Macroeconomic News Announcements Research Articles

Impact of macroeconomic news, regulation and hacking exchange markets on the volatility of bitcoin

We study whether news and sentiment about bitcoin regulation, the hacking of bitcoin exchanges and scheduled macroeconomic news announcements affect the volatility of bitcoin, measured as realized variance and its jump component. Our results show that realized variance and its jump component exhibit similar dynamics and react similarly to various types of news. Volatility of bitcoin reacts most strongly to news on bitcoin regulation, positive investor sentiment regarding bitcoin regulation extracted using Google searches, and most notably, hacking attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges. Quantile regression reveals that hacking attacks have particularly strong impact on the upper conditional distribution of bitcoin volatility. We also find that the volatility of bitcoin is not influenced by most scheduled US macroeconomic news announcements, such as government budget deficits, inflation, or even monetary policy announcements. On the other hand, bitcoin responds with increased volatility to announcements of forward-looking indicators, such as the consumer confidence index.

The news effects on exchange rate returns and volatility: Evidence from Pakistan

AbstractThis article explores the effects of macroeconomic news on Pak rupee's exchange rates. For this purpose, it employs GARCH models by using real‐time data on macroeconomic news and exchange rates. The results exhibit that daily Pak rupee exchange rates dynamics are linked to macroeconomic fundamentals. Both foreign and domestic macroeconomic news announcements significantly affect Pak rupee exchange rates. The exchange rate returns and volatility of Pak rupee immediately adjust to most of the foreign and domestic macroeconomic news. Most of the US and PAK domestic macroeconomic news immediately affect PKR/USD exchange rates as compared to the effect of other foreign and domestic macroeconomic news on other Pak rupee exchange rates. Finally, the article shows that Pak rupee exchange rate returns and their volatilities are responsive to foreign and domestic macroeconomic news announcements with different magnitudes for all the currency pairs. These findings suggest that the behaviour of PAK rupee exchange rate appears to be consistent with the models of exchange rate determination and the monetary authority's reaction function.

Generalized Jump Regressions for Local Moments

We develop new high-frequency-based inference procedures for analyzing the relationship between jumps in instantaneous moments of stochastic processes. The estimation consists of two steps: the nonparametric determination of the jumps as differences in local averages, followed by a minimum-distance type estimation of the parameters of interest under general loss functions that include both least-square and more robust quantile regressions as special cases. The resulting asymptotic distribution of the estimator, derived under an infill asymptotic setting, is highly nonstandard and generally not mixed normal. In addition, we establish the validity of a novel bootstrap algorithm for making feasible inference including bias-correction. The new methods are applied in a study on the relationship between trading intensity and spot volatility in the U.S. equity market at the time of important macroeconomic news announcement.

The effect of US macroeconomic news announcements on the Canadian stock market: Evidence using high-frequency data

We analyze the impact of US macroeconomic news announcements on the Canadian benchmark stock index return and volatility using high-frequency 5-min data. Our findings reveal that several US news releases exert a statistically significant influence on the Canadian stock market return and volatility. Moreover, we show that during the 2008 US recession, slightly more US news announcements exhibit significant impacts on the Canadian equity returns, with relatively pronounced effects. Overall, our results support previous findings by suggesting that US macroeconomic fundamentals form a linkage between Canadian and US financial markets.

The relationship between European Brent crude oil price development and US macroeconomy

Abnormal volatility has a damaging effect on the macroeconomy and is seen as a measure of risk in asset and commodity markets. This investigation had the aim to analyze the supposed transatlantic volatility inducing effect of the most prominent scheduled macroeconomic news announcements from the United States (US) on Brent Blend crude oil price intraday volatility over a period of seven years from 2012 to 2018. The objective was to generate a ranking list of scheduled US macroeconomic news that forecast high intraday volatility episodes at precise points in time. A total of 38 US news was analyzed using a data mining workflow. Data modeling was conducted using a simple ordinary least squares regression model and performed with programming language Python. A one hour window of rolling standard deviation based on one minute high-frequency closing prices were applied. As a result, 20 scheduled US macroeconomic news was successfully identified to significantly impact Brent crude oil price volatility. The model strongly supports the forecast of high price fluctuations and provides an opportunity for market players to adjust their risk management strategies right in time.

Macro News and Long-Run Volatility Expectations

I propose a new model-free method for estimating long-run changes in expected volatility using VIX futures contracts. The method is applied to measure the effect on stock market volatility of scheduled macroeconomic news announcements. I find that looking at long-run changes gives qualitatively different results compared to previous studies that only look at realized variance and the VIX. I further find that FOMC announcements on average resolve uncertainty, but only during times when policy uncertainty is higher than average. Real side macro announcements increase long-run volatility during times of low policy uncertainty, but the effect is reversed during times of high policy uncertainty.

Macroeconomic news, public communications, and foreign exchange jumps around U.S. and European financial crises

AbstractJumps in the Euro, Pound, and Yen, based on 5‐minute returns for the period 2004–2015, are shown to be state dependent between recessions and expansions in their response to macroeconomic news announcements and speeches by treasury and central bank senior officials. We find evidence of large jumps and cojumps response to the Federal Open Market Committee rate decision consistently over economic states. U.S. news is more important than EU news and jump magnitude and probability exhibit positive responses. Federal Reserve senior officials' speeches generate more jumps during the U.S. mortgage crisis and the EU sovereign debt recession. Although public communications of some European Central Bank and Bank of England senior officials cause fewer jumps, they produce significant cojumps of the three major currency markets.

Volatility term structures in commodity markets

AbstractIn this study, we comprehensively examine the volatility term structures in commodity markets. We model state‐dependent spillovers in principal components (PCs) of the volatility term structures of different commodities, as well as that of the equity market. We detect strong economic links and a substantial interconnectedness of the volatility term structures of commodities. Accounting for intra‐commodity‐market spillovers significantly improves out‐of‐sample forecasts of the components of the volatility term structure. Spillovers following macroeconomic news announcements account for a large proportion of this forecast power. There thus seems to be substantial information transmission between different commodity markets.

OPEC production decisions, macroeconomic news, and volatility in the Canadian currency and oil markets

We examine the simultaneous effect of OPEC production decisions and press releases, oil and gasoline inventory surprises, as well as US and Canadian macroeconomic news announcements on oil and Canadian dollar volatilities around US and European financial crises. We use a multivariate volatility model and implement an impulse response analysis to decompose the exogenous impacts into direct and indirect effects induced by volatility spillover. We find evidence of context-specific impacts and show that 67% of the total accumulated effect of OPEC decision to maintain production on oil volatility is induced by volatility spillover from the Canadian foreign exchange rate.

Underreaction to Macroeconomic News Announcements and the Downward-Sloping Security Market Line

The relationship between market beta and expected returns is positive on days with pre-scheduled macroeconomic news announcements (MNAs), but negative on the other days. This paper shows evidence that stock price underreaction to MNAs explains these phenomena. First, I use high-frequency S&P 500 futures data to identify positive (good) and negative (bad) news from macro announcements. Stocks with low sensitivities to bad macro news perform relatively well on announcement days and poorly on the following non-announcement days. Moreover, the under-performance of low sensitivity stocks is most pronounced when investor disagreement is high and short-selling constraints are binding. Subsequently, I show that the relation between market betas and returns on announcement (non-announcement) days is particularly positive (negative) among stocks with low sensitivities to bad macro news. The results are consistent with stocks, especially those with high market betas, underreact to bad news on MNA days when high shorting costs prevent prices from reflecting pessimists’ beliefs, and experience low returns on the following non-announcement days.

The dynamic effect of macroeconomic news on the euro/US dollar exchange rate

AbstractThis study investigates the impact of 70 US and EU macroeconomic news announcements on euro/dollar returns and volatility from November 2004 to April 2014. We use regime smooth transition regression to endogenously define recession and expansion. Our sample period includes the US mortgage crisis and EU sovereign debt crisis. Most news is unstable as its effect varies between these economic states. There are asymmetrical effects between recession and expansion states for both US and EU news, with most US news having a larger impact and nearly double the number of significant EU announcements. Volatility increases for over 85% of news coefficients, with more than half still being significantly different between states.

Are hedge fund returns affected by media coverage of macroeconomic news?

PurposeExtant literature suggests that the difficulty associated with the interpretation of macroeconomic news announcements by the market in general in different economic environments, might be the reason why most studies do not find any significant relationship between real-sector macroeconomic variables and financial asset returns. This paper aims to use a different approach to measure macroeconomic news. The objective is to examine if a different measure of a macroeconomic news variable, constructed from media coverage of the same, significantly affects hedge fund returns.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a news index for unemployment, which is a real-sector variable, constructed from newspaper coverage of unemployment announcements and examine its impact on hedge fund returns.FindingsContrary to the other studies that examine the impact of macroeconomic news on hedge fund returns, the authors find that media coverage of unemployment news announcements significantly affects hedge fund returns.Practical implicationsOverall, this paper demonstrates that the manner in which the market interprets macroeconomic news announcements in different economic environments is probably a more relevant factor for hedge funds and is more likely to impact hedge fund returns. In conjunction with variables – constructed from media coverage of unemployment news announcements – that factor in the manner of interpretation, it is found that surprises also matter for hedge fund returns. This is an important consideration for hedge fund managers as well.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the impact of media coverage of macroeconomic news announcements on hedge fund returns and finds significantly different results with real-sector macro variables.

Early Movers Advantage? Evidence from Short Selling during After‐Hours on Earnings Announcement Days

AbstractWe examine short sellers’ after‐hours trading (AHT) following quarterly earnings announcements released outside of the normal trading hours. Our innovation is to use the actual short trades immediately after the announcements. We find that on these earnings announcement days, there is significant shorting activity in AHT relative to shorting activity both during AHT on nonannouncements days and during regular trading sessions around announcements. Short sellers who trade after‐hours on announcement days earn an excess return of 0.82% and 1.40% during before‐market‐open (BMO) and after‐market‐close (AMC)sessions, respectively. The magnitude of these returns increases to 1.48 (3.92%) for BMO (AMC) earnings announcements with negative surprise. We find that the reactive short selling during AHT has information in predicting future returns. Short sellers’ trades have no predictive power if they wait for the market to open to trade during regular hours. In addition, we find that the weighted price contribution during AHT increases with an increase in after‐hours short selling. Overall, our results suggest that short sellers in AHT are informed. Our findings remain robust using alternative holding periods and after controlling for macroeconomic news announcements during BMO sessions.

The impacts of public news announcements on intraday implied volatility dynamics

AbstractWe examine the responses of intraday option‐implied volatilities to scheduled announcements of macroeconomic indicators. The increase in implied volatility around macroeconomic news announcements is more pronounced for puts than for calls and is stronger for announcements made during trading hours than for those made during nontrading hours. These effects are also more pronounced in the crisis and postcrisis periods than in the precrisis period. Monetary policy announcements have a more substantial impact on volatility than other announcements have, even after controlling for news surprise components. The impact appears to be greater for policy rate hikes than for policy rate cuts.

The Impacts of Macroeconomic News Announcements on Intraday Implied Volatility

This study examines the response of intraday options-implied volatilities to scheduled announcements of major macroeconomic indicators. By analyzing the KOSPI 200 options intraday data, we find that the abnormal implied volatility significantly increases around announcements of macroeconomic news and that the extent of the response is influenced by a variety of factors, including the type of macroeconomic indicators released, option type and economic conditions. Specifically, the increase in implied volatility around these announcements is more pronounced for puts than for calls. These effects are also more pronounced in the crisis and post-crisis periods than in the pre-crisis period. Monetary policy announcements have a more substantial impact on implied volatility than other announcements, even after controlling for news surprise components. Finally, the impact appears to be greater for policy rate hikes than for policy rate cuts.

Fearing the Fed: How Wall Street Reads Main Street

Using intraday stock returns around macroeconomic news announcements (MNAs), we find strong evidence of persistent, cyclical variation in the stock market's response to MNA surprises. The response is particularly strong coming out of recessions and is gradually attenuated as the economy expands. We show that this cyclical pattern can be explained by a regime-switching model. In the model, we find that the direction and shape of the market's response reflect the evolution of beliefs about the state of the economy and monetary policy. The risk of an interest rate hike can entirely mitigate (and even reverse) the effect of positive MNA surprises on returns. This mechanism is consistent with the data -- positive MNA surprises coincide with negative stock market returns when there is substantial uncertainty over monetary policy.

Post Macroeconomic Announcement Reversal

We document that on the two days following macroeconomic news announcements, the stock market has negative excess returns, and the security market line has a significantly negative slope. These findings concentrate on days after bad macroeconomic news, which indicates that the market does not fully incorporate negative macro shocks on the announcement day. The underreaction effect is stronger among stocks with higher information uncertainty, tighter short-selling constraints, and when intermediary capital is scarce, consistent with the theory of limits to arbitrage. Considering the underreaction effect, we argue that the risk premium on macroeconomic announcement days is lower than previously believed.

Total attention: The effect of macroeconomic news on market reaction to earnings news

Abstract We show evidence that consistent with category-learning behavior, investors allocate more attention to macroeconomic news than to firm-specific news, such as earnings announcements. Despite the distracting effect of macroeconomic news on investor attention, we find that earnings announcements with concurrent macroeconomic news announcements actually have significantly stronger immediate market response and weaker post-earnings announcement drift. We hypothesize that the combined total attention to macroeconomic news and earnings announcements helps investors understand both the systematic and firm-specific components of earnings surprises. Consistent with the hypothesis, our results show that the macroeconomic news effect is mainly driven by firms with high exposure to macroeconomic news. Moreover, we show that the effect is stronger when macroeconomic news contains more information and for firms with greater information uncertainty. Finally, we provide evidence that macroeconomic news helps reduce stock return uncertainty and enhance stock price efficiency.

What Does the Prevalence of Zero Returns Tell Us about Jump Identification? Evidence from U.S. Treasury Securities

We document that each day the U.S. Treasury notes have a large proportion of zero returns, because the vast majority of trades are executed at the best ask/bid quotes and spreads are mostly set close to the minimum tick. The proportion of zero returns is negatively correlated with traditional illiquidity measures. Given the distinctive feature (frequent zero returns), conventional jump-detection methods are vulnerable to biases, leading to falsely identifying jumps. We propose a low-cost solution to the biases, and empirically support the arguments by comparing the identification results using the actual data on the Treasury notes and macro-economic news announcements.

Interactive Distraction: The Effect of Macroeconomic News on Market Reaction to Earnings News

We show evidence that consistent with category-learning behavior, investors allocate more attention to macroeconomic news than to firm-specific news, such as earnings announcements. Despite the distracting effect of macroeconomic news on investor attention, we find that earnings announcements with concurrent macroeconomic news announcements actually have significantly stronger immediate market response and weaker post-earnings announcement drift. We hypothesize that the combined total attention to macroeconomic news and earnings announcements helps investors understand both the systematic and firm-specific components of earnings surprises. Consistent with the hypothesis, our results show that the macroeconomic news effect is mainly driven by firms with high exposure to macroeconomic news. Moreover, we show that the effect is stronger when macroeconomic news contains more information and for firms with greater information uncertainty. Finally, we provide evidence that macroeconomic news helps reduce stock return uncertainty and enhance stock price efficiency.