IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12270.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Resolving Macroeconomic Uncertainty in Stock and Bond Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandro Beber
  • Michael W. Brandt

Abstract

We establish an empirical link between the ex-ante uncertainty about macroeconomic fundamentals and the ex-post resolution of this uncertainty in financial markets. We measure macroeconomic uncertainty using prices of economic derivatives and relate this measure to changes in implied volatilities of stock and bond options when the economic data is released. We also examine the relationship between our measure of macroeconomic uncertainty and trading activity in stock and bond option markets before and after the announcements. Higher macroeconomic uncertainty is associated with greater reduction in implied volatilities. Higher macroeconomic uncertainty is also associated with increased volume in option markets after the release, consistent with market participants waiting to trade until economic uncertainty is resolved, and with decreased open interest in option markets after the release, consistent with market participants using financial options to hedge macroeconomic uncertainty. The empirical relationships are strongest for long-term bonds and weakest for non-cyclical stocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Beber & Michael W. Brandt, 2006. "Resolving Macroeconomic Uncertainty in Stock and Bond Markets," NBER Working Papers 12270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12270
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12270.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Clara Vega, 2003. "Real-Time Price Discovery in Stock, Bond and Foreign Exchange Markets," PIER Working Paper Archive 04-028, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 28 Jun 2004.
    2. Refet Gürkaynak & Justin Wolfers, 2005. "Macroeconomic Derivatives: An Initial Analysis of Market-Based Macro Forecasts, Uncertainty, and Risk," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2005, pages 11-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael W., 2006. "The effect of macroeconomic news on beliefs and preferences: Evidence from the options market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1997-2039, November.
    4. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Clara Vega, 2003. "Micro Effects of Macro Announcements: Real-Time Price Discovery in Foreign Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 38-62, March.
    5. Victor Zarnowitz & Louis A. Lambros, 1983. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," NBER Working Papers 1171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Elton, Edwin J. & Green, T. Clifton, 2001. "Economic News and Bond Prices: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 523-543, December.
    7. Michael J. Fleming & Eli M Remolona, 1999. "The term structure of announcement effects," BIS Working Papers 71, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Andrea Buraschi & Alexei Jiltsov, 2006. "Model Uncertainty and Option Markets with Heterogeneous Beliefs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2841-2897, December.
    9. Zarnowitz, Victor & Lambros, Louis A, 1987. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 591-621, June.
    10. Mark J. Flannery & Aris A. Protopapadakis, 2002. "Macroeconomic Factors Do Influence Aggregate Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 751-782.
    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. Paolo Pasquariello & Clara Vega, 2007. "Informed and Strategic Order Flow in the Bond Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(6), pages 1975-2019, November.
    2. Hautsch, Nikolaus & Hess, Dieter & Müller, Christoph, 2012. "Price adjustment to news with uncertain precision," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 337-355.
    3. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Clara Vega, 2003. "Micro Effects of Macro Announcements: Real-Time Price Discovery in Foreign Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 38-62, March.
    4. Blaise Gadanecz & Richhild Moessner & Christian Upper, 2007. "Economic derivatives," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    5. Laakkonen Helinä & Lanne Markku, 2009. "Asymmetric News Effects on Exchange Rate Volatility: Good vs. Bad News in Good vs. Bad Times," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-38, December.
    6. Marcello Pericoli & Giovanni Veronese, 2015. "Forecaster heterogeneity, surprises and financial markets," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1020, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Roberto Rigobon, 2011. "Stocks, bonds, money markets and exchange rates: measuring international financial transmission," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(6), pages 948-974, September.
    8. Victor Fang & Chien-Ting Lin & Kunaal Parbhoo, 2008. "Macroeconomic News, Business Cycles and Australian Financial Markets," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 15(3), pages 185-207, December.
    9. Lai, Ya-Wen, 2017. "Macroeconomic factors and index option returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 452-477.
    10. Aramonte, Sirio, 2014. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and the cross-section of option returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 25-49.
    11. Stefan Mittnik & Nikolay Robinzonov & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2013. "The Micro Dynamics of Macro Announcements," CESifo Working Paper Series 4421, CESifo.
    12. Elenev, Vadim & Law, Tzuo-Hann & Song, Dongho & Yaron, Amir, 2024. "Fearing the Fed: How wall street reads main street," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    13. Juan M. Londono & Mehrdad Samadi, 2023. "The Price of Macroeconomic Uncertainty: Evidence from Daily Options," International Finance Discussion Papers 1376, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Roberto Rigobon & Brian Sack, 2008. "Noisy Macroeconomic Announcements, Monetary Policy, and Asset Prices," NBER Chapters, in: Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, pages 335-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Ana Lasaosa, 2007. "Learning the Rules of the New Game? Comparing the Reactions in Financial Markets to Announcements before and after the Bank of England's Operational Independence," Ekonomia, Cyprus Economic Society and University of Cyprus, vol. 10(1), pages 18-41, Summer.
    16. Ghent, Andra, 2007. "Why do markets react badly to good news? Evidence from Fed Funds Futures," MPRA Paper 1708, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Rangel, José Gonzalo, 2011. "Macroeconomic news, announcements, and stock market jump intensity dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 1263-1276, May.
    18. Erenburg, Grigori & Kurov, Alexander & Lasser, Dennis J., 2006. "Trading around macroeconomic announcements: Are all traders created equal?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 470-493, October.
    19. Dungey, Mardi & McKenzie, Michael & Smith, L. Vanessa, 2009. "Empirical evidence on jumps in the term structure of the US Treasury Market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 430-445, June.
    20. Cenesizoglu, Tolga, 2011. "Size, book-to-market ratio and macroeconomic news," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 248-270, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

    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:nbr:nberwo:12270. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.