Intraday Risk Management of Cryptocurrency Returns During 2020–2021 Upsurge: A Conditional EVT Approach

The cryptocurrency market is characterized by extremely high volatility. In the present study, we show the predictive ability of conditional EVT models in the cryptocurrency market during the price upsurge of 2020–2021. Taking high-frequency intraday data of four popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Binance coin, we compare the accuracy of different competing models in estimating intraday value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES). The present study focuses on the extreme value theory (EVT) for modeling the tail of the distribution to forecast the measures of intraday VaR and ES. The study confirms the fat-tailed behavior of intraday returns of all four cryptocurrencies. Further, the study shows the magnitudes of high negative shocks are more than the positive ones for the returns of all four cryptocurrencies. The study uses suitable GARCH-family models such as apARCH, EGARCH, and CGARCH in the ARMA-GARCH framework. Using a two-stage approach the study shows how GARCH-EVT models with skewed student’s— t distribution outperform the predictability of conditional EVT with standard normal distribution as well as the unconditional EVT models in predicting intraday VaR and ES. The result of the study is useful for risk managers, day traders, and also for machine-based algorithmic trading.