Download or read book Essays on the Predictability and Volatility of Returns in the Stock Market written by Ruojun Wu and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation studies the effect of parameter uncertainty on the return predictability and volatility of the stock market. The first two chapters focus on the decomposition of market volatility, and the third chapter studies the return predictability. When facing imperfect information, the investors tend to form a learning scheme that encompasses both historical data and prior beliefs. In the variance decomposition framework, the introducing of learning directly impacts the way that return forecasts are revised and consequently the relative component of market volatility based on these forecasts, namely the price movements from revision on future discount rates and those from future cash flows. According to the empirical study in Chapter 1, the former is not necessarily the major driving force of market volatility, which provides an alternative view on what moves stock prices. Learning is modeled and estimated by Bayesian method. Chapter 2 follows the topic in Chapter 1 and studies the role of persistent state variables in return decomposition in order to provide more robust inference on variance decomposition. In Chapter 3 we propose to utilize theoretical constraints to help predict market returns when in sample data is very noisy and creates model uncertainty for the investors. The constraints are also incorporated by Bayesian method. We show in the out-of-sample forecast experiment that models with theoretical constraints produce better forecasts.

Download or read book Essays on Return Predictability and Volatility Estimation written by Yuzhao Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Stock Market Volatility and Stock Return Predictability written by Shu Yan and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on the Predictability of Stock Returns written by Amit Goyal and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Stock Market Volatility written by Chengbo Fu and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays on stock market volatility. In the first essay, we show that investors will have the information in the idiosyncratic volatility spread when using two different models to estimate idiosyncratic volatility. In a theoretical framework, we show that idiosyncratic volatility spread is related to the change in beta and the new betas from the extra factors between two different factor models. Empirically, we find that idiosyncratic volatility spread predicts the cross section of stock returns. The negative spread-return relation is independent from the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. The result is driven by the change in beta component and the new beta component of the spread. The spread-relation is also robust when investors estimate the spread using a conditional model or EGARCH method. In the second essay, the variance of stock returns is decomposed based on a conditional Fama-French three-factor model instead of its unconditional counterpart. Using time-varying alpha and betas in this model, it is evident that four additional risk terms must be considered. They include the variance of alpha, the variance of the interaction between the time-varying component of beta and factors, and two covariance terms. These additional risk terms are components that are included in the idiosyncratic risk estimate using an unconditional model. By investigating the relation between the risk terms and stock returns, we find that only the variance of the time-varying alpha is negatively associated with stock returns. Further tests show that stock returns are not affected by the variance of time-varying beta. These results are consistent with the findings in the literature identifying return predictability from time-varying alpha rather than betas. In the third essay, we employ a two-step estimation method to separate the upside and downside idiosyncratic volatility and examine its relation with future stock returns. We find that idiosyncratic volatility is negatively related to stock returns when the market is up and when it is down. The upside idiosyncratic volatility is not related to stock returns. Our results also suggest that the relation between downside idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns is negative and significant. It is the downside idiosyncratic volatility that drives the inverse relation between total idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. The results are consistent with the literature that investor overreact to bad news and underreact to good news.

Download or read book Essays on the Predictability and Volatility of Asset Returns written by Stefan A. Jacewitz and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation collects two papers regarding the econometric and economic theory and testing of the predictability of asset returns. It is widely accepted that stock returns are not only predictable but highly so. This belief is due to an abundance of existing empirical literature finding often overwhelming evidence in favor of predictability. The common regressors used to test predictability (e.g., the dividend-price ratio for stock returns) are very persistent and their innovations are highly correlated with returns. Persistence when combined with a correlation between innovations in the regressor and asset returns can cause substantial over-rejection of a true null hypothesis. This result is both well documented and well known. On the other hand, stochastic volatility is both broadly accepted as a part of return time series and largely ignored by the existing econometric literature on the predictability of returns. The severe effect that stochastic volatility can have on standard tests are demonstrated here. These deleterious effects render standard tests invalid. However, this problem can be easily corrected using a simple change of chronometer. When a return time series is read in the usual way, at regular intervals of time (e.g., daily observations), then the distribution of returns is highly non-normal and displays marked time heterogeneity. If the return time series is, instead, read according to a clock based on regular intervals of volatility, then returns will be independent and identically normally distributed. This powerful result is utilized in a unique way in each chapter of this dissertation. This time-deformation technique is combined with the Cauchy t-test and the newly introduced martingale estimation technique. This dissertation finds no evidence of predictability in stock returns. Moreover, using martingale estimation, the cause of the Forward Premium Anomaly may be more easily discerned.

Download or read book Essays on Stock Liquidity and Stock Return Predictability written by Gregory William Eaton and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I examine the effects of stock liquidity on asset values and whether aggregate stock liquidity and other forecasting instruments predict stock market returns. In the first chapter, I use tick-size reductions in equity markets as sources of exogenous variation in liquidity to examine the causal effect of transaction costs on firm value. In contrast to the prevailing view, I find that increased liquidity has a marginal or, in some cases, negative impact on firm value. The second chapter evaluates the predictive content of aggregate liquidity for economic activity and stock returns. We decompose illiquidity into a component capturing aggregate volatility and a volatility-adjusted component and find strong evidence that the component of illiquidity uncorrelated with volatility forecasts stock market returns. The third chapter provides new evidence on the stock return forecasting performance of alternative corporate payout yields. We find that the net payout yield forecasts stock returns and generally outperforms the commonly used dividend yield. Additionally, we show that the choice of cash flow used to construct the payout yield is economically significant. An agent relying on the incorrect payout measure as a forecasting instrument is willing to pay an economically significant amount to switch to the optimal policy.

Download or read book Essays on Disaster Risk and Equity Return Predictability written by Shunlin Liang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of two essays on disaster risk and equity return predictability. The first essay proposes new measures of firm-level and market level disaster risk from deviation of put-call symmetry, which is free from being contaminated by the asymmetry between option traders and equity investors. Compared with other known measures of disaster risk, the market-level disaster risk measure robustly predicts aggregate market returns, with out-of-sample (R^2=6.86%) for the next twelve months. The cross-sectional analysis shows that firm-level disaster risk also explains variations in expected stock returns. Stocks with high firm-level disaster risk earn an annual four-factor subsequent alpha 8.0% higher than stocks with low firm-level disaster risk. I explore potential mechanisms giving rise to these asset pricing facts. The second essay finds that the investor’s learning of higher moments can account for the time-variation, size, and volatility of equity premium. I estimate the investor’s belief on skewness and kurtosis of consumption and dividend growth, and assume investor’s Bayesian learning about a skew student’s t-distribution with unknown fixed parameters. The predictive regressions show that more negative skewness and higher kurtosis predict higher subsequent market excess returns, which implies the investor’s learning generates the time variation of equity premium although the true distribution is static. The calibrated asset pricing model shows that the investor’s learning also explains the size and volatility of the equity premium observed in the data when the investor has a preference for early resolution of uncertainty.

Download or read book Essays in Predictability of Stock Returns in International Markets written by Dong Hong and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Essays on Global Stock Markets written by Mengmeng Dong (Professor of finance) and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation consists of three sole-authored essays that study global stock returns. The first one “Global Anomalies” estimates the aggregated return predictability of 117 U.S. anomalies across 40 countries. These anomaly variables generate substantial return predictability when they are aggregated within the same category as defined in Hou, Xue, and Zhang (2015) using composite measures. Combining all six categories of anomaly variables into one single composite measure, a global hedge portfolio generates an average equal (value)-weighted monthly return of 2.15% (1.20%) with a t-statistic of 9.22 (4.66). These results highlight the importance of using composite measures to summarize the information contained in individual anomaly variables. My dissertation consists of three sole-authored essays that study global stock returns. The first one “Global Anomalies” estimates the aggregated return predictability of 117 U.S. anomalies across 40 countries. These anomaly variables generate substantial return predictability when they are aggregated within the same category as defined in Hou, Xue, and Zhang (2015) using composite measures. Combining all six categories of anomaly variables into one single composite measure, a global hedge portfolio generates an average equal (value)-weighted monthly return of 2.15% (1.20%) with a t-statistic of 9.22 (4.66). These results highlight the importance of using composite measures to summarize the information contained in individual anomaly variables. In the third chapter “The Impact of Price Limits on Stock Volatility and Price Delay: Evidence from China”, I focus on the Chinese stock market and study how market interventions affect price behaviors. To overcome challenge in identification, I first match firms by characteristics and use difference-in-difference methodology to establish causality. Exploring a Special Treatment policy in China, I show that 5-basis-point tightening in daily price limits (from ±10% to ±5%) significantly reduces annualized volatility by 6.5 basis points (t =5.00) yet increases price delay by 63% from the previous year (t =7.40). Trading activity and liquidity significantly decrease under new limits but return increases by an equal-weighted average of 27% (t = 3.22) in 12 months. Evidence suggests that in the long-run price limits are effective in reducing volatility and improving firm value yet causing delayed price discovery and lower liquidity.

Download or read book Essays on Stock Return Predictability and Market Efficiency written by Lei Jiang and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Stock Return Predictability and Portfolio Allocation written by Bradley Steele Paye and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Return Predictability in Financial Markets written by Chan R. Mang and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My thesis examines return predictability in government bond markets and currency markets. In Chapter 1, I take the term structure model in Cochrane and Piazzesi (2008) and construct currency market prices. The implied currency market prices are then counterfactually volatile and predictable, at least with respect to commonly used predictor variables. Getting the model closer to currency market data means reducing bond risk compensation but doing so nearly eliminates predictability in bond markets. One way to generate sensible time-variation in bond and currency risk-premia allows the volatility of returns to be time-varying. In Chapter 2, I test if alternative forecast rules perform better than the return-forecasting factor of Cochrane and Piazzesi (2008). I compare forecasts assuming all historical data is available to recursively made ones that are revised with the arrival of news. Differences in the two forecast rules systematically move with realized bond risk-premia and forecast mean yield curve levels and short-term interest rates one year ahead not just for the U.S., but also for government bond markets of other industrialized economies. I show that lower long-term rates relative to short-rates in 2004-2005 is consistent with an expected a decline of interest rates by market participants. In Chapter 3, I show that the cross-sectional average spread in the return-forecasting factor of Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005, 2008) can forecast currency risk-premia. However, the return-forecasting factor spread consistent with real-time data does not forecast currency risk-premia. I also find that both currency risk-premia and exchange rate changes have a predictable component that is detected by the information gap, what I call the hidden FX market factor, between forecasts that take as given the full sample of data and those consistent with real-time availability. Controlling for large and transitory exchange rate changes using this information gap make interest rate differentials between the average foreign country and the U.S. positively correlated with dollar appreciation rates, delivering the right sign predicted by uncovered interest parity.

Download or read book Essays on Stock Return Predictability written by Qing Bai and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dissertation consists of two essays. Essay I examines the return predictability by firm level R & D and innovation measures and shows that technology spillover helps to explain the positive innovation-return relation. Essay II propose a novel measure of conditional value premium based on firm's stock split announcement. This measure is shown to have a strong predicting power over value premium both in sample and out of sample. Essay I: I show that technology spillovers are important information phenomena that benefit both other innovators (as emphasized in the Industrial Organization literature) and stock market investors. I find that the premium associated with R & D and patenting activities is largely restricted to firms located in more isolated technology spaces with fewer spillovers. Moreover, there is a strong lead-lag effect among firms engaging in innovative activities: the stock prices of firms in more isolated technology spaces react more slowly to new information than do the stock prices of firms in more competitive technology spaces. Finally, announcement-day returns to patent grants are greater for more technologically important patents (measured by forward citations), but only for firms in more crowded technology spaces. My results indicate that investors are able to value innovative investments by exploiting the information flows associated with greater technology spillovers. Essay II: I propose a novel conditional value premium measure based on the present-value relation that the stock price impact of a firm's public announcement reveals the firm's expected discount rates. Specifically, because most splitting stocks are growth stocks on which, by construction, the value premium has strong influence, the average splitting stock announcement-day returns track closely conditional value premium. I find very similar results using announcements of divested asset acquisitions in which acquirers are usually growth firms. Consistent with risk-based explanations, my conditional value premium measure correlates positively with future GDP growth and helps explain the cross-section of stock returns.

Download or read book The Equity Risk Premium written by William N. Goetzmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-16 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the return to investing in the stock market? Can we predict future stock market returns? How have equities performed over the last two centuries? The authors in this volume are among the leading researchers in the study of these questions. This book draws upon their research on the stock market over the past two dozen years. It contains their major research articles on the equity risk premium and new contributions on measuring, forecasting, and timing stock market returns, together with new interpretive essays that explore critical issues and new research on the topic of stock market investing. This book is aimed at all readers interested in understanding the empirical basis for the equity risk premium. Through the analysis and interpretation of two scholars whose research contributions have been key factors in the modern debate over stock market perfomance, this volume engages the reader in many of the key issues of importance to investors. How large is the premium? Is history a reliable guide to predict future equity returns? Does the equity and cash flows of the market? Are global equity markets different from those in the United States? Do emerging markets offer higher or lower equity risk premia? The authors use the historical performance of the world's stock markets to address these issues.

Download or read book Credit Conditions and Stock Return Predictability written by Heungju Park and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation examines stock return predictability with aggregate credit conditions. The aggregate credit conditions are empirically measured by credit standards (Standards) derived from the Federal Reserve Board's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. Using Standards, this study investigates whether the aggregate credit conditions predict the expected returns and volatility of the stock market. The first essay, "Credit Conditions and Expected Stock Returns," analyzes the predictability of U.S. aggregate stock returns using a measure of credit conditions, Standards. The analysis reveals that Standards is a strong predictor of stock returns at a business cycle frequency, especially in the post-1990 data period. Empirically the essay demonstrates that a tightening of Standards predicts lower future stock returns. Standards performs well both in-sample and out-of-sample and is robust to a host of consistency checks including a small sample analysis. The second essay, "Credit Conditions and Stock Return Volatility," examines the role played by credit conditions in predicting aggregate stock market return volatility. The essay employs a measure of credit conditions, Standards in the stock return volatility prediction. Using the level and the log of realized volatility as the estimator of the stock return volatility, this study finds that Standards is a strong predictor of U.S. stock return volatility. Overall, the forecasting power of Standards is strongest during tightening credit periods.

Download or read book Essays on Predictability of Stock Returns written by Oleg Rytchkov and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (cont.) I focus on the general case in which differential information leads to the problem of "forecasting the forecasts of others" and to non-trivial dynamics of higher order expectations. I prove that the model does not admit a finite number of state variables. Using numerical analysis, I compare equilibria characterized by identical fundamentals but different information structures and show that the distribution of information has substantial impact on equilibrium prices and returns. In particular, asymmetric information might generate predictability in returns and high trading volume.