The forecasting ability of the most popular volatility forecasting models is examined and an alternative model developed. Existing models are compared in terms of four attributes: (1) the relative weighting of recent versus older observations, (2) the estimation criterion, (3) the trade-off in terms of out-of-sample forecasting error between simple and complex models, and (4) the emphasis placed on large shocks. As in previous studies, we find that financial markets have longer memories than reflected in GARCH(1,1) model estimates, but find this has little impact on out-ofsample forecasting ability. While more complex models which allow a more flexible weighting pattern than the exponential model forecast better on an in-sample basis, due to the additional estimation error introduced by additional parameters, they forecast poorly out-of-sample. With the exception of GARCH models, we find that models based on absolute return deviations generally forecast volatility better than otherwise equivalent models based on squared return deviations. Among the most popular time series models, we find that GARCH(1,1) generally yields better forecasts than the historical standard deviation and exponentially weighted moving
We have benefited from comments on earlier versions of this paper by Tim Bollerslev, Steve Figlewski, Michael Fleming, Charles Jones, Jose Lopez, an anonymous referee, and seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Queensland University, and Australian National University. Remaining errors are of course our responsibility.