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What News Drive Variation in Swiss and US Bond and Stock Excess Returns?

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  • Thomas Nitschka

Abstract

Based on a vector autoregressive model (VAR), this paper shows that time variation in monthly excess returns on Swiss government bonds and stocks is predominantly driven by news of inflation and dividends, respectively. This finding is in marked contrast to US evidence which points to a more prominent role of excess return news. Variance decompositions based on estimates from threshold VARs show that US stock market evidence is consistent with the view that market participants put more weight on news of macroeconomic, i.e. cash-flow, risks in periods of exceptionally low real interest rates than in normal times.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Nitschka, 2014. "What News Drive Variation in Swiss and US Bond and Stock Excess Returns?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 150(II), pages 89-118, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ses:arsjes:2014-ii-2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. David Haab & Dr. Thomas Nitschka, 2017. "Predicting returns on asset markets of a small, open economy and the influence of global risks," Working Papers 2017-14, Swiss National Bank.
    2. Fausch, Jürg & Sigonius, Markus, 2018. "The impact of ECB monetary policy surprises on the German stock market," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 46-63.
    3. Thomas Nitschka, 2016. "Risk premia on Swiss government bonds and sectoral stock indexes during international crises:," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 67(02), pages 51-67, August.
    4. David R. Haab & Thomas Nitschka, 2019. "What Goliaths and Davids among Swiss firms tell us about expected returns on Swiss asset markets," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-17, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    bond return; news components; stock return; variance decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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