We show empirically that survey-based measures of expected inflation are significant and strong predictors of future aggregate stock returns in several industrialized countries both in-sample and out-of-sample. By empirically discriminating between competing sources of this return predictability...

This paper shows that changes in the tone of central bank communication have a significant effect on asset prices. Tone captures how the central bank frames economic fundamentals and its monetary policy. When tone becomes more positive, stock prices increase, whereas credit spreads and...

A sizeable literature reports that financial market analysts and forecasters herd for reputational reasons. Using new data from a large survey of professional forecasters' expectations about stock market movements, we find strong evidence that the expected average of all forecasters' forecasts...

We examine whether consumer confidence - as a proxy for individual investor sentiment - affects expected stock returns internationally in 18 industrialized countries. In line with recent evidence for the U.S., we find that sentiment negatively forecasts aggregate stock market returns on average...

We develop a model with informationally heterogeneous investors to explain return predictability on and after earnings announcements. We find evidence for the model's key predictions: (1) Announcement returns are on average positive even though earnings surprises are mean-zero; (2) Firms with...

We document a striking pattern in U.S.and international stock returns: Double sorting on last month's return and share turnover reveals significant short-term reversal among low-turnover stocks whereas high-turnover stocks exhibit short-term momentum. Short-term momentum is as profitable and as...

What share of asset price movements is driven by news? We build a large, time-stamped event database covering scheduled macro news as well as unscheduled events. We find that news account for about 50% of all bond and stock price movements in the United States and euro area since 2002,...