Quasi-Maximum Exponential Likelihood Estimation of Conditional Quantiles for GARCH Models Based on High-Frequency Augmented Data

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for estimating risk in financial markets using high-frequency data to improve volatility predictions.

Contribution

The novelty lies in applying quasi-maximum exponential likelihood estimation to high-frequency augmented GARCH models for better conditional quantile estimation.

Findings

High-frequency data improves conditional quantile estimation in GARCH models.

Simulation studies confirm the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators.

Empirical results show significant improvements in risk measures like Value-at-Risk.

Abstract

GARCH models play a fundamental role in modeling time-varying volatility in financial return series. In practice, financial returns are also well known to exhibit heavy-tailed distributions, which naturally motivates the use of quasi-maximum exponential likelihood estimation (QMELE) for accurately capturing tail behavior and risk measures such as Value-at-Risk. At the same time, the increasing availability of intraday high-frequency data has led to the development of high-frequency augmented GARCH models, which incorporate intraday information into conventional low-frequency volatility frameworks. By exploiting transaction-level data recorded at very fine time scales, these models are able to capture intraday volatility dynamics and market microstructure effects that are not reflected in standard low-frequency observations. Against this background, this paper studies conditional quantile estimation for high-frequency augmented GARCH models. We develop QMELE-based estimators for both model parameters and conditional quantiles, and construct an adjusted test statistic for assessing model adequacy. The asymptotic properties of the proposed estimators and test statistic are established, and their finite-sample performance is examined through extensive simulation studies. Empirical applications to three major stock indices demonstrate that augmenting GARCH models with high-frequency information leads to substantial improvements in conditional quantile estimation compared with traditional low-frequency approaches.

Figures