This paper finds significant evidence that commodity price changes can predict industry-level returns for horizons between one trading day and up to six trading weeks (30 days). We find that for the 1985-2010 period, 40 out of 49 U.S. industries can be predicted by at least one commodity. Our...

We develop a novel ranking methodology to rank the market forecaster. In particular, we distinguish forecasts by their specificity, rather than considering all predictions and forecasts equally important, and we also analyze the impact of the number of forecasts made by a particular forecaster....

With the advent in recent years of large financial data sets, machine learning and high-performance computing, analysts can backtest millions (if not billions) of alternative investment strategies. Backtest optimizers search for combinations of parameters that maximize the simulated historical...

This paper extends the benchmark Estrella and Hardouvelis (1991) term spread approach to recession forecasting by including the stock market macro liquidity deviation factor. We use a probit framework to predict US business cycles, as defined by the NBER between 1959Q1 and 2011Q4. We find that...

Using smooth transition regression model analysis, we examine the non-linear predictability of Japanese and US stock market returns by a set of macroeconomic variables between 1981 and 2012. The theoretical basis for investigating non-linear behavior in stock returns can be based on the...

We prove that high simulated performance is easily achievable after backtesting a relatively small number of alternative strategy configurations, a practice we denote “backtest overfitting”. The higher the number of configurations tried, the greater is the probability that the backtest is...

This paper tests for predictability of output growth in a panel of 22 emerging market economies. We use pooled panel data methods that control for endogeneity and persistence in the predictor variables to test the predictive power of a large set of financial aggregates. Results show that stock...

One of the main theoretical implications of the present value approach on firm valuation is the hypothesis that dividend yield has a predictive power on future dividend growth. The relevant literature, however, was not able to provide evidence that clearly supports this hypothesis. In this paper...