Sentiment Indicator (sentiment + indicator)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in Europe

EUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008
Eva Ferreira
G12; E43 Abstract According toHarvey (1988), the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect investors' expectations about the future economic situation when deciding their plans for consumption and investment. Past literature has used ex post data on output or consumption growth as proxies for their expected value. In this paper, we employ a direct measure of economic agents' expectations, the Economic Sentiment Indicator elaborated by the European Commission, to test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that a linear combination of European yield spreads explains a surprising 93.7\% of the variability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator. This ability of yield spreads to capture economic agent expectations may be the actual reason for the predictive power of yield spreads about future business cycle. [source]


On the Construction of the European Economic Sentiment Indicator,

OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 1 2010
Sarah Gelper
Abstract Economic sentiment surveys are carried out by all European Union member states and are often seen as early indicators for future economic developments. Based on these surveys, the European Commission constructs an aggregate European Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI). This paper compares the ESI with more sophisticated aggregation schemes based on statistical methods: dynamic factor analysis and partial least squares. The indicator based on partial least squares clearly outperforms the other two indicators in terms of comovement with economic activity. In terms of forecast ability, the ESI, constructed in a rather ad hoc way, can compete with the other indicators. [source]


S&P futures returns and contrary sentiment indicators

THE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 5 2001
David P. Simon Associate Professor
This article investigates the predictive power of popular market-based sentiment measures for subsequent returns on the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 futures contract over 10-day, 20-day, and 30-day horizons from January 1989 through June 1999. These measures include the volatility index, the put,call ratio, and the trading index. The empirical results show that these variables over a variety of specifications frequently have statistically and economically significant forecasting power. The results indicate that these variables are contrarian indicators, consistent with the view that periods of extreme fear in the stock market have provided excellent buying opportunities. Finally, out-of-sample trading simulations performed over the second half of the sample period demonstrate that profits and risk-adjusted profits would have been enhanced by buying S&P futures when the fear indicators were high rather than low. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:447,462, 2001 [source]