'Deja Vol' Revisited: Survey Forecasts of Macroeconomic Variables Predict Volatility in the Cross-Section of Industry Portfolios

58 Pages Posted: 13 Jun 2018 Last revised: 5 Dec 2018

See all articles by Christian Conrad

Christian Conrad

Heidelberg University - Alfred Weber Institute for Economics; ETH Zürich - KOF Swiss Economic Institute

Alexander Glas

Friedrich-Alexander University; ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Date Written: December 3, 2018

Abstract

We investigate the question whether macroeconomic variables contain information about future stock volatility beyond that contained in past volatility. We show that forecasts of GDP and industrial production growth from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Professional Forecasters predict volatility in a cross-section of 49 industry portfolios. The expectation of higher growth rates is associated with lower stock volatility. Inflation forecasts predict higher or lower stock volatility depending on the state of the economy and the stance of monetary policy. Forecasts of higher unemployment rates are good news for stocks during expansions and go along with lower stock volatility. Our results hold in- as well as out-of-sample and pass various robustness checks.

Keywords: Realized Volatility, Survey of Professional Forecasters, Forecast Evaluation, Predictive Regressions

JEL Classification: E17, E37, G11, G17

Suggested Citation

Conrad, Christian and Glas, Alexander, 'Deja Vol' Revisited: Survey Forecasts of Macroeconomic Variables Predict Volatility in the Cross-Section of Industry Portfolios (December 3, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3186567 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3186567

Christian Conrad (Contact Author)

Heidelberg University - Alfred Weber Institute for Economics ( email )

Grabengasse 14
Heidelberg, D-69117
Germany
+49 (06)221 543173 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/conrad

ETH Zürich - KOF Swiss Economic Institute ( email )

Zurich
Switzerland

Alexander Glas

Friedrich-Alexander University ( email )

Erlangen-Nuremberg
Germany

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research ( email )

P.O. Box 10 34 43
L 7,1
D-68034 Mannheim, 68034
Germany

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