This thesis concerns with speculative carry trade strategy. Carry trade is based on breach of Uncovered Interest Parity. The theoretical part is focused on traditional fundamental analysis. This thesis deals with the identification of carry trade existence and capture their expressions in the financial markets, verification profitability and attractiveness of carry trade operations, analysis of conditions for carry trade on financial markets before and after global financial crisis 2008. Important part of the work was also description of the consequences of carry trade transactions and their effects on the exchange rate and financial situation

The characteristics of interest rate differentials’ relationships with the change in nominal exchange rates are here investigated from the small open economy Sweden’s pointof view. We assume rational expectations and risk neutrality. However, these are solelysufficient but not necessary conditions. The only necessary condition is that the deviationsfrom rational expectations and risk neutrality are uncorrelated with the interestrate differential (Chinn and Meredith 2004, p. 412). We find no evidence for the interestrate differentials to be unbiased predictors of the percentage change in nominalexchange rates. With 3- and 6-month maturity interest rates, the signs are positivealthough not statistically different from zero.

本文主要在探討在較為短的時間段以及不同的金融環境之下，是否仍然能捕捉到匯率市場中主要解釋投組報酬變動的共同風險因子－平均超額報酬以及利差報酬。我們依據重要金融事件將全樣本分為八個子樣本；總共使用39種幣別並將1983年11月至2015年10月的遠期貼水由小到大排序後，依序建構六個投資組合。全文以美國投資者的觀點出發。結果顯示平均超額報酬無論是在長期或短期的時間段下，仍然為匯率市場中解釋匯率報酬變動的主要風險因子。然而，利差報酬則不然。在銀行危機期間，利差報酬與第二主要成分之相關係數皆為高度負相關。近期自2008年次貸危機開始，利差報酬與解釋投組變動的第二主要成分之相關係數也從先前的0.8~0.9降至-0.80.此結果顯示利差交易似乎在次貸危機之後有所轉變。此外利差風險因子無法有效的解釋動能報酬。 / This paper investigates whether or not the common risk factors, dollar and carry trade risk, in currency markets proposed by Lustig, Roussanov and Verdelhan (2011) will still exist even under a short-run period with a concern of different financial backgrounds. A split of full sample into eight subsamples with respect of financial events is made. A total of 39 currencies is used to build six portfolios on the basis of the forward discounts from November 1983 to October 2015. The whole paper is in the view of an American investor. The finding suggests that under both long-run and short-run period, the dollar return is always the common factor in currency markets. However, it is not the same case for the carry trade return. During bank crises, the carry trade return is strongly negative correlated with the second component. The carry trade return turns out to have a negative correlation with the second component during and after the subprime crisis, decreasing from 0.8~0.9 in the previous subsamples to -0.80. It indicates that the desirability of carry trade activities has changed since the subprime crisis. Besides, the carry trade risk has a little power to explain the variations of momentum returns.

The thesis investigates different exchange rate models and their forecasting performance. The work takes previous literature overview and summarize their findings. Despite the significant amount of papers which were done on the topic of exchange rate forecast, basically none of them cannot find an appropriate model which would outperform a forecast of a simple random walk in every horizon or for any currency pair. However, there are some positive findings in specific cases (e.g. for specific pair or for specific time horizon). The study provides up-to-date analysis of four exchange rates (USD/CZK, USD/ILS, USD/GBP and USD/EUR) for the period of time from January 2000 to August 2013 and analyse forecasting performance of seven exchange rate models (uncovered interest rate parity model, purchasing power parity model, monetary model, monetary model with error correction, Taylor rule model, hidden Markov model and ESTAR model). Although, the results are in advantage of Taylor rule model, especially for the exchange rate of USD/CZK, I cannot prove that the forecasting performance is significantly better than the random walk model. Except of the overall analysis, the work suppose instabilities in the time. Stock and Watson (2003) found that the forecast predictability is not stable over time. As a consequence, the econometric model can give us better forecast than random walk process at some period of time, however at other period, the forecasting ability can be worse than random walk. Based on Fluctuation test of Giacomini and Rossi (2010a) every model is analysed how the out-of-sample forecast ability changes over time.

The inability to effectively hedge against unfavourable exchange rate movements, using the current forward exchange rate as the only guideline, is a key inhibiting factor of international trade. Market participants use the current forward exchange rate quoted in the market to make decisions regarding future exchange rate changes. However, the current forward exchange rate is not solely determined by the interaction of demand and supply, but is also a mechanistic estimation, which is based on the current spot exchange rate and the carry cost of the transaction. Results of various studies, including this study, demonstrated that the current forward exchange rate differs substantially from the realized future spot exchange rate. This phenomenon is known as the exchange rate puzzle. This study contributes to the dynamics of modelling exchange rate theories by developing an exchange rate model that has the ability to explain the realized future spot exchange rate and the exchange rate puzzle. The exchange rate model is based only on current (time t) economic fundamentals and includes an alternative approach of incorporating the impact of the interaction of two international financial markets into the model. This study derived a unique exchange rate model, which proves that the exchange rate puzzle is a pseudo problem. The pseudo problem is based on the generally excepted fallacy that current non–stationary, level time series data cannot be used to model exchange rate theories, because of the incorrect assumption that all the available econometric methods yield statistically insignificant results due to spurious regressions. Empirical evidence conclusively shows that using non–stationary, level time series data of current economic fundamentals can statistically significantly explain the realized future spot exchange rate and, therefore, that the exchange rate puzzle can be solved. This model will give market participants in the foreign exchange market a better indication of expected future exchange rates, which will considerably reduce the dependence on the mechanistically derived forward points. The newly derived exchange rate model will also have an influence on the demand and supply of forward exchange, resulting in forward points that are a more accurate prediction of the realized future exchange rate. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Risk management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The inability to effectively hedge against unfavourable exchange rate movements, using the current forward exchange rate as the only guideline, is a key inhibiting factor of international trade. Market participants use the current forward exchange rate quoted in the market to make decisions regarding future exchange rate changes. However, the current forward exchange rate is not solely determined by the interaction of demand and supply, but is also a mechanistic estimation, which is based on the current spot exchange rate and the carry cost of the transaction. Results of various studies, including this study, demonstrated that the current forward exchange rate differs substantially from the realized future spot exchange rate. This phenomenon is known as the exchange rate puzzle. This study contributes to the dynamics of modelling exchange rate theories by developing an exchange rate model that has the ability to explain the realized future spot exchange rate and the exchange rate puzzle. The exchange rate model is based only on current (time t) economic fundamentals and includes an alternative approach of incorporating the impact of the interaction of two international financial markets into the model. This study derived a unique exchange rate model, which proves that the exchange rate puzzle is a pseudo problem. The pseudo problem is based on the generally excepted fallacy that current non–stationary, level time series data cannot be used to model exchange rate theories, because of the incorrect assumption that all the available econometric methods yield statistically insignificant results due to spurious regressions. Empirical evidence conclusively shows that using non–stationary, level time series data of current economic fundamentals can statistically significantly explain the realized future spot exchange rate and, therefore, that the exchange rate puzzle can be solved. This model will give market participants in the foreign exchange market a better indication of expected future exchange rates, which will considerably reduce the dependence on the mechanistically derived forward points. The newly derived exchange rate model will also have an influence on the demand and supply of forward exchange, resulting in forward points that are a more accurate prediction of the realized future exchange rate. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Risk management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.