Determinants and predictability of commodity producer returns

We derive stock returns for firms producing nonrenewable commodities employing the investment-based asset pricing approach. By identifying the appropriate time-varying discount rate the investment-based approach allows an alternative test of the Hotelling Valuation Principle. The empirical results support the principle and enable predicting returns from sorting firms into quintiles by expected return, producing a 16–20% realized difference between top and bottom quintile. The return differences cannot be explained by standard risk factors or a commodity-specific factor, suggesting that an important risk factor is still missing from standard models. The approach permits cost-of-capital estimation that circumvents identifying systematic risk factors.