Lag-one autocorrelation: signed returns against absolute returns, 2016 to 2025
Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-14, from Bootstrapping Backtest Confidence Bands.
| ticker | obs_count | return_autocorr | abs_return_autocorr |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | 2514 | -0.133 | 0.366 |
| PG | 2514 | -0.1 | 0.291 |
| MSFT | 2514 | -0.154 | 0.269 |
| XOM | 2514 | -0.028 | 0.268 |
| KO | 2514 | -0.032 | 0.265 |
| JNJ | 2514 | -0.08 | 0.239 |
- Rows × columns
- 6 × 4
- Computed
- Completeness
- No missing values
- Source
- US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
- Licence
- Strasmore terms · free, no signup
What each column holds
| Column | Type | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
ticker |
text | 6 distinct values (JNJ, KO, MSFT…) | |
obs_count |
number | every row is 2,514 | count |
return_autocorr |
number | -0.154 to -0.028 | |
abs_return_autocorr |
number | 0.239 to 0.366 |
Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.
the exact SQL behind every number
WITH daily AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
date,
toFloat64(close) / nullIf(lagInFrame(toFloat64(close), 1)
OVER (PARTITION BY ticker ORDER BY date ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW), 0) - 1 AS ret
FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
WHERE ticker IN ('SPY', 'MSFT', 'KO', 'XOM', 'JNJ', 'PG')
AND date >= '2015-11-01'
AND date < '2026-01-01'
),
lagged AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
date,
ret,
lagInFrame(ret, 1) OVER (PARTITION BY ticker ORDER BY date ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) AS ret_prev
FROM daily
WHERE ret IS NOT NULL
AND abs(ret) < 0.35
)
SELECT
ticker,
count() AS obs_count,
round(corr(ret, ret_prev), 3) AS return_autocorr,
round(corr(abs(ret), abs(ret_prev)), 3) AS abs_return_autocorr
FROM lagged
WHERE date >= '2016-01-01'
AND ret_prev IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY abs_return_autocorr DESC
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