Global Macro Investment
For Presentation at Yale U. October 22, 2003
Dr. Joe Zhou
jzhou@divergencefund.com
Why do you want to become a macro money manager?
• Liquidity (FX market >> Bond >> Stocks)  Low transaction costs;
• Liquidity  if you get it right and do it in size, you become billionaire;
• You work for yourself  Personal Freedom;
• Real-time profit or loss  Instant Gratification;
• FX market functions around the clock  Ideal job for workaholic;
• Few people can do macroeconomic investing  Feel better about
oneself;
Foreign Exchange Markets
• History 1: Floating exchange rates (1973 – present) among major
currencies only 30 years old. The wealth of nations changes as
currencies are constantly realigned. See charts.
• History 2: Governments have always been using exchange rates as
macroeconomic policy tools. Current US administration clearly
wants a weaker dollar as yet another tool to stimulate the economy.
Presumably, a weaker dollar makes US goods and services cheaper
and creates jobs.
• Bad News for FX Traders: Central banks have evolved smarter.
They have learned to conduct better monetary policies. They have
become reluctant to intervene in the FX markets. Bad monetary
policies and frequent currency interventions are the kind of stuff that
makes FX traders rich.
• Good News 1: Nobody on this planet understands the FX markets
completely. Though, everybody claims to know how to forecast the
past.
• Good News 2: There is no shortage in sight of central banks that
still face a steep learning curve.
• Good News 3: Home investment bias is the tendency for investors
to hold assets of their own country. Home employment bias reflects
the difficulty of having equal employment opportunities globally. FX
investment opportunities arise so long as these biases continue to
exist.
• Good News 4: Even if central banks stop sending money to us,
there are always chances to take advantage of your fellow FX
traders.
• Good News 5: You don’t have to be very smart. George Soros
made a billion dollars by betting against Bank of England on a
relatively simple trade.
• Trading Instrument 1: Spot Exchange Rates. Price quote
conventions; Unlike the equity trade, a spot FX trade is a bilateral
contract between you and a bank;
• Trading Instrument 2: Forward contracts; How to establish a
forward transaction? A forward position is a pair of long/short money
deposits;
• Trading Instrument 3: Futures contracts; Marking to the market
daily;
• Trading Instrument 4: Options; How to evaluate options? You can
bet on FX directions as well as volatilities;
Market View Formation
• Technical Models
• Use historical FX price and volume data to forecast future
exchange rates;
• Are talking about conditional probabilities and informational
economics; Certain charts look prettier than others;
• Which are of Mean-Reverting Nature
– Support and Resistance; Mean-Reverting to the trendlines;
• Which are of Momentum Nature
– Channel Breakout; Moving Averages;
• Mean-Reversion versus Momentum
– Risk and Return profiles;
• Fundamental Models
• Cost of Carry Principles applicable to all asset classes
– FX, Bonds, Equities and Real Estate
• FX market has its own characteristics:
– Monetary policy. Tight monetary policy is generally good
for the currency;
– Real economic growth. Higher economic growth is
generally good for the currency;
• Technical Models versus Fundamental Models
• At least 95% FX professionals are technical trend followers;
• On average, they make a little bit money;
• FX economists have not performed better than the stock
analysts; like the stock analysts, they are entertainers for the
investment community. When it comes to predicting future
spot exchange rates, Wall Street fundamental forecasters do
worse than the forward exchange rates;
• When too many people use momentum strategies, market
volatilities go up and expected returns go down;
• Quantitative Models, whether technical or not,
• Are all flawed philosophically. Models capture only a limited
number of factors while the potential number of factors could
be infinite. Certain factors, which were useful for predicting
the past, may become irrelevant for the future. There could
be structural changes in the market that requires considering
new factors;
• Are better than gut feelings for most professionals. Out of
greed and fear, most people trade emotionally and models
are not emotional.
• Work better when few people use them. It is critical to
develop your own proprietary trading strategies and keep
them secret.
• Are essential for raising capital for your investment. The
hedge fund community has become a quantitative industry.
The black box approach to investing has been gaining
popularity as gut-based managers sink in reputation;
Portfolio Risk Management
• Measurement of Portfolio Risk
– Historical versus implied correlations;
– Historical versus implied volatilities;
• Drawdown Control
– Is about minimizing the fall of the portfolio value relative to its alltime highs;
– Is a survival game. Managers are judged by their returns relative
to the portfolio drawdowns;
– “Optimal Investment Strategies for Controlling Drawdowns”,
Mathematical Finance, July 1993.