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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 37 No. 6 2024

Equity Return Expectations and Portfolios: Evidence from Large Asset Managers

Magnus Dahlquist1; Markus Ibert2

1 Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden and CEPR , · 2 Copenhagen Business School and Danish Finance Institute , Denmark

open access

Abstract

Collecting large asset managers’ capital market assumptions, we revisit the relationships between subjective equity premium expectations, equity valuations, and financial portfolios. In contrast to the well-documented extrapolative expectations of retail investors, asset managers’ equity premium expectations are countercyclical: they are high (low) when valuations are low (high). We find that asset managers’ portfolios reflect their heterogeneous expectations: allocation funds of asset managers with larger U.S. equity premium expectations invest significantly more in U.S. equities. The sensitivity of portfolios to expectations seems to be muted by investment mandates and is smaller than the one predicted by a standard portfolio choice model.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhae008
Volume
37
Issue
6
Pages
1887-1928
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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