Net Present Value (NPV) is the principal valuation model of the financial literature. Firms are accordingly directed, as a matter of good practice, to adopt the model for selecting investment projects, yet questionnaire surveys show that the adoption rate has been very slow and the quality of...

We use regression methods to predict the expected monthly return on stocks and the covariance matrix of returns, the predictor variables being a company's ‘fundamentals’, such as dividend yield and the history of previous returns. Predictions are evaluated out of sample for shares traded on...