IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v11y2014i4p446-453.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

European business cycles and stock return predictability

Author

Listed:
  • Zhu, Yanjian
  • Zhu, Xiaoneng

Abstract

This paper finds that the European leading economic indicator, a prime business cycle indicator for the European economies published by the OECD, can strongly predict European stock returns and generate utility gains. Importantly, the predictive power of the European indicator is above and beyond that contained in the country-specific leading indicator. Furthermore, we find that the predictive power of the European indicator is stable.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhu, Yanjian & Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2014. "European business cycles and stock return predictability," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 446-453.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:11:y:2014:i:4:p:446-453
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2014.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612314000580
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2014.10.002?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. 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. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    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. Mike Artis & Hans-Martin Krolzig & Juan Toro, 2004. "The European business cycle," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 1-44, January.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Ilmanen, Antti, 1995. "Time-Varying Expected Returns in International Bond Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 481-506, June.
    9. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2010. "Forecast comparisons in unstable environments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 595-620.
    10. 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.
    11. Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2013. "Perpetual learning and stock return predictability," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 19-22.
    12. Fama, Eugene F, 1990. "Stock Returns, Expected Returns, and Real Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1089-1108, September.
    13. Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The World Price of Covariance Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 111-157, March.
    14. M. Ayhan Kose & Christopher Otrok & Charles H. Whiteman, 2003. "International Business Cycles: World, Region, and Country-Specific Factors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1216-1239, September.
    15. Schwert, G William, 1990. "Stock Returns and Real Activity: A Century of Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1237-1257, September.
    16. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    17. Balvers, Ronald J & Cosimano, Thomas F & McDonald, Bill, 1990. "Predicting Stock Returns in an Efficient Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1109-1128, September.
    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. Ahmad, Wasim & Sharma, Sumit Kumar, 2018. "Testing output gap and economic uncertainty as an explicator of stock market returns," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 293-306.
    2. Huirong Liu, 2020. "Housing Investment, Stock Market Participation and Household Portfolio choice: Evidence from China's Urban Areas," Papers 2001.01641, arXiv.org.
    3. Yaojie Zhang & Feng Ma & Chao Liang & Yi Zhang, 2021. "Good variance, bad variance, and stock return predictability," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 4410-4423, July.
    4. Xiao-Lin Li & Yi-Na Li & Lu Bai, 2019. "Stock Market Cycle and Business Cycle in China: Evidence from a Bootstrap Rolling Window Approach," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 17, pages 35-50, August.
    5. Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Zhou, Wenyu & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Macroeconomics matter: Leading economic indicators and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    6. Si, Deng-Kui & Liu, Xi-Hua & Kong, Xianli, 2019. "The comovement and causality between stock market cycle and business cycle in China: Evidence from a wavelet analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 17-30.
    7. Mohammadi, H. & Abolhasani, L. & Shahnoushi, N. & Shabanian, F., 2018. "The effects of business cycle indicators on stock market indices of food industry in Iran," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277425, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Yang, Liuyong & Long, Yijia & Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Zhou, Wenyu, 2022. "Is tail risk priced in the cross-section of Chinese mutual fund returns?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    9. Shi, Guangping & Liu, Xiaoxing, 2020. "Stock price fluctuation and the business cycle in the BRICS countries: A nonparametric quantiles causality approach," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 33(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. Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2015. "Out-of-sample bond risk premium predictions: A global common factor," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 155-173.
    2. Charles, Amelie & Darne, Olivier & Kim, Jae, 2016. "Stock Return Predictability: Evaluation based on Prediction Intervals," MPRA Paper 70143, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Gonçalo Faria & Fabio Verona, 2016. "Forecasting the equity risk premium with frequency-decomposed predictors," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 06, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    4. Atanasov, Victoria, 2018. "World output gap and global stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 181-197.
    5. Gonçalo Faria & Fabio Verona, 2016. "Forecasting the equity risk premium with frequency-decomposed predictors," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 06, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    6. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Daniel Borup & Jonas N. Eriksen & Mads M. Kjær & Martin Thyrsgaard, 2024. "Predicting Bond Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(2), pages 931-951, February.
    10. Feng Zhao & Guofu Zhou & Xiaoneng Zhu, 2021. "Unspanned Global Macro Risks in Bond Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7825-7843, December.
    11. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Jae H. Kim, 2022. "Stock return predictability: Evaluation based on interval forecasts," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 363-385, April.
    12. Biao Guo & Hai Lin, 2020. "Volatility and jump risk in option returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(11), pages 1767-1792, November.
    13. Kothari, Pratik & O’Doherty, Michael S., 2023. "Job postings and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    14. Qi Liu & Libin Tao & Weixing Wu & Jianfeng Yu, 2017. "Short- and Long-Run Business Conditions and Expected Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4137-4157, December.
    15. Hai Lin & Chunchi Wu & Guofu Zhou, 2018. "Forecasting Corporate Bond Returns with a Large Set of Predictors: An Iterated Combination Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4218-4238, September.
    16. Tom Engsted & Stig V. Møller & Magnus Sander, 2013. "Bond return predictability in expansions and recessions," CREATES Research Papers 2013-13, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    17. Chava, Sudheer & Gallmeyer, Michael & Park, Heungju, 2015. "Credit conditions and stock return predictability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 117-132.
    18. Hadhri, Sinda & Ftiti, Zied, 2017. "Stock return predictability in emerging markets: Does the choice of predictors and models matter across countries?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 39-60.
    19. 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.
    20. Qureshi, Fiza & Khan, Habib Hussain & Rehman, Ijaz Ur & Ghafoor, Abdul & Qureshi, Saba, 2019. "Mutual fund flows and investors’ expectations in BRICS economies: Implications for international diversification," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 130-150.
    21. Leland E. Farmer & Lawrence Schmidt & Allan Timmermann, 2023. "Pockets of Predictability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1279-1341, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stock returns; Economic value; European business cycles; Return predictability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • 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
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:finlet:v:11:y:2014:i:4:p:446-453. 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/frl .

    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.