Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.

The use of a conditionally unbiased, but imperfect, volatility proxy can lead to undesirable out- comes in standard methods for comparing conditional variance forecasts. We motivate our study with analytical results on the distortions caused by some widely-used loss functions, when used with stan-da...

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Main Author: Patton, A
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance 2007
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author Patton, A
author_facet Patton, A
author_sort Patton, A
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description The use of a conditionally unbiased, but imperfect, volatility proxy can lead to undesirable out- comes in standard methods for comparing conditional variance forecasts. We motivate our study with analytical results on the distortions caused by some widely-used loss functions, when used with stan-dard volatility proxies such as squared returns, the intra-daily range or realised volatility. We then derive necessary and sufficient conditions on the functional form of the loss function for the ranking of competing volatility forecasts to be robust to the presence of noise in the volatility proxy, and derive some useful special cases of this class of “robust” loss functions. The methods are illustrated with an application to the volatility of returns on IBM over the period 1993 to 2003.
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spelling oxford-uuid:106d4ae1-12a4-4bc3-a2c6-7e22778fcd062022-03-26T09:56:23ZVolatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:106d4ae1-12a4-4bc3-a2c6-7e22778fcd06EnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsOxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance2007Patton, AThe use of a conditionally unbiased, but imperfect, volatility proxy can lead to undesirable out- comes in standard methods for comparing conditional variance forecasts. We motivate our study with analytical results on the distortions caused by some widely-used loss functions, when used with stan-dard volatility proxies such as squared returns, the intra-daily range or realised volatility. We then derive necessary and sufficient conditions on the functional form of the loss function for the ranking of competing volatility forecasts to be robust to the presence of noise in the volatility proxy, and derive some useful special cases of this class of “robust” loss functions. The methods are illustrated with an application to the volatility of returns on IBM over the period 1993 to 2003.
spellingShingle Patton, A
Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title_full Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title_fullStr Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title_full_unstemmed Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title_short Volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility.
title_sort volatility forecast comparison using imperfect volatility
work_keys_str_mv AT pattona volatilityforecastcomparisonusingimperfectvolatility