Download or read book Aggregation of Information About the Cross Section of Stock Returns written by Nathaniel Light and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We propose a new approach for estimating expected returns on individual stocks from a large number of firm characteristics. We treat expected returns as latent variables and apply the partial least squares (PLS) estimator that filters them out from the characteristics under an assumption that the characteristics are linked to expected returns through one or few common latent factors. The estimates of expected returns constructed by our approach from twenty six firm characteristics generate a wide cross-sectional dispersion of realized returns and outperform estimates obtained by alternative techniques. Our results also provide evidence of commonality in asset pricing anomalies.