Volatility Forecasting Using Financial Statement Information
Posted: 15 Jan 2012 Last revised: 29 Jan 2015
Date Written: September 11, 2013
Abstract
This paper examines whether financial statement information can predict future realized volatility incremental to the volatility implied by option market prices. Prior research establishes that option-implied volatility is a biased estimator of future realized volatility. I use an analytical framework to identify accounting-based drivers of equity returns volatility. My main hypothesis is accounting-based drivers can be used to forecast future volatility incremental to either past volatility or the market’s expectation of future volatility quantified as option-implied volatility. I confirm this empirically and show that my findings are robust to the measurement of option-implied volatility using either a model-free approach or the Black-Scholes model. I also document abnormal returns to a option-based trading strategy that takes a long (short) position in firms with financial statement information indicative of high (low) future volatility. Additionally, I provide evidence that contradicts a risk-based explanation for the incremental predictive ability of accounting-based variables. Taken together, my results indicate that the market’s failure to fully process accounting-based fundamental information explains some of the previously documented bias in implied volatility.
Keywords: volatility, fundamental analysis, option returns
JEL Classification: M41, G12, G13, G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation