Expected Inflation, Expected Stock Returns, and Money Illusion: What can we learn from Survey Expectations?

We show empirically that survey-based measures of expected inflation are significant and strong predictors of future aggregate stock returns in several industrialized countries both in-sample and out-of-sample. By empirically discriminating between competing sources of this return predictability by virtue of a comprehensive set of expectations data, we find that money illusion seems to be the driving force behind our results. Another popular hypothesis - inflation as a proxy for aggregate risk aversion - is not supported by the data.Inflation expectations, Money Illusion, Proxy hypothesis, Stock returns

Institutional and Individual Sentiment: Smart Money and Noise Trader Risk

Using a new data set on investor sentiment we show that institutional and individual sentiment proxy for smart money and noise trader risk, respectively. First, using bias-adjusted long-horizon regressions, we document that institutional sentiment forecasts stock market returns at intermediate horizons correctly, whereas individuals consistently get the direction wrong. Second, VEC models show that institutional sentiment forecasts mean-reversion whereas individuals forecast trend continuation. Finally, institutional investors take into account expected individual sentiment when forming their expectations in a way that higher (lower) expected sentiment of individuals lowers (increases) institutional return forecasts. Individuals neglect the information contained in institutional sentiment

Automating Exchange Rate Target Zones: Intervention via an Electronic Limit Order Book

This paper describes and analyzes “automated intervention” of a target zone. Unusually detailed information about the order book allows studying intervention effects in a microstructure approach. We find in our sample that intervention increases exchange rate volatility (and spread) for the next minutes but that intervention days show a lower degree of volatility (and spread) than non-intervention days. We also show for intraday data that the price impact of interbank order flow is smaller on intervention days than on non-intervention days. Finally, we reveal that informed banks take different positions than uninformed banks as they tend to trade against the central bank – which reflects a rational stance. Despite this position taking, the targeted exchange rate range holds and volatility, spread and price impact go down. Overall, the credible expression of an intervention band seems to achieve the desired effects of a target zone.foreign exchange, microstructure, intervention, exchange rate

Exchange Rate Management in Emerging Markets: Intervention via an Electronic Limit Order Book

This paper describes and analyzes the implementation of a crawling exchange rate band on an electronic trading platform. The placement of limit orders at the central bank’s target rate serves as a credible policy statement that may coordinate beliefs of market participants. We find for our sample that intervention increases exchange rate volatility (and spread) for the next minutes but that intervention days show a lower degree of volatility (and spread) than non-intervention days. We also show for intraday data that the price impact of interbank order flow is smaller on intervention days than on non-intervention days. These stabilizing effects, however, rely on the conditions of large currency reserves and the existence of capital controls; an electronic market seems to support this goal.exchange rates, intervention, microstructure

A Prospect-Theoretical Interpretation of Momentum Returns

The puzzling evidence of seemingly high momentum returns is related to an understanding of risk as a simple covariance. If we consider, however, risk in higher-order statistical moments, momentum returns appear less advantageous. Thus, a prospect-theoretical assessment of US stock momentum returns provides a possible direction for explaining this puzzle

Rendite und Risiko von Carry Trade Strategien auf Devisenmärkten

Carry Trades sind eine seit langem praktizierte, sehr populäre und äußerst profitable Handelsstrategie auf Devisenmärkten. Die hohe durchschnittliche Rendite von Carry Trades bei gleichzeitig vermeintlich nicht übermäßigem Risiko erscheint überraschend, da Carry Trades auf der Annahme systematischer Verletzungen der ungedeckten Zinsparität (UIP) basieren. Neuere theoretische und empirische Arbeiten liefern nun Erklärungsansätze, um die Art der UIP-Verletzungen und das Rendite-Risikoprofil dieser Handelsstrategien besser zu verstehen

Quantifying survey expectations: What's wrong with the probability approach?

We study a matched sample of individual stock market forecasts consisting of both qualitative and quantitative forecasts. This allows us to test for the quality of forecast quantification methods by comparing quantified qualitative forecasts with actual quantitative forecasts. Focusing mainly on the widely used quantification framework advocated by Carlson and Parkin (1975), the so-called probability approach, we find that quantified expectations derived from the probability approach display a surprisingly weak correlation with reported quantitative stock return forecasts. We trace the reason for this low correlation to the importance of asymmetric and time-varying thresholds, whereas individual heterogeneity across forecasters seems to play a minor role. Hence, our results suggest that qualitative survey data may not be a very useful device to obtain quantitative forecasts and we suggest ways to remedy this problem when designing qualitative surveys

Expected inflation, expected stock returns, and money illusion: what can we learn from survey expectations?

We show empirically that survey-based measures of expected inflation are significant and strong predictors of future aggregate stock returns in several industrialized countries both in-sample and out-of-sample. By empirically discriminating between competing sources of this return predictability by virtue of a comprehensive set of expectations data, we find that money illusion seems to be the driving force behind our results. Another popular hypothesis - inflation as a proxy for aggregate risk aversion - is not supported by the data

Learning from post-trade identity disclosure in electronic trading

This paper shows how traders learn from post-trade identity disclosure in a currency limit order market. We establish that identity disclosure reveals information and show how traders react by reversing their order flow in line with the better informed. Informed traders primarily incorporate their own private as well as publicly available information into prices, whereas uninformed mainly magnify the effect of the informed. Within this framework, traders treat own and others? market orders as more informative than limit orders. We show that counterparty information drives out public information and that its value decays over time

Local Information in Foreign Exchange Markets

This study shows that order flow in a foreign exchange market only has permanent price impact if it comes from certain regions. These regions are – as predicted by the local information hypothesis – centers of political and financial decision making. It is revealing that orders from other regions only show a very short-lived but no permanent price impact. Local information is so important that it carries over from the usually considered market orders to aggressively-priced limit orders too. The finding is robust to various market conditions, common news shocks and consideration of feedback trading