Over the period 1927:Q1 to 2005:Q4, the average CAPM-based idiosyncratic variance (IV) and stock market variance jointly forecast stock market returns. This result holds up quite well in a number of robustness checks, and we show that the predictive power of the average IV might come from its...

This paper finds that standard asset pricing models fail to explain the significantly positive delta hedging errors from writing options on foreign exchange futures. Foreign exchange volatility does influence stock returns, however. The volatility of the JPY/USD exchange rate predicts the time...

We find that past stock market variance forecasts excess stock market returns and that its predictive ability is greatly enhanced if the consumption-wealth ratio is also included in the forecasting equation. While the risk-return tradeoff is found negative if we use the latter as the...

We show that the equal-weighted average stock volatility analyzed by Goyal and Santa-Clara (GS, 2003) forecasts stock returns because of its co-movements with stock market volatility. Moreover, contrary to the positive relation hypothesized by GS and many others, we find that the value-weighted...

Lettau and Ludvigson (2001a) show that the consumption-wealth ratio-the error term from the cointegration relation among consumption, net worth, and labor income-forecasts stock market returns out of sample. In this paper, we reexamine their evidence using real-time data. Consistent with the...