Exchange Rate Returns Standardized by Realized Volatility are (Nearly) Gaussian

The prescriptions of modern financial risk management hinge critically on the associated characterization of the distribution of future returns (cf., Diebold, Gunther and Tay, 1998, and Diebold, Hahn and Tay, 1999). Because volatility persistence renders high-frequency returns temporally dependent (e.g., Bollerslev, Chou and Kroner, 1992), it is the conditional return distribution, and not the unconditional distribution, that is of relevance for risk management. This is especially true in high-frequency situations, such as monitoring and managing the risk associated with the day-to-day operations of a trading desk, where volatility clustering is omnipresent.

Download Paper

Paper Number
01-008
Year
2001