IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v49y1994i2p515-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time Variations and Covariations in the Expectation and Volatility of Stock Market Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Whitelaw, Robert F

Abstract

This article investigates empirically the comovements of the conditional mean and volatility of stock returns. It extends the results in the literature by demonstrating the role of the commercial paper-Treasury yield spread in predicting time variation in volatility. The conditional mean and volatility exhibit an asymmetric relation, which contrasts with the contemporaneous relation that has been tested previously. The volatility leads the expected return, and this time-series relation is documented using offset correlations, short-horizon contemporaneous correlations, and a vector autoregression. These results bring into question the value of modeling expected returns as a constant function of conditional volatility. Copyright 1994 by American Finance Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Whitelaw, Robert F, 1994. "Time Variations and Covariations in the Expectation and Volatility of Stock Market Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(2), pages 515-541, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:49:y:1994:i:2:p:515-41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1082%28199406%2949%3A2%3C515%3ATVACIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke, 1990. "On the predictive power of interest rates and interest rate spreads," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 51-68.
    2. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Persistence of Volatility and Stock Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1142-1151, December.
    3. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    4. Chan, K. C. & Karolyi, G. Andrew & Stulz, ReneM., 1992. "Global financial markets and the risk premium on U.S. equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 137-167, October.
    5. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    6. Kaul, Gautam, 1987. "Stock returns and inflation : The role of the monetary sector," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 253-276, June.
    7. Kashyap, Anil K & Stein, Jeremy C & Wilcox, David W, 1993. "Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 78-98, March.
    8. Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Dividend Yields and Expected Stock Returns: Alternative Procedures for Inference and Measurement," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 357-386.
    9. Keim, Donald B. & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1986. "Predicting returns in the stock and bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 357-390, December.
    10. Richardson, Matthew, 1993. "Temporary Components of Stock Prices: A Skeptic's View," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 11(2), pages 199-207, April.
    11. Geweke, John & Meese, Richard, 1981. "Estimating regression models of finite but unknown order," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 162-162, May.
    12. Kandel, Shmuel & Stambaugh, Robert F, 1990. "Expectations and Volatility of Consumption and Asset Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 207-232.
    13. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November.
    14. Abel, Andrew B., 1988. "Stock prices under time-varying dividend risk : An exact solution in an infinite-horizon general equilibrium model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 375-393.
    15. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard & Anil Kashyap, 1991. "Interest Rate Spreads, Credit Constraints, and Investment Fluctuations: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 11-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Gennotte, Gerard & Marsh, Terry A., 1993. "Variations in economic uncertainty and risk premiums on capital assets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1021-1041, June.
    17. Lo, Andrew W & MacKinlay, A Craig, 1990. "Data-Snooping Biases in Tests of Financial Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(3), pages 431-467.
    18. Fama, Eugene F, 1981. "Stock Returns, Real Activity, Inflation, and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 545-565, September.
    19. Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi & Runkle, David E, 1993. "On the Relation between the Expected Value and the Volatility of the Nominal Excess Return on Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1779-1801, December.
    20. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    21. Breen, William & Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1989. " Economic Significance of Predictable Variations in Stock Index Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(5), pages 1177-1189, December.
    22. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    23. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    24. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Schwert, G William, 1989. " Why Does Stock Market Volatility Change over Time?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(5), pages 1115-1153, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ghysels, Eric & Santa-Clara, Pedro & Valkanov, Rossen, 2005. "There is a risk-return trade-off after all," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 509-548, June.
    2. Ludvigson, Sydney C. & Ng, Serena, 2007. "The empirical risk-return relation: A factor analysis approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 171-222, January.
    3. Turan Bali & Kamil Yilmaz, 2009. "The Intertemporal Relation between Expected Return and Risk on Currency," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 0909, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum, revised Nov 2009.
    4. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    5. Li, Yuming, 1998. "Expected stock returns, risk premiums and volatilities of economic factors1," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 69-97, June.
    6. Chauvet, Marcelle & Potter, Simon, 2001. "Nonlinear Risk," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 621-646, September.
    7. Brandt, Michael W. & Kang, Qiang, 2004. "On the relationship between the conditional mean and volatility of stock returns: A latent VAR approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 217-257, May.
    8. Bali, Turan G., 2008. "The intertemporal relation between expected returns and risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 101-131, January.
    9. Jay Shanken & Ane Tamayo, 2001. "Risk, Mispricing, and Asset Allocation: Conditioning on Dividend Yield," NBER Working Papers 8666, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2007. "Stock Return Predictability: Is it There?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 651-707.
    11. Alberto Plazzi & Walter Torous & Rossen Valkanov, 2008. "The Cross‐Sectional Dispersion of Commercial Real Estate Returns and Rent Growth: Time Variation and Economic Fluctuations," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 403-439, September.
    12. Paul Harrison & Harold H. Zhang, "undated". "Cyclical Variation in the Risk and Return Relation," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 175, Society for Computational Economics.
    13. Michael W. Brandt & Qiang Kang, 2002. "On the Relationship Between the Conditional Mean and Volatility of Stock Returns: A Latent VAR Approach," NBER Working Papers 9056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sei‐Wan Kim & Bong‐Soo Lee, 2008. "Stock Returns, Asymmetric Volatility, Risk Aversion, And Business Cycle: Some New Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(2), pages 131-148, April.
    15. Gabriel Perez‐Quiros & Allan Timmermann, 2000. "Firm Size and Cyclical Variations in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1229-1262, June.
    16. Smith, L. Vanessa & Yamagata, Takashi, 2011. "Firm level return–volatility analysis using dynamic panels," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 847-867.
    17. Robert F. Whitelaw, 1997. "Time-Varying Sharpe Ratios and Market Timing," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 98-074, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    18. Yacine AÏT‐SAHALI & Michael W. Brandt, 2001. "Variable Selection for Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1297-1351, August.
    19. Juan Carlos Escanciano & Juan Carlos Pardo-Fernández & Ingrid Van Keilegom, 2017. "Semiparametric Estimation of Risk–Return Relationships," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 40-52, January.
    20. Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The specification of conditional expectations," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 573-637, December.

    More about this item

    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:bla:jfinan:v:49:y:1994:i:2:p:515-41. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.html .

    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.