Scaling Down Downside Risk with Inter-Quantile Semivariances

We propose a risk-management strategy for portfolio allocation based on volatility scaling. The strategy involves decomposing realized volatility according to the magnitude and sign of a given return and, then, using part of the realized variance to design volatility-scaled versions of traditional portfolios. By applying our method to four risk-portfolios (namely, market, small minus big, high minus low, and winners minus losers), we show that scaling according to an appropriate criterion (i.e. the realized volatility of the largest negative returns) increases the profitability of the original strategies, while it simultaneously reduces other risks related to market crashes. The better economic performance of our method – the inter-quantile semivariance model – lies in its better adjustment to the market liquidity of our statistics, and more accurate modeling of the risk-return relationship and of the asymmetric impacts on consumption, production and asset prices, generated by a different fragment of the market realized variance

The credit supply channel of monetary policy: evidence from a FAVAR model with sign restrictions

We test whether the credit channel of the monetary policy was present in the United States' economy from January 2001 to April 2016. To this end, we use a factor-augmented vector autoregression, and we impose sensible theoretical sign restrictions in our structural identification scheme. We use the expected substitution effect between bank commercial loans and commercial papers to identify the credit supply channel. We found that the credit channel appears to have operated in the US economy during the sample period. However, when we split the sample, we found that the credit channel did not operate after the subprime crisis (close to the Zero Lower Bound of the interest rate). This result is robust to changing the sign restriction horizons. It supports current views in the literature regarding the ineffectiveness of the credit channel as a means to foster real economic activity during crises episodes

Caracterización del mercado accionario colombiano, 2001-2006: un análisis comparativo

Partiendo de la base teórica de que existe una relación positiva entre el desarrollo del mercado de capitales y el crecimiento económico, se construyen indicadores de tamaño, liquidez, riesgo, integración y eficiencia, para el mercado accionario colombiano. Para esto, se usan medidas tradicionales de profundidad del mercado, además de modelos GARCH, estimadores de razones de varianzas heteroscedásticamente robustos y asintóticamente consistentes e indicadores de integración internacional basados en una versión modificada del CAPM. La perspectiva de análisis es comparativa y por tanto se construyen indicadores para otros países de Latinoamérica y el mundo. Se encuentra que el mercado colombiano, a pesar de seguir siendo pequeño a nivel mundial, ha tenido un desarrollo importante en los últimos años.Mercado Accionario, GARCH, ICAPM, eficiencia. Classification JEL: C22; E44; G14; G15.

Mercado de acciones colombiano. Determinantes macroeconomicos y papel de las AFP

El mercado de acciones colombiano ha crecido notablemente en decadas recientes, aunque sigue siendo iliquido y concentrado. Esta situacion no parece responder a determinantes macroeconomicos externos, y tampoco en gran medida a los internos, mas bien lo hace a la dinamica de los portafolios de inversion a cargo de las Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP) y a la cuenta de capital en la balanza de pagos. En este documento se revisa la evolucion reciente del mercado colombiano en terminos comparativos y se utilizan distintas tecnicas econometricas como FMOLS y modelos VAR y VEC para explicar las relaciones de largo plazo entre variables macroeconomicas y desarrollo del mercado. Se encuentra que estas ultimas lo son relevantes desde hace pocos a los y que en el mismo periodo el papel de las AFP ha sido fundamental

Generalized Market Uncertainty Measurement in European Stock Markets in Real Time

We estimate generalized market uncertainty indicators for the stock markets of eight European countries greatly affected by the recent Covid-19 crisis and the economic measures implemented for its containment and mitigation. Our statistics emphasize the difference between risk and uncertainty, in the aggregate, and provide readily and easily interpretable estimates, in real time, which are relevant for market participants and regulators. We show that generalized uncertainty in Europe was, indeed, at historically high levels in the wake of the recent public health crisis before the large interventions by the European Central Bank, the Fed, and the Bank of England, but also that, for some markets, recently recorded uncertainty levels were still lower than those recorded during the Global Financial Crisis, which puts things into perspective. We also show that uncertainty shocks are extremely persistent, but such persistence varies greatly across countries. The period needed for the markets to absorb half of the shock lies between less than a year and two and a half years

Expected, Unexpected, Good and Bad Uncertainty

By distinguishing between four general notions of uncertainty (good expected, bad-expected, good-unexpected, bad-unexpected) within a common and simple framework, we show that it is bad-unexpected uncertainty shocks that generate a negative reaction of macroeconomic variables (such as investment and consumption), and asset prices. Other notions of uncertainty might produce even positive responses in the macroeconomy. We also show that small uncertainty shocks might have larger impacts on economic activity and financial markets than bigger shocks between one to three years after its realization. We explore the time and magnitude of uncertainty shocks by means of a novel distributed lag nonlinear model. Our results help to elucidate the real and complex nature of uncertainty, which can be both a backward or forward-looking expected or unexpected event, with markedly different consequences for the economy. They have implications for policy making, asset pricing and risk management

Expected, unexpected, good and bad aggregate uncertainty

We study aggregate uncertainty and its linear and nonlinear impact on real and financial markets. By distinguishing between four general notions of aggregate uncertainty (good-expected, bad-expected, good-unexpected, bad-unexpected) within a simple, common framework, we show that it is bad-unexpected uncertainty shocks that generate a negative reaction of economic variables (such as investment and consumption) and asset prices. Our results help to elucidate the real, complex nature of uncertainty, which can be both a backward- or forward-looking expected or unexpected event, with markedly different consequences for the economy. We also document nonlinearities in the propagation of uncertainty to both real and financial markets, which calls for the close monitoring of the evolution of uncertainty so as to help mitigate the adverse effects of its occurrenc

Una aproximación dinámica a la medición del riesgo de mercado para los bancos comerciales en Colombia.

En este artículo se describe la metodología utilizada para la medición del riesgo de mercado llevada a cabo en el Reporte de Estabilidad Financiera, mediante el uso de técnicas dinámicas no sólo en la modelación de volatilidades sino también de correlaciones. La medida de Valor en Riesgo (VeR) se calculó individualmente para los bancos comerciales con periodicidad semanal entre febrero de 2003 y febrero de 2008. Los cálculos de los VeR estáticos y dinámicos muestran diferencias cuantitativas significativas en períodos de turbulencia, lo que resalta la importancia de las nuevas medidas de riesgo propuestas.

Price Bubbles in Lithium Markets around the World

The global energy transition to low-carbon technologies for transportation is heavily dependent on lithium. By leveraging the latest advances in timeseries econometrics we show that lithium prices (carbonate and hydroxide) have recently experienced market bubbles, particularly from the end of 2015 to the end of 2018, although in the case of European hydroxide we also date a bubble as recently as September 2020. Bubbles are accompanied by market corrections and extreme uncertainty which, in the case of lithium, may put at risk the future continuous supply needed for manufacturing lithium-based batteries for the electric vehicle. Governments and private stakeholders could reduce uncertainty imposed by these speculative dynamics, for instance, by establishing public stabilization funds and setting up capital buffers that help to diversify operational and market risks induced by a bubble bursting. Such funds should be ideally located in portfolios, such as the global stock markets or other energy commodities, which exhibit idiosyncratic bubbles unsynchronized with the bubbles observed in lithium Market

Spillovers from the United States to Latin American and G7 stock markets: A VAR quantile analysis [WP]

We estimate multivariate quantile models to measure the responses of the six main Latin American (LA) stock markets to a shock in the United States (US) stock index. We compare the regional responses with those of seven developed markets. In general, we document weaker tailcodependences between the US and LA than those between the US and the mature markets. Our results suggest possible diversification strategies that could be exploited by investing in Latin America following a sizable shock to the US market. We also document asymmetrical responses to the shocks depending on the conditioning quantile at which they are calculated