Explaining Returns with Cash-Flow Proxies

44 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2005 Last revised: 10 Jul 2022

See all articles by Peter Andrew Hecht

Peter Andrew Hecht

Harvard Business School

Tuomo Vuolteenaho

Arrowstreet Capital, LP; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Date Written: March 2005

Abstract

Stock returns are correlated with contemporaneous earnings growth, dividend growth, future real activity, and other cash-flow proxies. The correlation between cash-flow proxies and stock returns may arise from association of cash-flow proxies with one-period expected returns, cash-flow news, and/or expected-return news. We use Campbell's (1991) return decomposition to measure the relative importance of these three effects in regressions of returns on cash-flow proxies. In some of the popular specifications, variables that are motivated as proxies for cash-flow news also track a nontrivial proportion of one-period expected returns and expected-return news. As a result, the R2 from a regression of returns on cash-flow proxies may overstate or understate the importance of cash-flow news as a source of return variance.

Suggested Citation

Hecht, Peter Andrew and Vuolteenaho, Tuomo, Explaining Returns with Cash-Flow Proxies (March 2005). NBER Working Paper No. w11169, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=679328

Peter Andrew Hecht

Harvard Business School ( email )

Boston, MA 02163
United States
(617) 495-6171 (Phone)
(617) 496-7357 (Fax)

Tuomo Vuolteenaho (Contact Author)

Arrowstreet Capital, LP ( email )

44 Brattle St., 5th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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