IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v80y2018icp59-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Information demand and stock return predictability

Author

Listed:
  • Chronopoulos, Dimitris K.
  • Papadimitriou, Fotios I.
  • Vlastakis, Nikolaos

Abstract

Recent theoretical work suggests that signs of asset returns are predictable given that their volatilities are. This paper investigates this conjecture using information demand, approximated by the daily internet search volume index (SVI) from Google. Our results reveal that incorporating the SVI variable in various GARCH family models significantly improves volatility forecasts. Moreover, we demonstrate that the sign of stock returns is predictable contrary to the levels, where predictability has proven elusive in the US context. Finally, we provide novel evidence on the economic value of sign predictability and show that investors can form profitable investment strategies using the SVI.

Suggested Citation

  • Chronopoulos, Dimitris K. & Papadimitriou, Fotios I. & Vlastakis, Nikolaos, 2018. "Information demand and stock return predictability," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 59-74.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:80:y:2018:i:c:p:59-74
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2017.10.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560617301912
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2017.10.001?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zakamouline, Valeri & Koekebakker, Steen, 2009. "Portfolio performance evaluation with generalized Sharpe ratios: Beyond the mean and variance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1242-1254, July.
    2. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    3. Owen Lamont, 1998. "Earnings and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1563-1587, October.
    4. Amihud, Yakov & Hurvich, Clifford M., 2004. "Predictive Regressions: A Reduced-Bias Estimation Method," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 813-841, December.
    5. Robert J. Aumann & Roberto Serrano, 2008. "An Economic Index of Riskiness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 810-836, October.
    6. West, Kenneth D, 1996. "Asymptotic Inference about Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1067-1084, September.
    7. Goddard, John & Kita, Arben & Wang, Qingwei, 2015. "Investor attention and FX market volatility," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 79-96.
    8. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2015. "Editor's Choice The Sum of All FEARS Investor Sentiment and Asset Prices," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 1-32.
    9. Schwert, G William & Seguin, Paul J, 1990. "Heteroskedasticity in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1129-1155, September.
    10. 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.
    11. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    12. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    13. Bajgrowicz, Pierre & Scaillet, Olivier, 2012. "Technical trading revisited: False discoveries, persistence tests, and transaction costs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 473-491.
    14. Vozlyublennaia, Nadia, 2014. "Investor attention, index performance, and return predictability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 17-35.
    15. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October.
    16. Lesmond, David A & Ogden, Joseph P & Trzcinka, Charles A, 1999. "A New Estimate of Transaction Costs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1113-1141.
    17. 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.
    18. Giuseppe Moscarini & Lones Smith, 2002. "The Law of Large Demand for Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2351-2366, November.
    19. Pagan, Adrian R. & Schwert, G. William, 1990. "Alternative models for conditional stock volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 267-290.
    20. Amit Goyal & Ivo Welch, 2003. "Predicting the Equity Premium with Dividend Ratios," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(5), pages 639-654, May.
    21. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    22. Thomas Dimpfl & Stephan Jank, 2016. "Can Internet Search Queries Help to Predict Stock Market Volatility?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(2), pages 171-192, March.
    23. 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.
    24. Jonathan Ingersoll & Ivo Welch, 2007. "Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1503-1546, 2007 17.
    25. 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.
    26. Awartani, Basel M.A. & Corradi, Valentina, 2005. "Predicting the volatility of the S&P-500 stock index via GARCH models: the role of asymmetries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 167-183.
    27. 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.
    28. Goetzmann, William Nelson & Jorion, Philippe, 1993. "Testing the Predictive Power of Dividend Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 663-679, June.
    29. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    30. Jacob Boudoukh & Roni Michaely & Matthew Richardson & Michael R. Roberts, 2007. "On the Importance of Measuring Payout Yield: Implications for Empirical Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 877-915, April.
    31. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2000. "A Recursive Modelling Approach to Predicting UK Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 159-191, January.
    32. Amber Anand & Paul Irvine & Andy Puckett & Kumar Venkataraman, 2012. "Performance of Institutional Trading Desks: An Analysis of Persistence in Trading Costs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(2), pages 557-598.
    33. McCracken, Michael W., 2007. "Asymptotics for out of sample tests of Granger causality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 719-752, October.
    34. John Y. Campbell & Samuel B. Thompson, 2008. "Predicting Excess Stock Returns Out of Sample: Can Anything Beat the Historical Average?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1509-1531, July.
    35. Li, George, 2005. "Information Quality, Learning, and Stock Market Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 595-620, September.
    36. Halbert White, 2000. "A Reality Check for Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1097-1126, September.
    37. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    38. Paulo Maio, 2013. "The "Fed Model" and the Predictability of Stock Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1489-1533.
    39. Stoll, Hans R. & Whaley, Robert E., 1983. "Transaction costs and the small firm effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 57-79, June.
    40. Ilan Cooper, 2009. "Time-Varying Risk Premiums and the Output Gap," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(7), pages 2601-2633, July.
    41. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    42. Jeffrey R. Gerlach, 2005. "Imperfect Information and Stock Market Volatility," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 40(2), pages 173-194, May.
    43. 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.
    44. Wayne E. Ferson & Sergei Sarkissian & Timothy T. Simin, 2003. "Spurious Regressions in Financial Economics?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1393-1413, August.
    45. Bekiros, Stelios D., 2010. "Heterogeneous trading strategies with adaptive fuzzy Actor-Critic reinforcement learning: A behavioral approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1153-1170, June.
    46. Daniel Andrei & Michael Hasler, 2015. "Investor Attention and Stock Market Volatility," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 33-72.
    47. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2004. "Predicting returns with financial ratios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 209-235, November.
    48. Gencay, Ramazan, 1998. "Optimization of technical trading strategies and the profitability in security markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 249-254, May.
    49. Bossaerts, Peter & Hillion, Pierre, 1999. "Implementing Statistical Criteria to Select Return Forecasting Models: What Do We Learn?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 405-428.
    50. Wayne E. Ferson & Sergei Sarkissian & Timothy T. Simin, 2003. "Spurious Regressions in Financial Economics?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1393-1414, August.
    51. Chevapatrakul, Thanaset, 2013. "Return sign forecasts based on conditional risk: Evidence from the UK stock market index," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2342-2353.
    52. Kellard, Neil M. & Nankervis, John C. & Papadimitriou, Fotios I., 2010. "Predicting the equity premium with dividend ratios: Reconciling the evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 539-551, September.
    53. Po-Hsuan Hsu & Chung-Ming Kuan, 2005. "Reexamining the Profitability of Technical Analysis with Data Snooping Checks," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 606-628.
    54. Bhardwaj, Ravinder K & Brooks, LeRoy D, 1992. "The January Anomaly: Effects of Low Share Price, Transaction Costs, and Bid-Ask Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 553-575, June.
    55. Nyberg, Henri, 2011. "Forecasting the direction of the US stock market with dynamic binary probit models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 561-578.
    56. Nyberg, Henri, 2011. "Forecasting the direction of the US stock market with dynamic binary probit models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 561-578, April.
    57. Ser-Huang Poon & Clive W.J. Granger, 2003. "Forecasting Volatility in Financial Markets: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 478-539, June.
    58. Nelson, Charles R & Kim, Myung J, 1993. "Predictable Stock Returns: The Role of Small Sample Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 641-661, June.
    59. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. "Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1228, September.
    60. Joseph Golec & Maurry Tamarkin, 1998. "Bettors Love Skewness, Not Risk, at the Horse Track," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 205-225, February.
    61. Homm, Ulrich & Pigorsch, Christian, 2012. "Beyond the Sharpe ratio: An application of the Aumann–Serrano index to performance measurement," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2274-2284.
    62. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    63. Vlastakis, Nikolaos & Markellos, Raphael N., 2012. "Information demand and stock market volatility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1808-1821.
    64. Alexandros Kostakis & Tassos Magdalinos & Michalis P. Stamatogiannis, 2015. "Robust Econometric Inference for Stock Return Predictability," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(5), pages 1506-1553.
    65. Della Corte, Pasquale & Sarno, Lucio & Valente, Giorgio, 2010. "A century of equity premium predictability and the consumption-wealth ratio: An international perspective," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 313-331, June.
    66. Pontiff, Jeffrey & Schall, Lawrence D., 1998. "Book-to-market ratios as predictors of market returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 141-160, August.
    67. Ross, Stephen A, 1989. " Information and Volatility: The No-Arbitrage Martingale Approach to Timing and Resolution Irrelevancy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(1), pages 1-17, March.
    68. 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.
    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. Rapach, David & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "Forecasting Stock Returns," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 328-383, Elsevier.
    2. Chen, Long, 2009. "On the reversal of return and dividend growth predictability: A tale of two periods," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 128-151, April.
    3. Neil Kellard & John Nankervis & Fotis Papadimitriou, 2007. "Predicting the UK Equity Premium with Dividend Ratios: An Out-Of-Sample Recursive Residuals Graphical Approach," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 129, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    4. Ferreira, Miguel A. & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2011. "Forecasting stock market returns: The sum of the parts is more than the whole," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 514-537, June.
    5. Martin Lettau & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "Reconciling the Return Predictability Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1607-1652, July.
    6. Stephan Jank, 2015. "Changes in the Composition of Publicly Traded Firms: Implications for the Dividend-Price Ratio and Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(6), pages 1362-1377, June.
    7. Christopher J. Neely & David E. Rapach & Jun Tu & Guofu Zhou, 2014. "Forecasting the Equity Risk Premium: The Role of Technical Indicators," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1772-1791, July.
    8. Rapach, David E. & Wohar, Mark E., 2006. "In-sample vs. out-of-sample tests of stock return predictability in the context of data mining," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 231-247, March.
    9. Jiang, Fuwei & Lee, Joshua & Martin, Xiumin & Zhou, Guofu, 2019. "Manager sentiment and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 126-149.
    10. Hai Lin & Daniel Quill & Henk Berkman, 2016. "Information diffusion and the predictability of New Zealand stock market returns," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 56(3), pages 749-785, September.
    11. Yufeng Han, 2010. "On the Economic Value of Return Predictability," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 11(1), pages 1-33, May.
    12. Chen, Nan-Kuang & Chen, Shiu-Sheng & Chou, Yu-Hsi, 2017. "Further evidence on bear market predictability: The role of the external finance premium," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-121.
    13. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    14. Schrimpf, Andreas, 2010. "International stock return predictability under model uncertainty," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 1256-1282, November.
    15. Michael Cooper & Huseyin Gulen, 2006. "Is Time-Series-Based Predictability Evident in Real Time?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1263-1292, May.
    16. Shamsi Zamenjani, Azam, 2021. "Do financial variables help predict the conditional distribution of the market portfolio?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 327-345.
    17. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    18. Lawrenz, Jochen & Zorn, Josef, 2017. "Predicting international stock returns with conditional price-to-fundamental ratios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 159-184.
    19. Puneet Handa, 2006. "Does Stock Return Predictability Imply Improved Asset Allocation and Performance? Evidence from the U.S. Stock Market (1954–2002)," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(5), pages 2423-2468, September.
    20. Phan, Dinh Hoang Bach & Sharma, Susan Sunila & Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2015. "Stock return forecasting: Some new evidence," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 38-51.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Return sign predictability; Information demand; Investor attention; Volatility forecast; Economic value;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • 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:jimfin:v:80:y:2018:i:c:p:59-74. 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/inca/30443 .

    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.