Do Shiller Macro and Micro Narratives Characterize the S&P 500 Index Returns? New Insights

We propose two narratives to analyze monthly returns for the S&P 500 Index. The first narrative emphasizes variables that represent the macroeconomy: Fed Funds Effective Rate, Real M2, 10-Year T-Note minus 2-Year T-Note, Shiller Housing Index, industrial production, and 1-Year Expected Inflation. The second narrative focuses on microeconomic fundamentals that include earnings, CBOE Volatility, consumer sentiment, interest rates, global price of copper, and the Dollar Index. We perform a methodology of 348 rolling regressions for each narrative, each with a sample of 60 monthly observations, and estimate the significance of the independent variables considered. We conclude that the microeconomic narrative with its indicators tied to stock market activities correlates with monthly returns more closely than macro fundamentals do. The new insight from this paper is that it is beneficial to employ both narratives as complementary rather than as competitive.