q5

Abstract

In a multiperiod investment framework, firms with high expected growth earn higher expected returns than firms with low expected growth, holding investment and expected profitability constant. This paper forms cross-sectional growth forecasts, and constructs an expected growth factor that yields an average premium of 0.82% per month (t =9.81). The q5 model, which augments the Hou-Xue-Zhang (2015) q-factor model with the new factor, shows strong explanatory power in the cross section, and outperforms other recently proposed factor models such as the Fama-French (2018) 6-factor model.