hi,
I am using a GARCH (1,1) regression model to regress stock returns against specific exogenous variables as follows:

arch returns variable1 variable2 variable2, arch(1) garch(1)

I then want to check the effect of these variables on VOLATILITY instead of returns. From the stock market dataset I actually have a volatility variable, but im not sure what the GARCH function of CONDITIONAL VARIANCE shows.

what I mean is, do I do the following to see the effect:

arch volatility variable1 variable2 variable2, arch(1) garch(1)

OR, am I meant to predict the conditional variance and then regress this against the variables? I don't really understand what the conditional variance shows and if you can then regress this against the variables to see the effect on variance. What I mean is do I use the volatility variable in data set or predict the conditional variance and then regress as follows:

arch returns variable1 variable2 variable2, arch(1) garch(1)
predict variance
arch variance variable1 variable2 variable2, arch(1) garch(1)

Is this how to obtain the variance equation in Stata? I think the first regression is the mean equation, so I don't know how to use Stata to regress the variance equation. please help! thank you xxx
If this doesn't make sense do let me know , also very happy to privately message as I am very stuck on my thesis. thank you so much for your time reading this.