Predicting Stock Market Movements in the United States: The Role of Presidential Approval Ratings

Rangan Gupta, Patrick Kanda () and Mark Wohar ()
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Patrick Kanda: Laboratoire THéorie Économique, Modélisation et Applications (THEMA), Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France

No 201830, Working Papers from University of Pretoria, Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper we analyze whether presidential approval ratings can predict the S&P500 returns over the monthly period of 1941:07 to 2018:04, using a dynamic conditional correlation multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (DCC-MGARCH) model. Our results show that, standard linear Granger causality test fail to detect any evidence of predictability. However, the linear model is found to be misspecified due to structural breaks and nonlinearity, and hence, the result of no causality from presidential approval ratings to stock returns cannot be considered reliable. When we use the DCC-MGARCH model, which is robust to such misspecifications, in 69 percent of the sample period, approval ratings in fact do strongly predict the S&P500 stock return. Moreover, using the DCC-MGARCH model we find that presidential approval rating is also a strong predictor of the realized volatility of S&P500. Overall, our results highlight that presidential approval ratings is helpful in predicting stock return and volatility, when one accounts for nonlinearity and regime changes through a robust time-varying model.

Keywords: US Presidential Approval Ratings; DCC-MGARCH; Stock Returns; Realized Volatility; S&P500 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 G10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2018-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fmk, nep-his, nep-pol and nep-rmg
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Journal Article: Predicting Stock Market Movements in the United States: The Role of Presidential Approval Ratings (2021)
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