Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets

Realized volatility, building on the theory of a simple continuous time process, has recently received attention as a nonparametric ex-post estimate of the return variation. This paper addresses the problem of parameter instability due to the presence of structural breaks in realized volatility in t...

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Main Author: Davide De Gaetano
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-03-01
Series:Mathematics
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/6/3/34
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author Davide De Gaetano
author_facet Davide De Gaetano
author_sort Davide De Gaetano
collection DOAJ
description Realized volatility, building on the theory of a simple continuous time process, has recently received attention as a nonparametric ex-post estimate of the return variation. This paper addresses the problem of parameter instability due to the presence of structural breaks in realized volatility in the context of three HAR-type models. The analysis is conducted on four major U.S. equity indices. More specifically, a recursive testing methodology is performed to evaluate the null hypothesis of constant parameters, and then, the performance of several forecast combinations based on different weighting schemes is compared in an out-of-sample variance forecasting exercise. The main findings are the following: (i) the hypothesis of constant model parameters is rejected for all markets under consideration; (ii) in all cases, the recursive forecasting approach, which is appropriate in the absence of structural changes, is outperformed by forecast combination schemes; and (iii) weighting schemes that assign more weight in most recent observations are superior in the majority of cases.
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spelling doaj.art-ea2ea5cee42742efa7ae0a60533077792022-12-21T18:31:11ZengMDPI AGMathematics2227-73902018-03-01633410.3390/math6030034math6030034Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity MarketsDavide De Gaetano0University of Roma Tre, Via Silvio D’Amico, 77–00145 Rome, ItalyRealized volatility, building on the theory of a simple continuous time process, has recently received attention as a nonparametric ex-post estimate of the return variation. This paper addresses the problem of parameter instability due to the presence of structural breaks in realized volatility in the context of three HAR-type models. The analysis is conducted on four major U.S. equity indices. More specifically, a recursive testing methodology is performed to evaluate the null hypothesis of constant parameters, and then, the performance of several forecast combinations based on different weighting schemes is compared in an out-of-sample variance forecasting exercise. The main findings are the following: (i) the hypothesis of constant model parameters is rejected for all markets under consideration; (ii) in all cases, the recursive forecasting approach, which is appropriate in the absence of structural changes, is outperformed by forecast combination schemes; and (iii) weighting schemes that assign more weight in most recent observations are superior in the majority of cases.http://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/6/3/34realized volatilityforecast combinationsstructural breaks
spellingShingle Davide De Gaetano
Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
Mathematics
realized volatility
forecast combinations
structural breaks
title Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
title_full Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
title_fullStr Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
title_full_unstemmed Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
title_short Forecast Combinations in the Presence of Structural Breaks: Evidence from U.S. Equity Markets
title_sort forecast combinations in the presence of structural breaks evidence from u s equity markets
topic realized volatility
forecast combinations
structural breaks
url http://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/6/3/34
work_keys_str_mv AT davidedegaetano forecastcombinationsinthepresenceofstructuralbreaksevidencefromusequitymarkets