We study the predictability of cross-sectional uncertainty (CSU) proposed by Dew-Becker and Giglio (2021) for stock returns. We find that CSU exhibits significant power for predicting monthly stock returns with annual out-of-sample R^2 of 6.34%, greater than popular predictors. CSU generates...

According to present-value models, a financial valuation ratio should predict future stock returns or cash flows but empirically shows little power. This paper develops insights about stock return predictability and reconciles the contradicting findings. We decompose a financial ratio into (1) a...

We study herded stock repurchase using complete repurchase records from Chinese stock markets from 2005 to 2021. The data suggests that only repurchase decisions aiming to boost the stock price, among other purposes, significantly increase peer firms' tendency to follow. Such herding behavior...

This article examines the time-series predictive ability of the monthly option-implied idiosyncratic skewness (Skew) for the aggregate stock market. We find that Skew is a strong predictor of the U.S. equity premium using both in-sample and out-of-sample tests at forecast horizons up to 36...

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...