We test whether comovements of individual stock prices can be justifie
d by economic fundamentals. This is a test of the present value model
of security valuation with the constraint that changes in discount rat
es depend only on changes in macroeconomic variables. Then, stock pric
es of companies in unrelated lines of business should move together on
ly in response to changes in current or expected future macroeconomic
conditions. Using a latent variable model to capture unobserved expect
ations, we find excess comovement of returns. We show that this excess
comovement can be explained in part by company size and degree of ins
titutional ownership, suggesting market segmentation.