Disagreement measures are known to predict cross-sectional stock returns but fail to predict market returns. This paper proposes a partial least squares disagreement index by aggregating information across individual disagreement measures and shows that this index significantly predicts market...

We propose a novel modification to the popular principal component analysis (PCA) by scaling each predictor with its predictive slope on the target to be forecasted. Unlike the PCA that maximizes the common variation of predictors, our scaled PCA, sPCA, puts more weights on those predictors that...

We apply a reduced-rank approach to reduce a large number of observable factors to a few parsimonious ones. Out of 70 factor proxies, we find that the best five combinations seem adequate and outperform the Fama-French (2015) five factors for pricing industry portfolios as expected. However,...

We find that expected return is related to trading volume positively among underpriced stocks but negatively among overpriced stocks. As such, trading volume amplifies mispricing. Our results are robust to alternative mispricing and trading volume measures, alternative portfolio formation...

We reaffirm the stylized fact that bond risk premia are time-varying with macroeconomic condition, even with real-time macro data instead of commonly used final revised data. While real-time data are noisier and render standard forecasts insignificant, we find that, with four efficient...

We construct a monthly Presidential Economic Approval Rating (PEAR) index from 1981 to 2019, by averaging ratings on president’s handling of the economy across various national polls. In the cross-section, stocks with high betas to changes in the PEAR index significantly under-perform those...

Can the degree of predictability found in the data be explained by existing asset pricing models? We provide two theoretical upper bounds on the R-squares of predictive regressions. Using data on the market and component portfolios, we find that the empirical R-squares are significantly greater...

We propose a new investor sentiment index that is aligned with the purpose of predicting the aggregate stock market. By eliminating a common noise component in sentiment proxies, the new index has much greater predictive power than existing sentiment indices both in- and out-of-sample, and the...

Starting from the twelve distinct risk factors in four well-established asset pricing models, a pool we refer to as the winners, we construct and compare 4,095 asset pricing models and find that the model with the risk factors, Mkt, SMB, MOM, ROE, MGMT, and PEAD, performs the best in terms of...

We provide a comprehensive study on the cross-sectional predictability of corporate bond returns using big data and machine learning. We examine whether a large set of equity and bond characteristics drive the expected returns on corporate bonds. Using either set of characteristics, we find that...