한국 주식시장에서 환위험에 대한 외국인 투자자의 반응

Abstract

Foreign investors who invest in the Korean stock markets are exposed to two kinds of foreign exchange rate risk, the economic exposure and the translation exposure. The former is the foreign exchange rate exposure in return generating process of the assets invested and the latter is the foreign exchange rate exposure in the translation of domestic return into foreign investors' currency. Domestic investors, however, are exposed only to foreign exchange rate exposure in the asset invested. This different situation on foreign exchange rate exposure between foreign investors and domestic investors can induce different response to exchange rate change by investor groups. Previous studies on foreign exchange rate exposure of Korean firms reported that quite a few Korean firms are exposed to foreign exchange risks and suggested to manage the foreign exchange risks. Also, many studies on the market segmentation showed that a market can be practically segmented according to the characteristics of investor groups. These studies support the hypothesis that the Korean stock market can be practically segmented by the foreign investors’ attitude to the foreign exchange rate exposure. This study examines the response of both foreign investors and domestic investors to the foreign exchange rate exposures in Korean stock markets. Test results show that foreign investors increase their sell transactions when the foreign exchange rate exposure of the previous day is negative. This result can be possible when foreign investors attempt to actively manage the decrease in value of their assets due to rising of exchange rate. Analysis on the sell order data is also supportive to this interpretation. Foreign investors also increase their buy transactions when the foreign exchange rate exposure of the previous day is negative. This result can be possible when foreign investors use actively the relation between the increase in asset value and the translation gain due to declining of exchange rate. Analyses on buy order data, however, do not show the same result as the analyses on transaction data. This difference may come from the difference of information contained in transaction data and order data. In summary, the result of the paper supports the hypothesis that foreign investors response differently to foreign exchange rate exposure compared with domestic, Korean investors. Two groups do not show different response when exchange rate exposure is positive, i.e., as foreign exchange rate is increase (decrease), the asset value is increase (decrease). However, foreign investors’ response is different from that of domestic investors when exchange rate exposure is negative, i.e., as foreign exchange rate is increase (decrease), the asset value is decrease (increase). These results mean that foreign investors and domestic investors are placed in different situations related to foreign exchange rate exposure, and these differences are reflected in the Korean stock markets. And domestic investors need to consider foreign investors’ different attitude to the foreign exchange rate exposure when they analysis foreign investors’ trading behavior.