Sources of contrarian profits in the Japanese stock market

This paper investigates the profitability of contrarian strategies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) across various ranking and holding horizons ranging from 1 month to 3 years. In sharp contrast to the evidence from the U.S. and European markets, our data show that contrarian strategies are profitable in Japan across all horizons, especially with a very short horizon of 1 month or a very long horizon of 2 years or longer. The results are very robust to skipping 1 month between the holding and ranking periods, excluding firms with extreme past returns, and partitioning the whole sample into bull and bear subperiods. In addition, we find that contrarian strategies perform much better when the aggregate market also performs better in either the ranking or the holding period. Finally, contrarian profits are mostly attributed to the lead–lag effect. Further analysis indicates that contrarian profits are not attributed to the pricing errors of the Fama–French three-factor model. Instead, contrarian profits are mainly due to cross-autocorrelations among firm-specific error components of the Fama–French three-factor model.     

Momentum trading,mean reversal and overreaction in Chinese stock market

The vast majority of the literature reports momentum profitability to be overwhelming in the US market and widespread in other countries. However, this paper finds that the pure momentum strategy in general does not yield excess profitability in the Chinese stock markets. We find instead strong mean reversion with an average half-life slightly shorter than 1 year. A pure contrarian investment strategy produces positive excess returns and in general outperforms the pure momentum strategy. Furthermore, momentum may interact with mean reversion. A strategy based on the rolling-regression parameter estimates of the model combining mean reversion and momentum generates both statistically and economically significant excess returns. The combined strategy outperforms both pure momentum and pure contrarian strategies. We conduct a number of robustness tests and confirm the basic findings. Collectively, our results support the overreaction hypothesis.     

印花税上调给股市带来了什么

从2006年延续过来的牛市在2007年上半年得到了进一步的巩固和高速发展,上证综指一度站到了4300多点的历史高度.无论是驰骋沙场多年的老股民,还是初次上阵交锋的新股民,个个都笑逐颜开;基金们、券商们更是盆满钵盈,喜不自禁;大家都满心欢喜地在分享着中国资本市场高速发展带来的一杯羹.     

Does the stock market value bank diversification?

This paper investigates whether or not functionally diversified banks have a comparative advantage in terms of long-term performance/risk profile compared to their specialized competitors. To that end, this study uses market-based measures of return potential and bank risk. We calculate the franchise value over time of European banks as a measure of their long-run performance potential. In addition, we measure risk as both the systematic and the idiosyncratic risk components derived from a bank stock return model. Finally, we analyze the return/risk trade-off implied in different functional diversification strategies using a panel data analysis over the period 1989–2004. A higher share of non-interest income in total income affects banks’ franchise values positively. Diversification of revenue streams from distinct financial activities increases the systematic risk of banks while the effect on the idiosyncratic risk component is non-linear and predominantly downward-sloping. These findings have conflicting implications for different stakeholders, such as investors, bank shareholders, bank managers and bank supervisors.     

On the rationality of Korea's stock market: was the recent Korean financial crisis due to fundamental factors?

This paper examines whether the recent financial crisis in Korea was due to fundamental factors. To address this issue, we identify various components of Korea's stock market prices (KOSPI) and examine their responses to different types of shocks. Given the stationary behavior of KOSPI dividends, we relate stock price directly to earnings by deriving and using a log-linear model of the spread between price and earnings with a time-varying discount factor. Therefore, stock-price movements are explained by earnings (numerator component), time-varying discount factors (denominator component), and non-fundamental factors. Although we find evidence of substantial non-fundamental components in Korea's stock market prices, the sudden decline in Korea's stock market prices during the 1997 financial crisis was primarily due to fundamental components, in particular, the numerator component (e.g. earnings) combined with the denominator component (i.e. time-varying discount factor) rather than non-fundamental factors.     

紧缩流动性会终止A股牛市吗?

"流动性过剩(主动信贷创造)推升股价"仅仅是个神话,是储蓄分流资金推动了本轮牛市。就此而论,市场短期内不必担心流动性枯竭的风险,但必须警惕这类资金使市场变得脆弱。     

Which approach to accounting for employee stock options best reflects market pricing?

We use a residual income valuation framework to compare equity valuation implications of four approaches to employee stock options (ESOs) accounting: APB 25 “recognize nothing”, SFAS 123 (revised) “recognize ESO expense”, FASB Exposure Draft “recognize and expense ESO asset” and “recognize ESO asset and liability”. Theoretical analysis shows only grant date recognition of an asset and liability, and subsequent marking-to-market of the liability, results in accounting numbers that capture the dilution effects of ESOs on current shareholder value. Out-of-sample equity market value prediction tests and in-sample comparisons of model explanatory power also support the “recognize ESO asset and liability” method.     

Do central banks react to the stock market? The case of the Bundesbank

In this paper, we ask whether the Bundesbank, prior to the European Central Bank taking responsibility for monetary policy in 1999, reacted systematically to stock price movements. In contrast to the results for the US, our empirical findings show a generally weak relationship between German stock returns and short-term interest rates at the daily and the monthly frequency. The results are extremely robust to alternative model specifications. The evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis of a systematic reaction of the Bundesbank to German stock prices. However, we do find that, as in the US, the Bundesbank may have reacted to the stock market crash of 1987 by loosening monetary policy.     

When are origin and destination regimes equivalent?

A series of equivalence results are established which show that a switch from a destination regime of commodity taxation to an origin regime has no real effects. These significantly generalize those in the existing literature. Assuming uniformity of taxes within each country, equivalence applies (1) in a general competitive economy with an arbitrary (finite) number of goods and factors of production, arbitrary factor taxes, and arbitrary transport costs; (2) in an imperfectly competitive economy with any form of imperfect competition and with transport costs; and (3) in monetary economies where there is some price rigidity (such as nominal wage rigidity) as long as the exchange rate is flexible. Conditions under which nonequivalence applies are also identified and discussed.     

Why are stock returns and volatility negatively correlated?

The literature documents that low stock returns are associated with increased volatility, but two competing explanations have proved difficult to disentangle. A negative return increases leverage, making equity value more volatile. However, an increase in volatility that persists causes stock prices to drop. We follow Bekaert and Wu [Bekaert, G., Wu, G., 2000. Asymmetric volatility and risk in equity markets. Review of Financial Studies 13, 1–42.] in controlling for leverage, but distinguish between volatility regimes that persist from less persistent changes using GARCH. For post-World War II returns on the value-weighted portfolio of all NYSE stocks, we find that changes in the volatility regime are reflected in stock returns but not in GARCH.