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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 35 No. 5 2022

A Model of Two Days: Discrete News and Asset Prices

Jessica A. Wachter1; Yicheng Zhu2

1 University of Pennsylvania and NBER · 2 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Empirical studies demonstrate striking patterns in stock returns related to scheduled macroeconomic announcements. A large proportion of the total equity premium is realized on days with macroeconomic announcements. The relation between market betas and expected returns is far stronger on announcement days as compared with nonannouncement days. Finally, these results hold for fixed-income investments as well as for stocks. We present a model in which agents learn the probability of an adverse economic state on announcement days. We show that the model quantitatively accounts for the empirical findings. Evidence from options data provides support for the model’s mechanism.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhab080
Volume
35
Issue
5
Pages
2246-2307
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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