[We argue that changes in average idiosyncratic volatility provide a proxy for changes in the investment opportunity set and that this proxy is closely related to the book-to-market factor. We test this idea in two ways using G7 countries' data. First, we show that idiosyncratic volatility has statistically significant predictive power for aggregate stock market returns over time. Second, we show that idiosyncratic volatility performs just as well as the book- to-market factor in explaining the cross section of stock returns. Our results suggest that the hedge against changes in investment opportunities is an important determinant of asset prices.]

Abstract This paper proposes a measure of ex ante equity premium, IPOFDR, which is the average difference between the initial public offering (IPO) offer price and the 1st-trading-day close price. I test the idea in 3 ways. First, there is a positive relation between IPOFDR and future market returns. Second, changes in IPOFDR help explain the cross section of stock returns. Third, the predictive power of IPOFDR for stock returns reflects mainly its close relation with market variance and average idiosyncratic variance—arguably measures of systematic risk. These results cast doubt on the notion that the IPO 1st-day return is a measure of investor sentiment.

Abstract This paper presents a consumption-based model that explains the equity premium puzzle through two channels. First, because of borrowing constraints, the shareholder cannot completely diversify his income risk and requires a sizable risk premium on stocks. Second, because of limited stock market participation, the precautionary saving demand lowers the risk-free rate but not stock return and generates a substantial liquidity premium. This model also replicates many other salient features of the data, including the first two moments of the risk-free rate, excess stock volatility, stock return predictability, and the unstable relation between stock volatility and the dividend yield.

This paper develops and estimates a heteroskedastic variant of Campbell’s [Campbell, J., 1993. Intertemporal asset pricing without consumption data. American Economic Review 83, 487–512] 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 anomalies, namely, the value premium and the momentum profit.

We argue that changes in average idiosyncratic volatility provide a proxy for changes in the investment opportunity set and that this proxy is closely related to the book-to-market factor. We test this idea in two ways using G7 countries' data. First, we show that idiosyncratic volatility has statistically significant predictive power for aggregate stock market returns over time. Second, we show that idiosyncratic volatility performs just as well as the book-to-market factor in explaining the cross section of stock returns. Our results suggest that the hedge against changes in investment opportunities is an important determinant of asset prices. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected], Oxford University Press.

Consistent with the post-1962 US evidence by Ang et al. [Ang, A., Hodrick, R., Xing Y., Zhang, X., 2006. The cross-section of volatility and expected returns. Journal of Finance 51, 259–299], we find that stocks with high idiosyncratic variance (IV) have low CAPM-adjusted expected returns in both pre-1962 US and modern G7 data. We also test in three ways the conjecture that IV is a proxy of systematic risk. First, the return difference between low and high IV stocks – that we dub as IVF – is a priced factor in the cross-section of stock returns. Second, loadings on lagged market variance and lagged average IV account for a significant portion of variation in average returns on portfolios sorted by IV. Third, the variance of IVF correlates closely with average IV, and the two variables have similar explanatory power for the time-series and cross-sectional stock returns.

Average idiosyncratic stock volatility forecasts the bilateral exchange rates of the US dollar against major foreign currencies in and out of sample. The US dollar tends to appreciate after an increase in US idiosyncratic volatility. Similarly, ceteris paribus, German and Japanese idiosyncratic volatilities positively and significantly correlate with future US dollar prices of the Deutsche mark and the Japanese yen, respectively. Our results suggest that exchange rates are predictable.

Abstract Although many studies show that the presence of institutional investors facilitates the incorporation of accounting information into financial markets, the evidence of informed trading by institutions is rather limited in the extant literature. We address these inconsistent findings by proposing PC _ NII , percentage changes in the number of a stock's institutional investors, as a novel informed trading measure. PC _ NII is better able to detect informed trading than are changes in institutional ownership ( Δ IO )—the measure commonly used in previous studies—because (i) entries and exits are usually triggered by substantive private information and (ii) only a small fraction of institutions have superior information. As conjectured, PC _ NII subsumes the information content of Δ IO and other institutional trading and herding measures in the forecast of stock returns, and its strong predictive power for stock returns reflects mainly its close correlation with future earnings surprises. We also show that PC _ NII helps address empirical issues that require a reliable measure of institutional informed trading.

ABSTRACT Accruals correlate closely with the determinants of the conditional equity premium at both the firm and the aggregate levels. The common component of firm‐level accruals, which cannot be diversified away by aggregation, explains the positive relation between aggregate accruals and future stock market returns. The residual component, which accounts for most variation in firm‐level accruals, is responsible for the negative cross‐sectional relation between firm‐level accruals and future stock returns. Consistent with the risk‐based explanation, aggregate accruals, as a proxy for the conditional equity premium, forecast changes in aggregate economic activity. Moreover, we document a similar comovement of earnings with the conditional equity premium at both the firm and the aggregate levels, which helps explain the negative relation between changes in aggregate earnings and contemporaneous market returns.

ABSTRACT There is ongoing debate about the apparent weak or negative relation between risk (conditional variance) and expected returns in the aggregate stock market. We develop and estimate an empirical model based on the intertemporal capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) that separately identifies the two components of expected returns, namely, the risk component and the component due to the desire to hedge changes in investment opportunities. The estimated coefficient of relative risk aversion is positive, statistically significant, and reasonable in magnitude. However, expected returns are driven primarily by the hedge component. The omission of this component is partly responsible for the existing contradictory results.