Research examining the usefulness of non-linear models for stock market returns has almost reached an impasse. While there is general recognition of the superior ability of non-linear models to describe the data, there is less certainty about their ability to forecast the data. As such simple...

We use boosted decision trees to generate daily out-of-sample forecasts of excess returns for Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two best-known and largest cryptocurrencies. The decision trees incorporate information from 39 predictors, including variables relating to cryptocurrency fundamentals,...

We examine the pricing of tail risk in international stock markets. We find that the tail risk of different countries is highly integrated. Introducing a new World Fear index, we find that local and global aggregate market returns are mainly driven by global tail risk rather than local tail...