Effect of Implied Volatility on FX Carry Trade

This thesis aims to back-test the ability of implied volatility carry trade strategies to outperform the carry trade strategies in the FX markets. Recent research has shown that the profitability of the strategies is partly attributable to the market mispricings of the forward volatility agreements and a tendency of the forward implied volatility to overestimate the future spot implied volatility. This thesis uses a similar approach to construct portfolios containing 10 developed as well as 9 emerging market currencies. Our approach is based on the assumption that Uncovered Interest rate Parity (UIP), Forward Unbiasedness Hypothesis (FUH) and Forward Volatility Unbiasedness Hypothesis (FVUH) do not hold and therefore providing investors with several opportunities to construct trading strategies taking advantage of these market mispricings. In this thesis, we show that the foreign exchange carry trade strategy composed of the specific developed and emerging country's currencies can be outperformed by portfolio consisting of the implied volatility carry trade strategies in the FX market over the analysed period. The portfolios are adjusted to the riskiness which is accounted for by the VIX and VXY-G7 index for developed and VIX and VXY-EM index for emerging economies. The strong performance of the strategies outlined in this thesis can be of significant value to FX traders and portfolio managers.