This paper highlights a positive and significant beta-return relationship in high expected market return states, as suggested by the ICAPM. The ICAPM has strong out-of-sample predictive power for equity returns. As a result, timing strategies exploiting this predictive power have Sharpe ratios about double those of the buy-and-hold strategies, alphas of about 5% per annum, and average returns increasing sharply with unconditional betas. Our findings relate to the positive beta-return relation uncovered overnight, on macroeconomic announcement days, and in low inflation times because these periods share an important common feature: high market returns.

In an effort to increase transparency, the chair of the Federal Reserve now holds a press conference (PC) following some, but not all, Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements. Evidence from financial markets shows that investors lower their expectations of important decisions on days without PCs and that these announcements convey less price-relevant information. Correspondingly, we show that investors pay more attention to upcoming announcements with PCs. This coordination of attention can reduce welfare in models of the social value of public information. Consistent with theories of investor attention, the market risk premium is larger on days with PCs.