5 - The Corporate Knightian Uncertainty Index

Summary

Chapter 5 accomplishes several goals. First, a general description of the Dow Jones equities events dataset is provided. Summary statistics are reported for the total event stories identified in connection to corporate news focusing on those events classified as unscheduled. Second, disaggregated categories within the unscheduled corporate event dataset are described using a hierarchy of group classifications. An example of an unscheduled event record is provided to illustrate the output for each identified event. Of particular interest is classification of KU events by “category,” “novelty,” “relevance,” “sentiment,” and “inertia/volume.” These are the factors that will be interacted to generate narrative intensity and principal components factors against which stock market outcomes and structural change dynamics will be compared. Third, the baseline KU index is introduced based on unscheduled corporate events with accompanying time-series plots. Autoregressive tests inform which statistical properties best describe the events' data generating process. The chapter concludes with an examination of historical stock market events that align with major shifts in the index.