evaluates the performance of carry trade strategies with implied Taylor rule interest rate differentials and compares the performance statistics of them over the naive carry trade strategy with actual interest rates. Carry trade, a currency speculation strategy, between high-interest rate and low-interest rate currencies generates high payoff on average and has a possibility of crash risk. I argue that the crash risk is reduced with implied Taylor rule interest rate differentials as a trading strategy in Yen and Franc trades for the whole sample period. During the recent financial crisis, the carry trading strategies with Taylor rule perform best in terms of mean returns, risk adjusted returns and downside risk.

This study explores whether metals act as hedges and safe havens for currency investing portfolios. Three widely used currency investment strategies: carry, momentum and value are adopted. The empirical results argue that gold and silver do exhibit hedge and safe haven properties for all three strategies. Silver works as a strong hedge during extreme market conditions. However, these hedge and safe haven properties became weaker after the year 2000. We also find that industrial metals do not work as either hedges or safe havens for carry portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some factors which contribute and originate the current credit restrictions to companies and consumption during the crisis phase that have affected the Spanish economy is now experiencing. It analyzes key questions that lead to the current situation as policies applied by Central Banks before and during the crisis period, sectorial distribution of the credit, and performance of credit in commercial banks in their risk and liquidity policies. The quantitative data shows a clear link between two phenomena detected and integrated in the Spanish Financial System: the “carry trade” or the use of credit by the European Central Bank to buy great amounts of Public Debt caused the “credit crunch” with levels much lower than those existing in the other countries of OECD originated in base to the commercial banks behavior in their transmission role of the monetary policy.

DeMiguel et al. [DeMiguel V, Garlappi L, Uppal R (2009) Optimal versus naïve diversification: How inefficient is the 1/ N portfolio strategy? Rev. Financial Stud. 22(5):1915-1953] showed that in the stock market, it is difficult for an optimized portfolio constructed using mean-variance analysis to outperform a simple, equally weighted portfolio because of estimation error. In this paper, we demonstrate that portfolio optimization can be made to work in currency markets. The key difference between the two settings is that in currency markets interest rates provide a predictor of future returns that is free of estimation error, which permits the application of mean-variance analysis. We show that over the last 26 years, a mean-variance efficient portfolio constructed in this fashion has a Sharpe ratio of 0.91, versus only 0.15 for the equally weighted portfolio. We also consider the practical implementation of this strategy. This paper was accepted by Neng Wang, finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly agreed that excessive household financial debts are detrimental to psychological and physical health. Research also demonstrates that housing instability, mortgage indebtedness and mortgage foreclosure negatively influence subjective well-being. In Poland at the beginning of 2015, homeowners with Swiss franc denominated mortgages suffered from an abrupt swing in the Swiss franc/Polish zloty (CHF/PLN) exchange rate, which resulted in considerable increase in the local currency value of their mortgages. These adverse financial circumstances were hypothesised to affect not only household finance but also negatively affect the psychological well-being and physical health of peoples. The 2013 and 2015 waves of the Polish representative household panel 'Social Diagnosis' were used to examine impact of the abrupt change in the CHF/PLN exchange rate in Jan. 2015 on well-being and health. Causal inference was investigated using a difference-in-differences matching estimator. Results showed that although impact of Swiss franc appreciation on the mortgage related financial burden was considerable, it did not affect well-being or health outcomes. Any manifestation of adverse effects was absent in the short term, which does not however preclude their long term existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is analyses causes and the consequences of a speculative investment carry trade strategy in the exchange market in Serbia. The presence of such type of investor is related to high yields of risk free securities denominated in dinars, as well as the perception of future movements of dinar exchange rate related to currency that serves as source of investment. The consequences of carry trade may significantly influence exchange rate movements when monetary policy has limited facilities to combat negative and sudden shocks.

Risk contagion between carry trade portfolios and stock markets had been explored in literatures, leaving inconsistent controversy. Instead of exploring ordinary return-volatility spillovers, this paper focuses on a systemic contagion, the tail risk conditional on extreme events in other markets. Using a conditional value-at-risk (CoVaR) model, we contribute to this line of literature by showing that there is bilateral systemic contagion between carry trades and stock markets in the U.S., European, or Asia-Pacific regions. Such a systemic contagion is particularly significant during the 2000–2001 dot-com bubble and 2007–2009 U.S. credit crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Yuan or Renminbi has not been given due attention in the literature despite its importance in providing stability in global FX markets and attaining IMF reserve currency status. Unlike other currencies, the Yuan is subject to strict monetary controls by the People’s Bank of China. We explore factors that explain Yuan carry trade returns during the dollar-peg and managed float regimes by observing its response to the dollar risk factor, global FX volatility innovations and, liquidity. Using the traditional Fama and Macbeth (1973) two-pass ordinary least squares regression, we find that the effects of the dollar risk factor, global FX volatility innovations and liquidity on Yuan carry trade returns: (1) are unlike those on other currencies; (2) vary monotonically as the maturity of the carry trade position increases; and (3) are affected by the exchange rate regime in force. Our results suggest that short-term Yuan carry trade portfolios may serve as a hedge against market volatility. 1-year positions are far more resilient and deliver substantial returns especially during periods of low market volatility. Our results also exhibit the Yuan’s dependence on the dollar in its valuation besides the transfer of wealth between U.S. equity markets and dollar-denominated assets to the Yuan and Yuan-denominated assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in economic institutions, as measured by an index of economic freedom, have been correlated to differences in cross-country investment levels, capital market development, and country-level equity index returns. Here, a country’s level of economic freedom is demonstrated to be a proxy measure for the likelihood of an idiosyncratic currency devaluation during periods of low global foreign exchange volatility. This observation makes economic freedom determinant of whether carry traders may be facing a ‘peso problem,’ giving currency speculators insights into a risk factor which the foreign exchange market may not be pricing or for which there is no historical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relation between foreign exchange (FX) order flow and the forward bias. We outline a decomposition of the forward bias according to which a negative correlation between interest rate differentials and order flow creates a time-varying risk premium consistent with that bias. Using 10 years of data on FX order flow, we find that more than half of the forward bias is accounted for by order flow-with the rest being explained by expectational errors. We also find that carry trading increases currency-crash risk in that order flow generates negative skewness in FX returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether a link between sovereign credit ratings and currency returns exists. Perhaps contrary to expectations, it finds that currencies of countries with higher credit risk tend to generate lower returns than those with a lower credit risk. The credit risk spread cannot be explained by standard risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]