We investigate the asset pricing and macroeconomic implications of the ratio of new orders (NO) to shipments (S) of durable goods. NO/S measures investment commitments by firms, and high values of NO/S are associated with a business cycle peak. We find that NO/S proxies for a short-horizon...

We examine the relation between inventory investment and the cost of capital in the time series and the cross section. We find consistent evidence that risk premiums, rather than real interest rates, are strongly negatively related to future inventory growth at the aggregate, industry, and firm...