IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v17y2010i1p102-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'Optimal' probabilistic and directional predictions of financial returns

Author

Listed:
  • Thomakos, Dimitrios D.
  • Wang, Tao

Abstract

This paper examines the probability of returns exceeding a threshold, extending earlier work of Christoffersen and Diebold (2006) on volatility dynamics and sign predictability. We find that the choice of the threshold matters and that a zero threshold (leading to sign predictions) does not lead to the largest probability response to changes in volatility dynamics. Under certain conditions there is a threshold that has maximum responsiveness to changes in volatility dynamics that leads to 'optimal' probabilistic predictions. We connect the evolution of volatility to probabilistic predictions and show that the volatility ratio is the crucial variable in this context. The overall results strengthen the arguments in favor of accurate volatility measurement and prediction, as volatility dynamics are integrated into the 'optimal' threshold. We illustrate our findings using daily and monthly data for the S&P500 index.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomakos, Dimitrios D. & Wang, Tao, 2010. "'Optimal' probabilistic and directional predictions of financial returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 102-119, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:17:y:2010:i:1:p:102-119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927-5398(09)00062-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    2. Zhang, Lan & Mykland, Per A. & Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, 2005. "A Tale of Two Time Scales: Determining Integrated Volatility With Noisy High-Frequency Data," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 1394-1411, December.
    3. Schwert, G William & Seguin, Paul J, 1990. "Heteroskedasticity in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1129-1155, September.
    4. Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen & Peter Reinhard Hansen & Asger Lunde & Neil Shephard, 2008. "Designing Realized Kernels to Measure the ex post Variation of Equity Prices in the Presence of Noise," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1481-1536, November.
    5. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    6. Stanislav Anatolyev & Nikolay Gospodinov, 2007. "Modeling Financial Return Dynamics by Decomposition," Working Papers w0095, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    7. Christoffersen, Peter F, 1998. "Evaluating Interval Forecasts," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 841-862, November.
    8. Robert F. Engle & Simone Manganelli, 2004. "CAViaR: Conditional Autoregressive Value at Risk by Regression Quantiles," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 367-381, October.
    9. James W. Taylor, 2005. "Generating Volatility Forecasts from Value at Risk Estimates," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 712-725, May.
    10. Hsieh, David A, 1991. "Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: Application to Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1839-1877, December.
    11. Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2006. "Financial Asset Returns, Direction-of-Change Forecasting, and Volatility Dynamics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(8), pages 1273-1287, August.
    12. Lo, Andrew W. & Craig MacKinlay, A., 1990. "An econometric analysis of nonsynchronous trading," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 181-211.
    13. 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.
    14. Granger, C.W.J. & Pesaran, M. H., 1999. "Economic and Statistical Measures of Forecast Accuracy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9910, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    15. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The Variation of Economic Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 385-415, April.
    16. Jeff Fleming & Chris Kirby & Barbara Ostdiek, 2001. "The Economic Value of Volatility Timing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 329-352, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    19. Yongmiao Hong & Halbert White, 2005. "Asymptotic Distribution Theory for Nonparametric Entropy Measures of Serial Dependence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 837-901, May.
    20. Leitch, Gordon & Tanner, J Ernest, 1991. "Economic Forecast Evaluation: Profits versus the Conventional Error Measures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 580-590, June.
    21. Modarres, Reza, 2002. "Efficient nonparametric estimation of a distribution function," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 75-95, March.
    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. James W. Taylor & Keming Yu, 2016. "Using auto-regressive logit models to forecast the exceedance probability for financial risk management," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 1069-1092, October.

    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. Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2006. "Financial Asset Returns, Direction-of-Change Forecasting, and Volatility Dynamics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(8), pages 1273-1287, August.
    2. Andersen, Torben G. & Bollerslev, Tim & Christoffersen, Peter F. & Diebold, Francis X., 2006. "Volatility and Correlation Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 777-878, Elsevier.
    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. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2005. "Volatility Forecasting," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-011, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Thomas C. Chiang & Jiandong Li, 2012. "Stock Returns and Risk: Evidence from Quantile," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Boguth, Oliver & Carlson, Murray & Fisher, Adlai & Simutin, Mikhail, 2011. "Conditional risk and performance evaluation: Volatility timing, overconditioning, and new estimates of momentum alphas," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 363-389.
    8. Keunbae Ahn, 2021. "Predictable Fluctuations in the Cross-Section and Time-Series of Asset Prices," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2021.
    9. Turan G. Bali & Lin Peng, 2006. "Is there a risk–return trade‐off? Evidence from high‐frequency data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1169-1198, December.
    10. Bai, Jennie & Bali, Turan G. & Wen, Quan, 2021. "Is there a risk-return tradeoff in the corporate bond market? Time-series and cross-sectional evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1017-1037.
    11. León, Angel & Nave, Juan & Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo, 2005. "The Relationship between Risk and Expected Return in Europe," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    12. Bollerslev, Tim & Kretschmer, Uta & Pigorsch, Christian & Tauchen, George, 2009. "A discrete-time model for daily S & P500 returns and realized variations: Jumps and leverage effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2), pages 151-166, June.
    13. Wang, Wenzhao & Duxbury, Darren, 2021. "Institutional investor sentiment and the mean-variance relationship: Global evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 415-441.
    14. Tim Bollerslev & Benjamin Hood & John Huss & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2018. "Risk Everywhere: Modeling and Managing Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(7), pages 2729-2773.
    15. 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.
    16. Osman Kilic & Joseph M. Marks & Kiseok Nam, 2022. "Predictable asset price dynamics, risk-return tradeoff, and investor behavior," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 749-791, August.
    17. Bali, Turan G. & Wu, Liuren, 2010. "The role of exchange rates in intertemporal risk-return relations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1670-1686, December.
    18. Bali, Turan G. & Engle, Robert F., 2010. "The intertemporal capital asset pricing model with dynamic conditional correlations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 377-390, May.
    19. Ľuboš Pástor & Meenakshi Sinha & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2008. "Estimating the Intertemporal Risk–Return Tradeoff Using the Implied Cost of Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2859-2897, December.
    20. Jin, Xiaoye, 2017. "Time-varying return-volatility relation in international stock markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 157-173.

    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:empfin:v:17:y:2010:i:1:p:102-119. 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/jempfin .

    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.