Economic activity and momentum profits: Further evidence

We show that economic activity plays an important role in explaining momentum-based anomalies. A simple two-factor model containing the market and alternative indicators of economic activity as risk factors—industrial production, capacity utilization rate, retail sales, and a broad economic index—offers considerable explanatory power for the cross-section of price and industry momentum portfolios. Hence past winners enjoy higher average returns than past losers because they have larger macroeconomic risk. The model compares favorably with popular multifactor models used in the literature. Moreover, our model is consistent with Merton’s Intertemporal CAPM framework, since the macro variables forecast stock market volatility and future economic activity.