IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8240.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Drives Firm-Level Stock Returns?

Author

Listed:
  • Tuomo Vuolteenaho

Abstract

I use a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to decompose an individual firm's stock return into two components: changes in cash-flow expectations (i.e., cash-flow news) and changes in discount rates (i.e., expected-return news). The VAR yields three main results. First, firm-level stock returns are mainly driven by cash-flow news. For a typical stock, the variance of cash-flow news is more than twice that of expected-return news. Second, shocks to expected returns and cash flows are positively correlated for a typical small stock. Third, expected-return-news series are highly correlated across firms, while cash-flow news can largely be diversified away in aggregate portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2001. "What Drives Firm-Level Stock Returns?," NBER Working Papers 8240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8240
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8240.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campbell, John Y, 1991. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 157-179, March.
    2. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Blake, Christopher R, 1996. "Survivorship Bias and Mutual Fund Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(4), pages 1097-1120.
    3. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 2000. "Forecasting Profitability and Earnings," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 161-175, April.
    4. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    5. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:2:p:507-28 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    8. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    9. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    10. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    11. Christine Jolls, 1998. "Stock Repurchases and Incentive Compensation," NBER Working Papers 6467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Haugen, Robert A. & Baker, Nardin L., 1996. "Commonality in the determinants of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 401-439, July.
    13. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    14. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1994. "Contrarian Investment, Extrapolation, and Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1541-1578, December.
    15. Campbell, John Y & Ammer, John, 1993. "What Moves the Stock and Bond Markets? A Variance Decomposition for Long-Term Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-37, March.
    16. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    17. Bernard, Victor L. & Thomas, Jacob K., 1990. "Evidence that stock prices do not fully reflect the implications of current earnings for future earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 305-340, December.
    18. Jonathan B. Berk & Richard C. Green & Vasant Naik, 1999. "Optimal Investment, Growth Options, and Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1553-1607, October.
    19. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The Variation of Economic Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 385-415, April.
    20. Cochrane, John H., 1991. "Volatility tests and efficient markets : A review essay," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 463-485, June.
    21. Kothari, S P & Shanken, Jay & Sloan, Richard G, 1995. "Another Look at the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 185-224, March.
    22. Cochrane, John H, 1992. "Explaining the Variance of Price-Dividend Ratios," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 243-280.
    23. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 1999. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," NBER Working Papers 7159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Shumway, Tyler, 1997. "The Delisting Bias in CRSP Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 327-340, March.
    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. Lin, Xiaoji, 2012. "Endogenous technological progress and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 411-427.
    2. Li Gu & Dayong Huang, 2017. "The Effect of the Growth in Labor Hours per Worker on Future Stock Returns, Hiring, and Profitability," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2249-2276.
    3. Tim V. Eaton & Craig Nichols & James Wahlen & Matthew Wieland, 2021. "Managers’ Investment Decisions: Incentives and Economic Consequences Arising from Leases," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-33, April.

    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. Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2002. "What Drives Firm‐Level Stock Returns?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 233-264, February.
    2. Cohen, Randolph B. & Gompers, Paul A. & Vuolteenaho, Tuomo, 2002. "Who underreacts to cash-flow news? evidence from trading between individuals and institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 409-462.
    3. Ray Ball & Gil Sadka & Ayung Tseng, 2022. "Using accounting earnings and aggregate economic indicators to estimate firm-level systematic risk," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 607-646, June.
    4. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    5. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    6. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    7. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," NBER Working Papers 23394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Eficiencia De Mercado, Administracion De Carteras De Fondos Y Behavioural Finance," Finance 0503028, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jul 2005.
    9. Zura Kakushadze, 2014. "4-Factor Model for Overnight Returns," Papers 1410.5513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2015.
    10. Linnenluecke, Martina K. & Chen, Xiaoyan & Ling, Xin & Smith, Tom & Zhu, Yushu, 2017. "Research in finance: A review of influential publications and a research agenda," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 188-199.
    11. João F. Gomes & Leonid Kogan & Motohiro Yogo, 2009. "Durability of Output and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 941-986.
    12. Zura Kakushadze & Willie Yu, 2016. "Multifactor Risk Models and Heterotic CAPM," Papers 1602.04902, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2016.
    13. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    14. Sheu, Her-Jiun & Wu, Soushan & Ku, Kuang-Ping, 1998. "Cross-sectional relationships between stock returns and market beta, trading volume, and sales-to-price in Taiwan," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18.
    15. Amir Amel†Zadeh, 2011. "The Return of the Size Anomaly: Evidence from the German Stock Market," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(1), pages 145-182, January.
    16. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    17. Wu, Xueping, 2002. "A conditional multifactor analysis of return momentum," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(8), pages 1675-1696, August.
    18. Da, Zhi & Guo, Re-Jin & Jagannathan, Ravi, 2012. "CAPM for estimating the cost of equity capital: Interpreting the empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 204-220.
    19. Zura Kakushadze, 2014. "Russian-Doll Risk Models," Papers 1412.4342, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2017.
    20. Richardson, Scott & Tuna, Irem & Wysocki, Peter, 2010. "Accounting anomalies and fundamental analysis: A review of recent research advances," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 410-454, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    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:8240. 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.