IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed017/146.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Is the Expected Return on a Stock?

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Wagner

    (Copenhagen Business School)

  • Ian Martin

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

We derive a formula that expresses the expected return on a stock in terms of the risk-neutral variance of the market and the stock's excess risk-neutral variance relative to the average stock. These components can be computed from index and stock option prices; the formula has no free parameters. We test the theory in-sample by running panel regressions of stock returns onto risk-neutral variances. The formula performs well at 6-month and 1-year forecasting horizons, and our predictors drive out beta, size, book-to-market, and momentum. Out-of-sample, we find that the formula outperforms a range of competitors in forecasting individual stock returns. Our results suggest that there is considerably more variation in expected returns, both over time and across stocks, than has previously been acknowledged.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Wagner & Ian Martin, 2017. "What Is the Expected Return on a Stock?," 2017 Meeting Papers 146, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed017:146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2017/paper_146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2015. "The Cross-section of Expected Stock Returns," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 4(1), pages 1-44, June.
    3. Ian W. R. Martin & Christian Wagner, 2019. "What Is the Expected Return on a Stock?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(4), pages 1887-1929, August.
    4. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    5. Jennifer Conrad & Robert F. Dittmar & Eric Ghysels, 2013. "Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 85-124, February.
    6. Adrian Buss & Grigory Vilkov, 2012. "Measuring Equity Risk with Option-implied Correlations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(10), pages 3113-3140.
    7. Lewellen, Jonathan & Nagel, Stefan & Shanken, Jay, 2010. "A skeptical appraisal of asset pricing tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 175-194, May.
    8. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    9. Bo-Young Chang & Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Gregory Vainberg, 2011. "Option-Implied Measures of Equity Risk," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 16(2), pages 385-428.
    10. Herskovic, Bernard & Kelly, Bryan & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2016. "The common factor in idiosyncratic volatility: Quantitative asset pricing implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 249-283.
    11. Nagel, Stefan, 2005. "Short sales, institutional investors and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 277-309, November.
    12. 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.
    13. Breeden, Douglas T & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1978. "Prices of State-contingent Claims Implicit in Option Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 621-651, October.
    14. Shanken, Jay, 1982. "The Arbitrage Pricing Theory: Is It Testable?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 37(5), pages 1129-1140, December.
    15. Ian Martin, 2017. "What is the Expected Return on the Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 367-433.
    16. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    17. Lukas Kremens & Ian Martin, 2019. "The Quanto Theory of Exchange Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 810-843, March.
    18. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia & Dilip Madan, 2003. "Stock Return Characteristics, Skew Laws, and the Differential Pricing of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 101-143.
    19. Clifford S. Asness & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2013. "Value and Momentum Everywhere," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 929-985, June.
    20. Hansen, Lars Peter & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1991. "Implications of Security Market Data for Models of Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 225-262, April.
    21. Ilaria Piatti & Fabio Trojani, 2020. "Dividend Growth Predictability and the Price–Dividend Ratio," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 130-158, January.
    22. 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.
    23. Fu, Fangjian, 2009. "Idiosyncratic risk and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 24-37, January.
    24. Lewellen, Jonathan & Nagel, Stefan, 2006. "The conditional CAPM does not explain asset-pricing anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 289-314, November.
    25. 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.
    26. Dybvig, Philip H & Ross, Stephen A, 1985. "Yes, the APT Is Testable," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1173-1188, September.
    27. Hansen, Lars Peter & Richard, Scott F, 1987. "The Role of Conditioning Information in Deducing Testable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 587-613, May.
    28. Andrew Patton & Dimitris Politis & Halbert White, 2009. "Correction to “Automatic Block-Length Selection for the Dependent Bootstrap” by D. Politis and H. White," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 372-375.
    29. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    30. Jeff Fleming & Chris Kirby & Barbara Ostdiek, 2001. "The Economic Value of Volatility Timing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 329-352, February.
    31. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    32. Joost Driessen & Pascal J. Maenhout & Grigory Vilkov, 2009. "The Price of Correlation Risk: Evidence from Equity Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1377-1406, June.
    33. Dimitris Politis & Halbert White, 2004. "Automatic Block-Length Selection for the Dependent Bootstrap," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 53-70.
    34. Long, John Jr., 1990. "The numeraire portfolio," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 29-69, July.
    35. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    36. repec:oup:qjecon:v:132:y:2016:i:1:p:367-433. is not listed on IDEAS
    37. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2009. "Variance Risk Premiums," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1311-1341, March.
    38. Roll, Richard, 1973. "Evidence on the "Growth-Optimum" Model," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 28(3), pages 551-566, June.
    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. Ho, Hwai-Chung & Tsai, Wei-Che, 2020. "Price delay and post-earnings announcement drift anomalies: The role of option-implied betas," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Bai, Jennie & Bali, Turan G. & Wen, Quan, 2021. "Is there a risk-return tradeoff in the corporate bond market? Time-series and cross-sectional evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1017-1037.
    3. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    4. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Paul Schneider & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2020. "Low‐Risk Anomalies?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2673-2718, October.
    7. Peter Christoffersen & Xuhui (Nick) Pan, 2014. "Equity Portfolio Management Using Option Price Information," CREATES Research Papers 2015-05, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    8. Hollstein, Fabian & Prokopczuk, Marcel & Wese Simen, Chardin, 2020. "Beta uncertainty," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    9. DeMiguel, Victor & Martin-Utrera, Alberto & Nogales, Francisco J. & Uppal, Raman, 2017. "A Portfolio Perspective on the Multitude of Firm Characteristics," CEPR Discussion Papers 12417, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    11. Hardeep Singh Mundi, 2023. "Risk neutral variances to compute expected returns using data from S&P BSE 100 firms—a replication study," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 215-230, February.
    12. Sirio Aramonte & Mohammad R. Jahan-Parvar & Samuel Rosen & John W. Schindler, 2022. "Firm-Specific Risk-Neutral Distributions with Options and CDS," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 7018-7033, September.
    13. Pintor, Gabor, 2016. "The macroeconomic shock with the highest price of risk," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86225, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Maio, Paulo & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2012. "Multifactor models and their consistency with the ICAPM," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 586-613.
    15. Kevin Aretz & Ming-Tsung Lin & Ser-Huang Poon, 2023. "Moneyness, Underlying Asset Volatility, and the Cross-Section of Option Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(1), pages 289-323.
    16. Arvanitis, Stelios & Scaillet, Olivier & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2020. "Spanning analysis of stock market anomalies under prospect stochastic dominance," Working Papers unige:134101, University of Geneva, Geneva School of Economics and Management.
    17. Hollstein, Fabian & Nguyen, Duc Binh Benno & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2019. "Asset prices and “the devil(s) you know”," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 20-35.
    18. Christoffersen, Peter & Fournier, Mathieu & Jacobs, Kris & Karoui, Mehdi, 2021. "Option-Based Estimation of the Price of Coskewness and Cokurtosis Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(1), pages 65-91, February.
    19. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Kagkadis, Anastasios & Philip, Dennis & Tuneshev, Ruslan, 2018. "Differences in options investors’ expectations and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 315-336.
    20. Barroso, Pedro & Detzel, Andrew, 2021. "Do limits to arbitrage explain the benefits of volatility-managed portfolios?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 744-767.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:red:sed017:146. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.