Forecasting US stock market returns by the aggressive stock-selection opportunity

Abstract

We propose a measurement of aggressive stock-selection opportunity based on positive alphas and idiosyncratic volatilities of cross-section stocks, and examine the role of aggressive stock-selection opportunity in predicting stock market returns. For the US stock market, we find that the change of aggressive stock-selection opportunity has a significant and negative coefficient for predicting future one-month market returns. The out-of-sample results also show the change of aggressive stock-selection opportunity improves the return forecasting performance and increases investors’ economic values. In particular, the predictive information of the change of aggressive stock-selection opportunity is independent of traditional macroeconomic predictors. The economic channel evidence shows that the change of aggressive stock-selection opportunity increases future market volatility and then results in lower market returns.