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The Good News and the Bad News about Long-run Stock Market Returns

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Abstract

If stock prices followed a random walk, uncertainty about future stock prices would be so great that the observed bias towards equities in long-term investment portfolios would be surprising. The good news is that if, as a growing body of research suggests, there is even a weak tendency for stationary valuation indicators to predict future stock prices, long-run returns can become markedly more predictable. This is illustrated in a cointegrating VAR, with Tobin?s q as one of the cointegrating relations. The bad news is a corollary of the good news: q and most other indicators point to massive at the end of 1997, and hence the prospect of weak stock prices well into the next century.

Suggested Citation

  • Robertson, Donald & Wright, Stephen, 1998. "The Good News and the Bad News about Long-run Stock Market Returns," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9822, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:9822
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    Cited by:

    1. Laimutė Urbšienė & Andrius Bugajevas & Marekas Pipiras, 2016. "The Impact Of Investment Horizon On The Return And Risk Of Investments In Securities In Lithuania," Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies, Faculty of Economics, Vilnius University, vol. 7(2).
    2. Pierre Lafourcade, 2004. "Valuation, investment and the pure profit share," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-08, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. A. Abramov & A. Radygin & M. Chernova, 2015. "Long-term Portfolio investment: New insight into Return and Risk," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    4. Christopher Lynch & Benjamin Mestel, 2019. "Change-Point Analysis Of Asset Price Bubbles With Power-Law Hazard Function," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(07), pages 1-24, November.
    5. Anthony Garratt & Donald Robertson & Stephen Wright, 2004. "Inside the black box: permanent vs transitory components and economic fundamentals," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 35, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stock prices; Random walk; Cointegration; Vector autoregressions; Tobin's q; Efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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