Automated Volatility Forecasting

We develop an automated system to forecast volatility by leveraging more than 100 features and five machine learning algorithms. Considering the universe of S&P 100 stocks, our system results in superior out-of-sample volatility forecasts compared with existing risk models across forecast horizons. We further demonstrate that our system remains robust to different specifications and is scalable to a broader S&P 500 stock universe via hyperparameter transfer learning. Finally, the statistical improvement in volatility forecasts translates into significant annual returns from a cross-sectional variance risk premium strategy. This paper was accepted by Lin William Cong, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.01520 .

• 저널Management Science · 71(7) · 6248–6274
• 토픽Financial Risk and Volatility Modeling · Finance
• DOI10.1287/mnsc.2023.01520
• 저자Sophia Zhengzi Li, Yushan Tang