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Journal Article
Volatile firms, stable economy
Journal Article
Foreign exchange rates are predictable!
Working Paper
The relation between time-series and cross-sectional effects of idiosyncratic variance on stock returns in G7 countries
This paper suggests that CAPM-based idiosyncratic variance (IV) correlates negatively with future stock returns because it is a proxy for loadings on discount-rate shocks in Campbell*s (1993) ICAPM. The ICAPM also implies that there are important links between the time-series and cross-sectional IV effects. For example, the coefficients on conditional stock market variance and value-weighted average IV obtained from the time-series regressions reflect loadings on stock market returns and discount-rate shocks, respectively; therefore, they should help explain the cross section of stock ...
Working Paper
Idiosyncratic volatility, stock market volatility, and expected stock returns
We find that the value-weighted idiosyncratic stock volatility and aggregate stock market volatility jointly exhibit strong predictive power for excess stock market returns. The stock market risk-return relation is found to be positive, as stipulated by the CAPM; however, idiosyncratic volatility is negatively related to future stock market returns. Also, idiosyncratic volatility appears to be a pervasive macrovariable, and its forecasting abilities are very similar to those of the consumption-wealth ratio proposed by Lettau and Ludvigson (2001).
Working Paper
Equity market volatility and expected risk premium
This paper revisits the time-series relation between the conditional risk premium and variance of the equity market portfolio. The main innovation is that we construct a measure of the ex ante equity market risk premium using corporate bond yield spread data. This measure is forward-looking and does not rely critically on either realized equity returns or instrumental variables. We find strong support for a positive risk-return tradeoff, and this result is not sensitive to a number of robustness checks, including alternative proxies of the conditional stock variance and controls for hedging ...
Working Paper
Is value premium a proxy for time-varying investment opportunities: some time series evidence
We uncover a positive, empirical risk-return tradeoff in the stock market after controlling for the covariance of stock market returns with the value premium. The underlying premise is that, as conjectured by Fama and French (1996), the value premium is a proxy for time-varying investment opportunities. By ignoring the value premium, early specifications suffer from an omitted variable problem that leads to a downward bias in the estimate of the risk-return tradeoff. The paper also documents a new finding on a significantly positive relation between the value premium and its conditional ...
Working Paper
Time-varying risk premia and the cross section of stock returns
This paper develops and estimates a heteroskedastic variant of Campbell?s (1993) ICAPM, in which risk factors include a stock market return and variables forecasting stock market returns or variance. Our main innovation is the use of a new set of predictive variables, which not only have superior forecasting abilities for stock returns and variance, but also are theoretically motivated. In contrast with the early authors, we find that Campbell?s ICAPM performs significantly better than the CAPM. That is, the additional factors account for a substantial portion of the two CAPM-related ...
Working Paper
On the real-time forecasting ability of the consumption-wealth ratio
Lettau and Ludvigson (2001a) show that the consumption-wealth ratio-the error term from the cointegration relation among consumption, net worth, and labor income-forecasts stock market returns out of sample. In this paper, we reexamine their evidence using real-time data. Consistent with the early authors, we find that consumption and labor income data are subject to substantial revisions, which reflect (1) incorporating new information or methodologies and (2) reducing noise. Consequently, in contrast with the results obtained from the current vintage, the out-of-sample forecasting power of ...
Journal Article
Stock market returns, volatility, and future output
In this article, Hui Guo shows that, if stock volatility follows an AR(1) process, stock market returns relate positively to past volatility but relate negatively to contemporaneous volatility in Merton?s (1973) Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model. The model helps explain the recent finding that stock market volatility drives out returns in forecasting real gross domestic product growth because the predictive power of returns is hampered by their positive correlation with past volatility. If the positive relation between returns and past volatility is controlled for, however, the author ...
Journal Article
Stock market volatility: reading the meter