IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v51y2020ics1386418119303611.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting the equity premium with the implied volatility spread

Author

Listed:
  • Cao, Charles
  • Simin, Timothy
  • Xiao, Han

Abstract

We show that the call-put implied volatility spread (IVS) outperforms many well-known predictors of the U.S. equity premium at return horizons up to six months over the period from 1996:1 to 2017:12. The predictive ability of the IVS is unrelated to the dividend yield and is useful in explaining the cross-section of returns. Decomposing the IVS, we find the longer run predictive ability of the IVS operates primarily through a cash flow channel. We also find the IVS is significantly related to indicators of aggregate market direction and expected market conditions. Our results are consistent with the IVS reflecting market sentiment as well as information about informed trading.

Suggested Citation

  • Cao, Charles & Simin, Timothy & Xiao, Han, 2020. "Predicting the equity premium with the implied volatility spread," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:51:y:2020:i:c:s1386418119303611
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2019.100531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418119303611
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2019.100531?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. Dew-Becker, Ian & Giglio, Stefano & Kelly, Bryan, 2021. "Hedging macroeconomic and financial uncertainty and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 23-45.
    3. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    4. West, Kenneth D, 1996. "Asymptotic Inference about Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1067-1084, September.
    5. Bruno Feunou & Jean-Sébastien Fontaine & Abderrahim Taamouti & Roméo Tédongap, 2014. "Risk Premium, Variance Premium, and the Maturity Structure of Uncertainty," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(1), pages 219-269.
    6. Hao Zhou, 2018. "Variance Risk Premia, Asset Predictability Puzzles, and Macroeconomic Uncertainty," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 481-497, November.
    7. Bryan Kelly & Hao Jiang, 2014. "Editor's Choice Tail Risk and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(10), pages 2841-2871.
    8. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    9. Bollerslev, Tim & Marrone, James & Xu, Lai & Zhou, Hao, 2014. "Stock Return Predictability and Variance Risk Premia: Statistical Inference and International Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 633-661, June.
    10. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie & Lo Duca, Marco, 2013. "Risk, uncertainty and monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 771-788.
    11. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Chan, Kalok & Seguin, Paul J., 1996. "An empirical examination of information, differences of opinion, and trading activity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 105-134, January.
    12. Tim Bollerslev & Viktor Todorov, 2011. "Tails, Fears, and Risk Premia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 2165-2211, December.
    13. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "Stock Prices, Earnings and Expected Dividends," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 858, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    14. Turan G. Bali & Armen Hovakimian, 2009. "Volatility Spreads and Expected Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1797-1812, November.
    15. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    16. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    17. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    18. 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.
    19. James S. Doran & Andy Fodor & Danling Jiang, 2013. "Call-Put Implied Volatility Spreads and Option Returns," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 258-290.
    20. Byeong-Je An & Andrew Ang & Turan G. Bali & Nusret Cakici, 2014. "The Joint Cross Section of Stocks and Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2279-2337, October.
    21. Stambaugh, Robert F., 1999. "Predictive regressions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 375-421, December.
    22. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Chang, Bo Young, 2013. "Forecasting with Option-Implied Information," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 581-656, Elsevier.
    23. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:661-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 714-746.
    25. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    26. 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.
    27. Xavier Gabaix, 2012. "Variable Rare Disasters: An Exactly Solved Framework for Ten Puzzles in Macro-Finance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 645-700.
    28. 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.
    29. David E. Rapach & Jack K. Strauss & Guofu Zhou, 2010. "Out-of-Sample Equity Premium Prediction: Combination Forecasts and Links to the Real Economy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 821-862, February.
    30. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:1:p:407-446 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Fabian Hollstein & Marcel Prokopczuk & Björn Tharann & Chardin Wese Simen, 2019. "Predicting the equity market with option-implied variables," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(10), pages 937-965, July.
    32. Dashan Huang & Fuwei Jiang & Jun Tu & Guofu Zhou, 2015. "Investor Sentiment Aligned: A Powerful Predictor of Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 791-837.
    33. Gregory W. Brown & Michael T. Cliff, 2005. "Investor Sentiment and Asset Valuation," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 405-440, March.
    34. 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.
    35. 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.
    36. Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan & Zhao, Rui, 2010. "What Does the Individual Option Volatility Smirk Tell Us About Future Equity Returns?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 641-662, June.
    37. Bali, Turan G. & Cakici, Nusret & Chabi-Yo, Fousseni, 2015. "A new approach to measuring riskiness in the equity market: Implications for the risk premium," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 101-117.
    38. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:4:p:1393-1414 is not listed on IDEAS
    39. Cremers, Martijn & Weinbaum, David, 2010. "Deviations from Put-Call Parity and Stock Return Predictability," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 335-367, April.
    40. Linda Allen & Turan G. Bali & Yi Tang, 2012. "Does Systemic Risk in the Financial Sector Predict Future Economic Downturns?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(10), pages 3000-3036.
    41. Zhi Da & Ravi Jagannathan & Jianfeng Shen, 2014. "Growth Expectations, Dividend Yields, and Future Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 20651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Yigit Atilgan & Turan G. Bali & K. Ozgur Demirtas, 2015. "Implied Volatility Spreads and Expected Market Returns," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 87-101, January.
    43. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 2007. "Disagreement and the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 109-128, Spring.
    44. 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.
    45. Rapach, David E. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C. & Zhou, Guofu, 2016. "Short interest and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 46-65.
    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. Yanchu Liu & Chen Liu & Yiyao Chen & Xianming Sun, 2024. "Option‐Implied Ambiguity and Equity Return Predictability," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(9), pages 1556-1577, September.
    2. Collin Gilstrap & Alex Petkevich & Pavel Teterin & Kainan Wang, 2024. "Lever up! An analysis of options trading in leveraged ETFs," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(6), pages 986-1002, June.
    3. Alexandridis, Antonios K. & Apergis, Iraklis & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Voukelatos, Nikolaos, 2023. "Equity premium prediction: The role of information from the options market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Xiaolan Jia & Xinfeng Ruan & Jin E. Zhang, 2021. "The implied volatility smirk of commodity options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 72-104, January.
    5. Jonathan A. Batten & Harald Kinateder & Niklas Wagner, 2022. "Beating the Average: Equity Premium Variations, Uncertainty, and Liquidity," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 58(3), pages 567-588, September.
    6. Matteo Michielon & Asma Khedher & Peter Spreij, 2021. "Liquidity-free implied volatilities: an approach using conic finance," Papers 2110.11718, arXiv.org.
    7. Allan Hodgson & John Okunev, 2022. "Long term equity risk premiums in the UK and US: A cautionary tale of weak mean reversion," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(17), pages 1728-1744, November.

    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. Cao, Charles & Simin, Timothy & Xiao, Han, 2019. "Predicting the equity premium with the implied volatility spread," MPRA Paper 103651, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Jiang, Fuwei & Liu, Hongkui & Yu, Jiasheng & Zhang, Huajing, 2023. "International stock return predictability: The role of U.S. uncertainty spillover," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Bing Han & Gang Li, 2021. "Information Content of Aggregate Implied Volatility Spread," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 1249-1269, February.
    4. Yabei Zhu & Xingguo Luo & Qi Xu, 2023. "Industry variance risk premium, cross‐industry correlation, and expected returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 3-32, January.
    5. Bevilacqua, Mattia & Tunaru, Radu, 2021. "The SKEW index: Extracting what has been left," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    6. Bevilacqua, Mattia & Tunaru, Radu, 2021. "The SKEW index: extracting what has been left," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108198, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Nguyen, Duc Binh Benno & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2019. "The risk premium of gold," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 140-159.
    8. 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.
    9. Lin, Qi & Lin, Xi, 2021. "Cash conversion cycle and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    10. Pyun, Sungjune, 2019. "Variance risk in aggregate stock returns and time-varying return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 150-174.
    11. 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.
    12. Yu, Deshui & Huang, Difang, 2023. "Cross-sectional uncertainty and expected stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 321-340.
    13. Lansing, Kevin J. & LeRoy, Stephen F. & Ma, Jun, 2022. "Examining the sources of excess return predictability: Stochastic volatility or market inefficiency?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 50-72.
    14. Huang, Dashan & Li, Jiangyuan & Wang, Liyao, 2021. "Are disagreements agreeable? Evidence from information aggregation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 83-101.
    15. Seo, Sung Won & Kim, Jun Sik, 2015. "The information content of option-implied information for volatility forecasting with investor sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-120.
    16. Kothari, Pratik & O’Doherty, Michael S., 2023. "Job postings and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    17. Liya Chu & Xue-Zhong He & Kai Li & Jun Tu, 2022. "Investor Sentiment and Paradigm Shifts in Equity Return Forecasting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4301-4325, June.
    18. Chen, Jian & Jiang, Fuwei & Xue, Shuyu & Yao, Jiaquan, 2019. "The world predictive power of U.S. equity market skewness risk," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 210-227.
    19. Chen, Jian & Tang, Guohao & Yao, Jiaquan & Zhou, Guofu, 2023. "Employee sentiment and stock returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    20. Fabian Hollstein & Marcel Prokopczuk, 2023. "Managing the Market Portfolio," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3675-3696, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Implied volatility spread; Equity premium; Prediction;
    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
    • 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:finmar:v:51:y:2020:i:c:s1386418119303611. 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/finmar .

    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.