The Usefulness of Financial Variables in Predicting Exchange Rate Movements

Abstract

This paper studies the predictive power of several financial variables usually used as proxies for global liquidity, volatility, and risk aversion in forecasting exchange rates for a set of countries from January 2001 to April 2013. The results indicate that changes in the long-term interest rate, in the VIX, in the high yield spread, and in the market liquidity indicators have strong in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power with respect to exchange rates. The results indicate that the relationship between the financial variables and the exchange rate is relatively stable. The paper shows that the predictability of the models is persistent over time and does not depend on the choice of the window size adopted in the forecasting exercises.