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On the Relationship Between the Conditional Mean and Volatility of Stock Returns: A Latent VAR Approach

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  • Michael W. Brandt
  • Qiang Kang

Abstract

We model the conditional mean and volatility of stock returns as a latent vector autoregressive (VAR) process to study the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between expected returns and risk in a flexible statistical framework and without relying on exogenous predictors. We find a strong and robust negative correlation between the innovations to the conditional moments that leads to pronounced counter-cyclical variation in the Sharpe ratio. We document significant lead-lag correlations between the conditional moments that also appear related to business cycles. Finally, we show that although the conditional correlation between the mean and volatility is negative, the unconditional correlation is positive due to the lead-lag correlations.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W. Brandt & Qiang Kang, 2002. "On the Relationship Between the Conditional Mean and Volatility of Stock Returns: A Latent VAR Approach," NBER Working Papers 9056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9056
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    Cited by:

    1. Tim Bollerslev & Hao Zhou, 2003. "Volatility puzzles: a unified framework for gauging return-volatility regressions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-40, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Bansal, Ravi & Khatchatrian, Varoujan & Yaron, Amir, 2005. "Interpretable asset markets?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 531-560, April.
    3. Asgharian, Hossein & Hou, Ai Jun & Javed, Farrukh, 2013. "Importance of the macroeconomic variables for variance prediction A GARCH-MIDAS approach," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2013/4, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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