IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ioe/doctra/406.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stock Return Predictability and Oil Prices

Author

Listed:
  • Jaime Casassus
  • Freddy Higuera

Abstract

This paper shows that oil price changes, measured as short-term futures returns, are a strong predictor of excess stock returns at short horizons. Ours is a leading variable for the business cycle and exhibits low persistence which avoids the ctitious long-horizon predictability associated to other predictors used in the literature. We compare our variable with the most popular predictors in a sample period that includes the recent nancial crisis. Our results suggest that oil price changes are the only variable with forecasting power for stock returns. This signi cant predictive ability is robust against the inclusion of other variables and out-of-sample tests. We also study the cross-section of expected stock returns in a conditional CAPM framework based on oil price shocks. Our model displays high statistical signi cance and a better t than all the conditional and unconditional models considered including the Fama French three-factor model. From a practical perspective, ours is a high-frequency, observable variable that has the advantage of being readily available to market-timing investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaime Casassus & Freddy Higuera, 2011. "Stock Return Predictability and Oil Prices," Documentos de Trabajo 406, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
  • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economia.uc.cl/docs/doctra/dt-406.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    2. Hamilton, James D., 1996. "This is what happened to the oil price-macroeconomy relationship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 215-220, October.
    3. Ilan Cooper, 2009. "Time-Varying Risk Premiums and the Output Gap," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(7), pages 2601-2633, July.
    4. Hillard G. Huntington, 2007. "Oil Shocks and Real U.S. Income," The Energy Journal, , vol. 28(4), pages 31-46, October.
    5. Park, Jungwook & Ratti, Ronald A., 2008. "Oil price shocks and stock markets in the U.S. and 13 European countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2587-2608, September.
    6. Clark, Todd E. & McCracken, Michael W., 2001. "Tests of equal forecast accuracy and encompassing for nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 85-110, November.
    7. Alan A. Carruth & Mark A. Hooker & Andrew J. Oswald, 1998. "Unemployment Equilibria And Input Prices: Theory And Evidence From The United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 621-628, November.
    8. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler & Mark Watson, 1997. "Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 91-157.
    9. Stefan Nagel & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "Estimation and Evaluation of Conditional Asset Pricing Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 873-909, June.
    10. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    11. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2007. "Stock Return Predictability: Is it There?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 651-707.
    12. Hanno N. Lustig & Stijn G. Van Nieuwerburgh, 2005. "Housing Collateral, Consumption Insurance, and Risk Premia: An Empirical Perspective," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1167-1219, June.
    13. Cologni, Alessandro & Manera, Matteo, 2008. "Oil prices, inflation and interest rates in a structural cointegrated VAR model for the G-7 countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 856-888, May.
    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. Lutz Kilian & Cheolbeom Park, 2009. "The Impact Of Oil Price Shocks On The U.S. Stock Market," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1267-1287, November.
    16. Lewellen, Jonathan & Nagel, Stefan & Shanken, Jay, 2010. "A skeptical appraisal of asset pricing tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 175-194, May.
    17. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    18. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    19. Davis, Steven J. & Haltiwanger, John, 2001. "Sectoral job creation and destruction responses to oil price changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 465-512, December.
    20. 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.
    21. Hamilton, James D, 1988. "A Neoclassical Model of Unemployment and the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 593-617, June.
    22. Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca, 2008. "The impact of oil price shocks: Evidence from the industries of six OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3095-3108, November.
    23. 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.
    24. Finn, Mary G, 2000. "Perfect Competition and the Effects of Energy Price Increases on Economic Activity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(3), pages 400-416, August.
    25. Gisser, Micha & Goodwin, Thomas H, 1986. "Crude Oil and the Macroeconomy: Tests of Some Popular Notions: A Note," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(1), pages 95-103, February.
    26. Kevin L. Kliesen, 2008. "Oil and the U.S. macroeconomy: an update and a simple forecasting exercise," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Sep), pages 505-516.
    27. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2005. "In-Sample or Out-of-Sample Tests of Predictability: Which One Should We Use?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 371-402.
    28. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-1069, June.
    29. Hamilton, James D., 2003. "What is an oil shock?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 363-398, April.
    30. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    31. Kiseok Lee & Shawn Ni & Ronald A. Ratti, 1995. "Oil Shocks and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Price Variability," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 39-56.
    32. Sadorsky, Perry, 1999. "Oil price shocks and stock market activity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 449-469, October.
    33. John H. Cochrane, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1533-1575, July.
    34. Jones, Charles M & Kaul, Gautam, 1996. "Oil and the Stock Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 463-491, June.
    35. Stambaugh, Robert F., 1999. "Predictive regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 375-421, December.
    36. Roger D. Huang & Ronald W. Masulis & Hans R. Stoll, 1996. "Energy shocks and financial markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, February.
    37. Leduc, Sylvain & Sill, Keith, 2004. "A quantitative analysis of oil-price shocks, systematic monetary policy, and economic downturns," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 781-808, May.
    38. Apergis, Nicholas & Miller, Stephen M., 2009. "Do structural oil-market shocks affect stock prices?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 569-575, July.
    39. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2015. "Commodity Futures Prices: Some Evidence on Forecast Power, Premiums, and the Theory of Storage," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 4, pages 79-102, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    40. Hamilton, James D & Herrera, Ana Maria, 2004. "Oil Shocks and Aggregate Macroeconomic Behavior: The Role of Monetary Policy: Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 265-286, April.
    41. Peter Ferderer, J., 1996. "Oil price volatility and the macroeconomy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-26.
    42. Jeremy Berkowitz & Lutz Kilian, 2000. "Recent developments in bootstrapping time series," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 1-48.
    43. Marc Gronwald, 2008. "Large Oil Shocks and the US Economy: Infrequent Incidents with Large Effects," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 151-172.
    44. John Y. Campbell & Samuel B. Thompson, 2008. "Predicting Excess Stock Returns Out of Sample: Can Anything Beat the Historical Average?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1509-1531, July.
    45. Lilien, David M, 1982. "Sectoral Shifts and Cyclical Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 777-793, August.
    46. Breeden, Douglas T & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1978. "Prices of State-contingent Claims Implicit in Option Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 621-651, October.
    47. Hooker, Mark A., 1996. "What happened to the oil price-macroeconomy relationship?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 195-213, October.
    48. Rajeev Dhawan & Karsten Jeske, 2008. "Energy Price Shocks and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Consumer Durables," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1357-1377, October.
    49. Harvey, David I & Leybourne, Stephen J & Newbold, Paul, 1998. "Tests for Forecast Encompassing," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(2), pages 254-259, April.
    50. Driesprong, Gerben & Jacobsen, Ben & Maat, Benjamin, 2008. "Striking oil: Another puzzle?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 307-327, August.
    51. Manmohan S. Kumar, 1992. "The Forecasting Accuracy of Crude Oil Futures Prices," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 39(2), pages 432-461, June.
    52. Lutz Kilian, 1998. "Small-Sample Confidence Intervals For Impulse Response Functions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 218-230, May.
    53. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    54. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    55. Lorne N. Switzer & Mario El‐Khoury, 2007. "Extreme volatility, speculative efficiency, and the hedging effectiveness of the oil futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 61-84, January.
    56. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    57. Nathan S. Balke & Stephen P.A. Brown & Mine K. Yucel, 2002. "Oil Price Shocks and the U.S. Economy: Where Does the Asymmetry Originate?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 27-52.
    58. Jacob Boudoukh & Matthew Richardson & Robert F. Whitelaw, 2008. "The Myth of Long-Horizon Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1577-1605, July.
    59. Cochrane, John H, 1996. "A Cross-Sectional Test of an Investment-Based Asset Pricing Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 572-621, June.
    60. Mork, Knut Anton, 1989. "Oil and Macroeconomy When Prices Go Up and Down: An Extension of Hamilton's Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 740-744, June.
    61. Hooker, Mark A., 1996. "This is what happened to the oil price-macroeconomy relationship: Reply," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 221-222, October.
    62. McCracken, Michael W., 2007. "Asymptotics for out of sample tests of Granger causality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 719-752, October.
    63. Hamilton, James D, 1983. "Oil and the Macroeconomy since World War II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 228-248, April.
    64. Chao Wei, 2003. "Energy, the Stock Market, and the Putty-Clay Investment Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 311-323, March.
    65. Rebeca Jimenez-Rodriguez & Marcelo Sanchez, 2005. "Oil price shocks and real GDP growth: empirical evidence for some OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 201-228.
    66. Nandha, Mohan & Faff, Robert, 2008. "Does oil move equity prices? A global view," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 986-997, May.
    67. Prachowny,Martin F. J., 1986. "Money in the Macroeconomy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521315944, October.
    68. Valkanov, Rossen, 2003. "Long-horizon regressions: theoretical results and applications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 201-232, May.
    69. Herrera, Ana Maria & Hamilton, James D., 2001. "Oil Shocks and Aggregate Macroeconomic Behavior: The Role of Monetary Policy," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt4qp0p0v5, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    70. Bachmeier, Lance, 2008. "Monetary policy and the transmission of oil shocks," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1738-1755, December.
    71. Tano Santos & Pietro Veronesi, 2006. "Labor Income and Predictable Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 1-44.
    72. Lee, Kiseok & Ni, Shawn, 2002. "On the dynamic effects of oil price shocks: a study using industry level data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 823-852, May.
    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. Marco J. Lombardi & Francesco Ravazzolo, 2012. "Oil price density forecasts: exploring the linkages with stock markets," Working Paper 2012/24, Norges Bank.
    2. Lombardi, Marco J. & Ravazzolo, Francesco, 2016. "On the correlation between commodity and equity returns: Implications for portfolio allocation," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 45-57.
    3. Jaime Casassus & Freddy Higuera, 2013. "The Economic Impact of Oil on Industry Portfolios," Documentos de Trabajo 433, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    4. Thomadakis, Apostolos, 2016. "Do Combination Forecasts Outperform the Historical Average? Economic and Statistical Evidence," MPRA Paper 71589, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. repec:bny:wpaper:0008 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Sohag, Kazi & Shams, S.M. Riad & Gainetdinova, Anna & Nappo, Fabio, 2023. "Frequency connectedness and cross-quantile dependence among medicare, medicine prices and health-tech equity," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 120(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. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Jaime Casassus & Freddy Higuera, 2013. "The Economic Impact of Oil on Industry Portfolios," Documentos de Trabajo 433, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    3. Alom, Fardous, 2011. "Economic Effects of Oil and Food Price Shocks in Asia and Pacific Countries: An Application of SVAR Model," 2011 Conference, August 25-26, 2011, Nelson, New Zealand 115346, New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    4. Filis, George & Degiannakis, Stavros & Floros, Christos, 2011. "Dynamic correlation between stock market and oil prices: The case of oil-importing and oil-exporting countries," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 152-164, June.
    5. Herrera, Ana María & Karaki, Mohamad B. & Rangaraju, Sandeep Kumar, 2019. "Oil price shocks and U.S. economic activity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 89-99.
    6. Wang, Yudong & Pan, Zhiyuan & Liu, Li & Wu, Chongfeng, 2019. "Oil price increases and the predictability of equity premium," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 43-58.
    7. Lizardo, Radhamés A. & Mollick, André V., 2010. "Oil price fluctuations and U.S. dollar exchange rates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 399-408, March.
    8. Lutz Kilian, 2008. "The Economic Effects of Energy Price Shocks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 871-909, December.
    9. Rebeca Jiménez-Rodríguez, 2015. "Oil price shocks and stock markets: testing for non-linearity," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 1079-1102, May.
    10. Haykir, Ozkan & Yagli, Ibrahim & Aktekin Gok, Emine Dilara & Budak, Hilal, 2022. "Oil price explosivity and stock return: Do sector and firm size matter?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. James D. Hamilton, 2013. "Oil prices, exhaustible resources and economic growth," Chapters, in: Roger Fouquet (ed.), Handbook on Energy and Climate Change, chapter 1, pages 29-63, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Virjinia Jeliazkova, 2010. "Effects of the Dynamics of the Oil Price – Theoretical and Empirical Bases," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 127-165.
    13. Ronald A. Ratti & M. Zahid Hasan, 2013. "Oil Price Shocks and Volatility in Australian Stock Returns," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89, pages 67-83, June.
    14. Valcarcel, Victor J. & Wohar, Mark E., 2013. "Changes in the oil price-inflation pass-through," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 24-42.
    15. Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Miller, Stephen M., 2015. "Regime switching model of US crude oil and stock market prices: 1859 to 2013," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 317-327.
    16. Heidari, Hassan & Ebrahimi Torki, Mahyar & Babaei Balderlou, Saharnaz, 2015. "How Do Different Oil Price Shocks Affect the Relationship Between Oil and Stock Markets?," MPRA Paper 80273, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Dec 2016.
    17. Angelidis, Timotheos & Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2015. "US stock market regimes and oil price shocks," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 132-146.
    18. Sunil K. Mohanty & Joseph Onochie & Abdulrahman F. Alshehri, 2018. "Asymmetric effects of oil shocks on stock market returns in Saudi Arabia: evidence from industry level analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 595-619, October.
    19. Marc Gronwald, 2012. "Oil and the U.S. Macroeconomy: A Reinvestigation Using Rolling Impulse Responses," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    20. Awerbuch, Shimon & Sauter, Raphael, 2006. "Exploiting the oil-GDP effect to support renewables deployment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(17), pages 2805-2819, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Return predictability; business cycle; crude oil; futures prices; asset pricing; conditional CAPM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ioe:doctra:406. 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: Jaime Casassus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iepuccl.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.