← Search

Investor Sentiment Aligned: A Powerful Predictor of Stock Returns

Dashan Huang1; Fuwei Jiang; Jun Tu; Guofu Zhou1

1 Washington University in St. Louis

Review of Financial Studies 2015

We propose a new investor sentiment index that is aligned with the purpose of predicting the aggregate stock market. By eliminating a common noise component in sentiment proxies, the new index has much greater predictive power than existing sentiment indices have both in and out of sample, and the predictability becomes both statistically and economically significant. In addition, it outperforms well-recognized macroeconomic variables and can also predict cross-sectional stock returns sorted by industry, size, value, and momentum. The driving force of the predictive power appears to stem from investors' biased beliefs about future cash flows.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhu080
Volume
28 (3)
Pages
791-837
Language
en
Export
BibTeX
Sources
openalex crossref