We investigate the cross-sectional return predictability of delta-hedged equity options using machine learning and big data. Drawing upon more than 12 million observations over the period from 1996 to 2020, we find that allowing for nonlinearities significantly increases the out-of-sample...

We study a new constrained equity premium forecasting approach which employs the option-implied lower bounds for the conditional market premium from Martin (2017) and Chabi-Yo and Loudis (2020), respectively, as forecast constraints. This constrained approach delivers considerable out-of-sample...

This paper studies the intertemporal relation between U.S. volatility risk and international equity risk premia. We show that a common volatility risk factor constructed from the option-implied U.S. forward variances positively and significantly predicts future stock market returns of the...

Purpose: In this paper we try to explain US stock market variations and cash flow fundamentals by employing three different book-valued based ratios, First, we explore the explanatory capacity of the simple book-market ratio on time-varying expected returns, and procced on altering its...

This article examines the time-series predictive ability of monthly option-implied idiosyncratic skewness (Skew, hereafter) for stock market excess returns. Skew is a strong negative predictor of returns with particular strong power at long horizons. Specifically, the out-of-sample R^2...

We propose a nonparametric Bayesian approach for conducting inference on probabilistic surveys. We use this approach to study whether U.S. Survey of Professional Forecasters density projections for output growth and inflation are consistent with the noisy rational expectations hypothesis. We...

Existing models of option returns neglect the distribution of expected underlying asset volatility. An ensemble of six common GARCH models affords estimates of the moments of the physical—rather than the risk-neutral—distribution of anticipated—instead of historical—volatility, as well...

Max Pain price is the strike price at which the total payoff of all options (calls and puts) written on a particular stock, and with the same expiration date, is the lowest. We construct a measure of (potential) Max Pain gain/loss, sort stock prices according to this measure, and find that a...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that the variance risk premium predicts aggregate stock market returns. We demonstrate that statistical finite sample biases cannot “explain” this apparent predictability. Further corroborating the existing evidence of the U.S., we show that country...

This paper presents predictability evidence of the implied-expected variance difference, or variance risk premium, for financial market risk premia: (1) the variance difference measure predicts a positive risk premium across equity, bond, currency, and credit markets; (2) such a short-run...