Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia
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What they found
The authors defined the variance risk premium as the difference between the squared VIX (implied variance) and recent realized variance, and showed that it predicts S&P 500 returns over the next one to six months better than traditional predictors like dividend yield or the term spread. A high variance risk premium, meaning implied variance is unusually far above realized, was followed by high stock returns over the next quarter. They rationalize this with a model in which the premium reflects time-varying uncertainty about economic volatility.
What you can use
- When implied volatility is far above realized volatility, stocks have tended to deliver above-average returns over the following months.
- Fear priced into options that exceeds what has actually materialized is a buy signal for equities, historically.
- The predictive power is at the quarterly horizon, not the daily one.
Caveats
Monthly predictive regressions from 1990 to 2007 with modest R-squared; short-horizon predictability is weak and the relationship is noisy in real time.
Tags: volatility, variance-risk-premium, return-predictability, vix
Summaries are our own reading of the paper, not the authors' words. Educational only, not advice. Discuss it in Book Club.