We develop an ex-ante measure of expected stock returns based on analyst price targets. We then show that ex-ante measures of volatility, skewness, and kurtosis implied from stock option prices are positively related to the cross section of ex-ante expected stock returns. While expected returns...

Motivated by the nature of asset pricing models, we investigate the cross-sectional relation between the market's ex-ante view of a stock's risk and the stock's ex-ante expected return. We demonstrate that an ex-ante measure of expected returns based on analyst price targets is highly related to...