Simple, Practical Test of VRP as IEF Return Predictor
February 9, 2017 - Bonds, Volatility Effects
“Equity Market and Treasuries Variance Risk Premiums as Return Predictors” reports a finding, among others, that the variance risk premium for 10-year U.S. Treasury notes (T-note) predicts near-term returns for those notes (as manifested via futures). However, the methods used to calculate the variance risk premium are complex. Is there a simple way to exploit the predictive power found? To investigate, we test whether a simple measure of the volatility risk premium (VRP) for T-notes predicts returns for the iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF) exchange-traded fund. Specifically we:
- Calculate daily realized volatility of IEF as the standard deviation of daily total returns over the past 21 trading days, multiplied by the square root of 252 to annualize.
- Use daily closes of CBOE/CBOT 10-year U.S. Treasury Note Volatility Index (TYVIX) as annualized implied volatility.
- Calculate the daily T-note VRP as TYVIX minus IEF realized volatility.
VRP here differs from that in the referenced research in three ways: (1) it is a volatility premium rather than a variance premium based on standard deviation rather than the square of standard deviation; (2) it is implied volatility minus expected realized volatility, rather than the reverse, and so should be mostly positive; and, (3) estimation of expected realized volatility is much simpler. When TYVIX has daily closes on non-market days, we ignore those closes. When TYVIX does not have daily closes on market days, we reuse the most recent value of TYVIX. These exceptions are rare. Using daily IEF dividend-adjusted prices since December 2002 and daily closes of TYVIX since January 2003 (earliest available), both through January 2017, we find that: Keep Reading