Dynamic hedging with foreign currency futures in the presence of jumps

A dynamic hedging strategy based on a bivariate GARCH-jump model augmented with autoregressive jump intensity is proposed to manage currency risk. The GARCH-jump model, capable of capturing volatility clustering and leptokurtosis, provides a comprehensive description of the joint dynamics of the currency spot rate and the futures basis. We find significant common jump components in the currency spot rate and futures basis with jump sizes response asymmetrical to futures basis changes. Our out-of-sample hedging exercises show optimal hedge ratios incorporating information from common jump dynamics substantially reduce the portfolio risk of foreign currencies. Copyright © 2008 The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.