We assess cross-sectional differences in 23 bilateral, conditional currency excess returns in an empirical model that distinguishes between US-specific and global risks, conditional on US bull (upside) or bear (downside) markets. Our results suggest that global downside risk is not only...

This paper evaluates the performance of carry trade strategies with macro fundamentals in a Markov switching dynamic factor augmented regression framework and compares the performance statistics with the benchmark model of a random walk and momentum strategy. I make simulations with the Japanese...

Past trends in fundamentals linked to economic activity and inflation predict currency returns. We find that a trading strategy that goes long currencies with strong economic momentum and short currencies with weak economic momentum exhibits an annualized Sharpe ratio of 0.70 and yields a...

Standard carry trades, which consist of purchasing high- and selling low-yield currencies, provide an economic diversification effect. However, the diversification effect is not robust, and is not borne out by much statistical evidence. We introduce optimized carry trades, which incorporate risk...