Expiration day effects of stock index derivatives in Germany

There is a significant increase in trading volume on quarterly futures expiration days in Germany. Delays in the opening for the majority of index stocks indicate that a large part of this extraordinary volume is indeed traded right at the opening of the market. an increase in trading activity is also observed over the 10-minute settlement period for index options. Volatility remains unchanged around the expiration of a futures contract. an increase is found for the 10-minute settlement period of DAX options. Return reversals as the measure for the economic costs of contract expirations are significantly higher when a futures contract expires at the open. When an option expires at the close no clear pattern for reversals can be found. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1996.

German Exchange Rate Exposure at DAX and Aggregate Levels, International Trade and the Role of Exchange Rate Adjustment Costs

This article analyses value changes of German stock market companies in response to movements of the US dollar. The approach followed in this work extends the standard means of measuring exchange rate exposure in several ways, e.g. by using multifactor modelling instead of augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model, application of moving window panel regressions and orthogonalization of overall market risk vis-à-vis currency risk. A further innovation lies in testing the theoretical implications of exchange rate adjustment costs (hedging costs) for firm values and economic exposure. Based on time series and panel data of German Deutsche Aktien Xchange companies, Deutsche Mark/dollar rates and macroeconomic factors, we find a rather unstable, time-variant exposure of German stock market companies. Dollar sensitivity is positively affected by the ratio of exports/gross domestic product (GDP) and negatively affected by imports/GDP. Moreover, as expected from theoretical findings, firm values and exchange rate exposure are significantly reduced by adjustment costs depending on the distance of the exchange rate from the expected long-run mean. Copyright Verein für Socialpolitik and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2007.