Survey evidence on forecast accuracy of U.S. term spreads

Hamid Baghestani

Review of Financial Economics, 2009, vol. 18, issue 3, 156-162

Abstract: Successful portfolio management strategies partly require accurate forecasts of term spreads. Such forecasts may also be useful for policymaking since the yield curve may contain predictive information for economic growth. This study asks whether experts accurately predict term spreads. We show that the consensus forecasts from two separate panels, while superior to alternative benchmark forecasts, are free of systematic bias but unable to replicate the degree of variability in the actual change. Moreover, these forecasts are directionally accurate under symmetric loss, implying that they are of value to a market participant who assigns similar costs to incorrect upward and downward moves.

Keywords: Yield; curve; Blue; Chip; Survey; of; Professional; Forecasters; (SPF); Directional; accuracy; Symmetric; loss (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1058-3300(09)00003-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:revfin:v:18:y:2009:i:3:p:156-162

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Financial Economics is currently edited by T. K. Mukherjee and G. Whitney

More articles in Review of Financial Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().