A bottom-up measure of aggregate investment plans, namely, aggregate expected investment growth (AEIG) can negatively predict market returns. At the one-year horizon, the adjusted in-sample R-square is 18.2% and the out-of-sample R-square is 14.4%. The return predictive power is robust after...

Consistent with neoclassical models with investment lags, we find that a bottom-up measure of aggregate investment plans, namely, aggregate expected investment growth, negatively predicts future stock market returns. with an adjusted in-sample R2 of 18.5% and an out-of-sample R2 of 16.3% at the...