IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v40y2021ics1544612319313443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do market participants’ forecasts of financial variables outperform the random-walk benchmark?

Author

Listed:
  • Kladívko, Kamil
  • Österholm, Pär

Abstract

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting precision of survey expectations of the four financial variables in the Prospera survey commissioned by Sveriges Riksbank – one of Sweden's most important economic surveys. Our analysis shows that the market participants in the survey are able to significantly outperform the random walk for only one horizon and variable, namely the three-month horizon for the repo rate. At the longest horizon for the repo rate, and at all horizons for the five-year government bond yield, the random walk significantly outperforms the market participants. For the exchange-rate data studied – SEK/USD and SEK/EUR – no significant differences in forecasting precision in favour of the survey expectations can be established. We conclude that while the Prospera survey might be informative regarding the market participants’ expectations, it does not seem to carry much information about the actual future developments of the exchange rates and interest rates covered by the survey.

Suggested Citation

  • Kladívko, Kamil & Österholm, Pär, 2021. "Do market participants’ forecasts of financial variables outperform the random-walk benchmark?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1544612319313443
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2020.101712
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612319313443
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2020.101712?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan G., 1994. "A generalization of the non-parametric Henriksson-Merton test of market timing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 1-7.
    2. Ron Alquist & Menzie D. Chinn, 2008. "Conventional and unconventional approaches to exchange rate modelling and assessment," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 2-13.
    3. Thomas Jonsson & Pär Österholm, 2012. "The properties of survey-based inflation expectations in Sweden," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 79-94, February.
    4. Richard Meese & Kenneth Rogoff, 1983. "The Out-of-Sample Failure of Empirical Exchange Rate Models: Sampling Error or Misspecification?," NBER Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and International Macroeconomics, pages 67-112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ren, Yu & Wang, Qin & Zhang, Xiangyu, 2019. "Short-term exchange rate predictability," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 148-152.
    6. Henriksson, Roy D & Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. II. Statistical Procedures for Evaluating Forecasting Skills," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 513-533, October.
    7. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2006. "Using out-of-sample mean squared prediction errors to test the martingale difference hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 155-186.
    8. Barbara Rossi, 2013. "Exchange Rate Predictability," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1063-1119, December.
    9. Diebold, Francis X. & Li, Canlin, 2006. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 337-364, February.
    10. Domenico Ferraro & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Barbara Rossi, 2011. "Can oil prices forecast exchange rates?," Working Papers 11-34, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    11. Greer, Mark, 2003. "Directional accuracy tests of long-term interest rate forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 291-298.
    12. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1992. "A Simple Nonparametric Test of Predictive Performance," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(4), pages 561-565, October.
    13. Pesando, James E, 1979. "On the Random Walk Characteristics of Short- and Long-Term Interest Rates in an Efficient Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(4), pages 457-466, November.
    14. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    15. Jhy‐Lin Wu & Show‐Lin Chen, 2001. "Mean Reversion of Interest Rates in the Eurocurrency Market," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(4), pages 459-473, September.
    16. Charles Engel & Nelson C. Mark & Kenneth D. West, 2015. "Factor Model Forecasts of Exchange Rates," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1-2), pages 32-55, February.
    17. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Chinn, Menzie D, 1993. "Exchange Rate Expectations and the Risk Premium: Tests for a Cross Section of 17 Currencies," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(2), pages 136-144, June.
    18. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1980. "Survey Evidence on The Rationality of Interest Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 0261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Friedman, Benjamin M., 1980. "Survey evidence on the `rationality' of interest rate expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 453-465, October.
    20. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    21. Jonsson, Thomas & Österholm, Pär, 2011. "The forecasting properties of survey-based wage-growth expectations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 276-281.
    22. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    23. Beechey, Meredith & Hjalmarsson, Erik & sterholm, Pr, 2009. "Testing the expectations hypothesis when interest rates are near integrated," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 934-943, May.
    24. Michael D. Bauer, 2017. "Bridging the Gap: Forecasting Interest Rates with Macro Trends," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    25. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    26. Frederik Kunze, 2020. "Predicting exchange rates in Asia: New insights on the accuracy of survey forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 313-333, March.
    27. Baghestani, Hamid & Chazi, Abdelaziz & Khallaf, Ashraf, 2019. "A directional analysis of oil prices and real exchange rates in BRIC countries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 450-456.
    28. Mitchell, Karlyn & Pearce, Douglas K., 2007. "Professional forecasts of interest rates and exchange rates: Evidence from the Wall Street Journal's panel of economists," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 840-854, December.
    29. Blaskowitz, Oliver & Herwartz, Helmut, 2014. "Testing the value of directional forecasts in the presence of serial correlation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 30-42.
    30. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, February.
    31. Dominguez, Kathryn M., 1986. "Are foreign exchange forecasts rational? : New evidence from survey data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 277-281.
    32. Friedman, Benjamin M, 1979. "Interest Rate Expectations versus Forward Rates: Evidence from an Expectations Survey," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 965-973, September.
    33. Ince, Onur & Molodtsova, Tanya, 2017. "Rationality and forecasting accuracy of exchange rate expectations: Evidence from survey-based forecasts," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 131-151.
    34. Hamid Baghestani & Mohammad Arzaghi & Ilker Kaya, 2015. "On the accuracy of Blue Chip forecasts of interest rates and country risk premiums," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 113-122, January.
    35. Ferraro, Domenico & Rogoff, Kenneth & Rossi, Barbara, 2015. "Can oil prices forecast exchange rates? An empirical analysis of the relationship between commodity prices and exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 116-141.
    36. Chinn, Menzie D. & Meese, Richard A., 1995. "Banking on currency forecasts: How predictable is change in money?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 161-178, February.
    37. Wu, Jhy-Lin & Chen, Show-Lin, 2001. "Mean Reversion of Interest Rates in the Eurocurrency Market," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 63(4), pages 459-473, September.
    38. Elliott, J Walter & Baier, Jerome R, 1979. "Econometric Models and Current Interest Rates: How Well Do They Predict Future Rates?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 975-986, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew B. Martinez & Jennifer L. Castle & David F. Hendry, 2022. "Smooth Robust Multi-Horizon Forecasts," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honor of M. Hashem Pesaran: Prediction and Macro Modeling, volume 43, pages 143-165, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Kiss, Tamás & Kladívko, Kamil & Silfverberg, Oliwer & Österholm, Pär, 2023. "Market participants or the random walk – who forecasts better? Evidence from micro-level survey data," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kiss, Tamás & Kladívko, Kamil & Silfverberg, Oliwer & Österholm, Pär, 2023. "Market participants or the random walk – who forecasts better? Evidence from micro-level survey data," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Kamil Kladívko & Pär Österholm, 2024. "Analysts versus the random walk in financial forecasting: evidence from the Czech National Bank’s Financial Market Inflation Expectations survey," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(17), pages 2077-2088, April.
    3. Feng, Wenjun & Zhang, Zhengjun, 2023. "Currency exchange rate predictability: The new power of Bitcoin prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    4. Pincheira-Brown, Pablo & Neumann, Federico, 2020. "Can we beat the Random Walk? The case of survey-based exchange rate forecasts in Chile," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    5. Breen, John David & Hu, Liang, 2021. "The predictive content of oil price and volatility: New evidence on exchange rate forecasting," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Ahmed, Shamim & Liu, Xiaoquan & Valente, Giorgio, 2016. "Can currency-based risk factors help forecast exchange rates?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 75-97.
    7. Kunze, Frederik, 2017. "Predicting exchange rates in Asia: New insights on the accuracy of survey forecasts," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 326, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    8. Ince, Onur & Molodtsova, Tanya, 2017. "Rationality and forecasting accuracy of exchange rate expectations: Evidence from survey-based forecasts," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 131-151.
    9. Hamid Baghestani, 2010. "Evaluating Blue Chip forecasts of the trade-weighted dollar exchange rate," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(24), pages 1879-1889.
    10. Raheem, Ibrahim, 2020. "Global financial cycles and exchange rate forecast: A factor analysis," MPRA Paper 105358, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Frederik Kunze, 2020. "Predicting exchange rates in Asia: New insights on the accuracy of survey forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 313-333, March.
    12. Lasha Kavtaradze & Manouchehr Mokhtari, 2018. "Factor Models And Time†Varying Parameter Framework For Forecasting Exchange Rates And Inflation: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 302-334, April.
    13. Barbara Rossi, 2013. "Exchange Rate Predictability," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1063-1119, December.
    14. Ince, Onur & Molodtsova, Tanya & Papell, David H., 2016. "Taylor rule deviations and out-of-sample exchange rate predictability," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 22-44.
    15. Liu, Li & Tan, Siming & Wang, Yudong, 2020. "Can commodity prices forecast exchange rates?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    16. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes: a survey," BIS Working Papers 676, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Salisu, Afees A. & Olaniran, Abeeb & Tchankam, Jean Paul, 2022. "Oil tail risk and the tail risk of the US Dollar exchange rates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    18. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D. & Pascual, Antonio Garcia & Zhang, Yi, 2019. "Exchange rate prediction redux: New models, new data, new currencies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 332-362.
    19. Caraiani, Petre, 2017. "Evaluating exchange rate forecasts along time and frequency," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 60-81.
    20. Ren, Yu & Wang, Qin & Zhang, Xiangyu, 2019. "Short-term exchange rate predictability," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 148-152.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Out-of-sample forecasts; Exchange rates; Interest rates;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1544612319313443. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.