Star Analysts,Overreaction, and Synchronicity: Evidence from China and the United States

This paper examines star analyst coverage, investor overreaction, and stock price synchronicity in the Chinese and US markets. In China, we find that star analyst coverage can induce investor overreaction, such that it is negatively correlated with price synchronicity. This overreaction effect is particularly pronounced for stocks with primarily individual investors. In contrast, in the United States, we find that star analyst coverage is positively related to synchronicity and is not significantly associated with investor overreaction. Our overall findings imply that the heterogeneous nature of investors in a market drives the association among star analyst coverage, overreaction, and stock price synchronicity.     

Information Diffusion and Overreaction: Evidence from the Chinese Stock Market

This paper empirically examines the relation between overreaction and the speed of information diffusion in the Chinese stock market. Industry-adjusted firm size and residual analyst coverage are used to proxy the speed of information diffusion. We document strong evidence that the profitability of a monthly contrarian strategy decreases with industry-adjusted firm size or residual analyst coverage. Moreover, the profitability of contrarian strategies survives for a longer horizon for stocks with slower information diffusion than for those with faster information diffusion. This result holds true even if risk, bid-ask spread, lead-lag effect, inventory costs, and limits to arbitrage are properly accounted for. Our findings suggest that information environment and information diffusion determine the extent of overreaction.     

中国A股市场过度波动之谜——基于日个股回报率的实证研究

本文首次基于方差差(Variance Difference)指标对股票回报率过度波动进行量化,并分别运用组合研究和Fama-Macbeth回归的方法,从过度波动与股票回报率之间关系的角度研究了中国A股市场的过度波动现象。基于1995-2010年A股日回报率的实证结果表明,A股市场日回报率波动中存在投资者过度反应导致的过度波动,过度波动带来的额外风险"驱逐"了风险回避的理性投资者,使得股市出现低估。通过每月买入过度波动最大的20%股票,同时卖出过度波动最小的20%股票,能获得显著为正的超额收益,并且该超额收益不能被市场风险所解释。     

Arbitrage Asymmetry and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle

Buying is easier than shorting for many equity investors. Combining this arbitrage asymmetry with the arbitrage risk represented by idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) explains the negative relation between IVOL and average return. The IVOL‐return relation is negative among overpriced stocks but positive among underpriced stocks, with mispricing determined by combining 11 return anomalies. Consistent with arbitrage asymmetry, the negative relation among overpriced stocks is stronger, especially for stocks less easily shorted, so the overall IVOL‐return relation is negative. Further supporting our explanation, high investor sentiment weakens the positive relation among underpriced stocks and, especially, strengthens the negative relation among overpriced stocks.     

Dissecting the idiosyncratic volatility anomaly

The idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) anomaly, documented in Ang, et al. (2006), has garnered a great deal of attention in the literature. Yet questions remain regarding the robustness and pervasiveness of the IVOL anomaly, with a particular concern that the IVOL anomaly might simply be the manifestation of market microstructure effect. In this paper, we show that the IVOL anomaly is strong and pervasive after we exclude stocks most susceptible to market microstructure noise — such as microcap stocks, penny stocks, and stocks with strong short-term return reversal. These results are robust to equal-weighting or value-weighting stocks in the IVOL portfolios. Our findings suggest that rather than being the cause of the anomaly, market microstructure noise actually weakens the IVOL anomaly.     

Do online searches actually measure future retail investor trades?

Using the total daily amount traded exclusively by retail investors in the Brazilian stock market from 2018 to 2020, we find that online searches exhibit a strong association with the future trades of retail investors and that this relationship is observable under different market conditions. Moreover, we also document that the alternative approaches commonly used in the literature to capture investor attention with online searches, such as tickers versus company names, market index attention versus aggregated individual stock attention, or log-differences versus abnormal log-differences of search volumes, are all consistent measures to capture future investor trades. Overall, our findings strongly support the view that online searches are a coherent proxy for the presence of retail investors in the stock market.     

资本市场开放与股权资本成本——基于沪港通、深港通的实证研究

本文基于沪港通和深港通研究资本市场开放对中国内地股权资本成本的影响。研究发现,受政策风险和市场环境等因素所限,沪港通在初始阶段并未对沪市公司的股权资本成本产生显著影响,但随着政策进一步完善、市场逐渐稳定和交易不断活跃,其对股权资本成本的降低效果于实施两年后开始显现;深港通建立在沪港通的制度基础和运行经验上,其在开通后显著降低了标的公司的股权资本成本。本文还进一步分析了资本市场开放影响股权资本成本的竞争渠道和信息渠道,发现深港通对股权资本成本的降低作用主要集中在投资者竞争程度较高,或是公开信息质量较高、信息不对称程度较低的股票样本。     

资本市场开放与股权资本成本——基于沪港通、深港通的实证研究

本文基于沪港通和深港通研究资本市场开放对中国内地股权资本成本的影响。研究发现,受政策风险和市场环境等因素所限,沪港通在初始阶段并未对沪市公司的股权资本成本产生显著影响,但随着政策进一步完善、市场逐渐稳定和交易不断活跃,其对股权资本成本的降低效果于实施两年后开始显现;深港通建立在沪港通的制度基础和运行经验上,其在开通后显著降低了标的公司的股权资本成本。本文还进一步分析了资本市场开放影响股权资本成本的竞争渠道和信息渠道,发现深港通对股权资本成本的降低作用主要集中在投资者竞争程度较高,或是公开信息质量较高、信息不对称程度较低的股票样本。     

Trusting the Stock Market

We study the effect that a general lack of trust can have on stock market participation. In deciding whether to buy stocks, investors factor in the risk of being cheated. The perception of this risk is a function of the objective characteristics of the stocks and the subjective characteristics of the investor. Less trusting individuals are less likely to buy stock and, conditional on buying stock, they will buy less. In Dutch and Italian micro data, as well as in cross‐country data, we find evidence consistent with lack of trust being an important factor in explaining the limited participation puzzle.     

Short sales,institutional investors and the cross-section of stock returns

Short-sale constraints are most likely to bind among stocks with low institutional ownership. Because of institutional constraints, most professional investors simply never sell short and hence cannot trade against overpricing of stocks they do not own. Furthermore, stock loan supply tends to be sparse and short selling more expensive when institutional ownership is low. Using institutional ownership as a proxy, I find that short-sale constraints help explain cross-sectional stock return anomalies. Specifically, holding size fixed, the under-performance of stocks with high market-to-book, analyst forecast dispersion, turnover, or volatility is most pronounced among stocks with low institutional ownership. Ownership by passive investors with large stock lending programs partly mitigates this under-performance, indicating some impact of stock loan supply. Prices of stocks with low institutional ownership also underreact to bad cash-flow news and overreact to good cash-flow news, consistent with the idea that short-sale constraints hold negative opinions off the market for these stocks.     

Individual Investors and Volatility

We show that retail trading activity has a positive effect on the volatility of stock returns, which suggests that retail investors behave as noise traders. To identify this effect, we use a reform of the French stock market that raises the relative cost of speculative trading for retail investors. The daily return volatility of the stocks affected by the reform falls by 20 basis points (a quarter of the sample standard deviation of the return volatility) relative to other stocks. For affected stocks, we also find a significant decrease in the magnitude of return reversals and the price impact of trades.     

The relative informational efficiency of corporate retail bonds: Evidence from the London Stock Exchange

I examine the relative informational efficiency of the London Stock Exchange's newly launched Order book for Retail Bonds (ORB). I find that the daily returns for the stocks of the issuing firms lead the daily returns of the retail bonds born in the ORB. This finding also holds for pre-existing bonds that were transferred to the ORB from the LSE's Main Market and for the bonds with different credit ratings, issue sizes, and maturity times. I also find that bonds have very limited predictive ability for stock returns. Overall, the results provide strong evidence that the underlying stock market is relatively more efficient than the ORB. Further, the relative informational inefficiency of the ORB implies profitable trading opportunities for private investors.     

Stock market entry timing and retail investors' disposition effect

This paper explores the long-lasting impact of investors' first impression of participation in the stock market and the disposition effect. Using a unique dataset of account-level transaction records from a large brokerage firm in China, we find strong evidence for the existence of a disposition effect of Chinese retail investors. Our empirical results suggest that investors exhibit a stronger disposition effect if they initially participate in the stock market in periods of lower market returns, lower investor sentiment, higher market volatility, or higher economic policy uncertainty (EPU). The evidence enhances our understanding of the role of investors' early experience in stock market decisions and the determinants of behavioural biases in investment decisions.     

The Extreme Future Stock Returns Following I/B/E/S Earnings Surprises

We investigate the stock returns subsequent to quarterly earnings surprises, where the benchmark for an earnings surprise is the consensus analyst forecast. By defining the surprise relative to an analyst forecast rather than a time‐series model of expected earnings, we document returns subsequent to earnings announcements that are much larger, persist for much longer, and are more heavily concentrated in the long portion of the hedge portfolio than shown in previous studies. We show that our results hold after controlling for risk and previously documented anomalies, and are positive for every quarter between 1988 and 2000. Finally, we explore the financial results and information environment of firms with extreme earnings surprises and find that they tend to be “neglected” stocks with relatively high book‐to‐market ratios, low analyst coverage, and high analyst forecast dispersion. In the three subsequent years, firms with extreme positive earnings surprises tend to have persistent earnings surprises in the same direction, strong growth in cash flows and earnings, and large increases in analyst coverage, relative to firms with extreme negative earnings surprises. We also show that the returns to the earnings surprise strategy are highest in the quartile of firms where transaction costs are highest and institutional investor interest is lowest, consistent with the idea that market inefficiencies are more prevalent when frictions make it difficult for large, sophisticated investors to exploit the inefficiencies.     

Responsible investment in the Chinese stock market

This paper provides insights into the current development of responsible investment in the Chinese stock market. We find that responsible investment can bring portfolio benefits to investors, and institutional investors have a holding preference for stocks in responsible investment indexes. By using a national air pollution proxy, we find that investors’ pessimistic mood on days with heavy air pollution has a negative influence on the stock return of A-shares, while stocks in responsible investment indexes display improved performance over the same time period. We use aggregated trading data to study the trading preference of Chinese retail investors on days when they are influenced by air pollution, and find that their total trading ratio shows a negative influence for both A-shares and responsible investment indexes. Moreover, there is more seller-initiated trading of the whole sample but more buyer-initiated trading of stocks in responsible investment indexes on air pollution days. This finding is consistent with the different stock return performances of these two samples. Our finding extends the studies of responsible investment to emerging markets and presents new evidence about the influence of environmental factors on trading behavior and return performance.     

How do stocks react to extreme market events? Evidence from Brazil

This paper studies the short-term (21 trading days) behavior of Brazilian stocks in the event of extreme movements in the Brazilian market index. Using cumulative abnormal returns, we find that stocks tend to overreact after both positive and negative events, as well as global and domestic shocks. Interestingly, this behavior is particularly intense when the events are not clustered. This counterintuitive finding can be explained by the Contrast Hypothesis, since shocks during calm circumstances can be viewed by investors as more surprising. In fact, when we split events according to market volatility, we document a stronger overreaction when volatility is low.     

新股发行机制、投资者乐观情绪与IPO高抑价

固定价格、累计投标询价和拍卖发行机制下的IPO抑价模型可解释我国新股发行市场长期存在的高抑价现象:散户投资者对新股发行的乐观情绪会推高二级市场的IPO交易价格,但却不能在IPO发行定价中得到完全体现。单纯通过变革新股发行机制并不能够从根本上抑制IPO高抑价产生,只有疏导散户投资者的乐观情绪才能彻底解决IPO高抑价问题,权宜之策是将散户投资者的乐观情绪嵌入IPO发行定价之中以消除IPO高抑价现象,允许散户投资者参与询价可以有效缓解这一现象,且具有可操作性。     

Momentum in the Chinese Stock Market: Evidence from Stochastic Oscillator Indicators

ABSTRACT

We explore whether investors earn profits through the use of stochastic oscillator indicators (SOI) for trading stocks. The results reveal that investors might use momentum strategies when trading constituent stocks of SSE 50 as the overbought trading signals emitted by SOI. We infer that the results might be caused by herding behaviors of Chinese investors since overoptimistic moods are likely to exist as evidenced by the 80 percent trading volume traded by individual investors in the Chinese stock market.     

The valuation effect of stock dividends or splits: Evidence from a catering perspective

We hypothesize that managers use stock dividends or splits to cater to gambling investors who are willing to pay a premium for stocks with lottery-like features. Using proprietary account-level trading records, we find that retail investors, particularly those with a strong gambling preference, become strong net buyers following the announcement of stock dividends, while professional investors unload their holdings. Moreover, we find that positive market reactions to stock dividends is positively associated with increases in gambling investors.     

Media Coverage and the Cross-section of Stock Returns

By reaching a broad population of investors, mass media can alleviate informational frictions and affect security pricing even if it does not supply genuine news. We investigate this hypothesis by studying the cross-sectional relation between media coverage and expected stock returns. We find that stocks with no media coverage earn higher returns than stocks with high media coverage even after controlling for well-known risk factors. These results are more pronounced among small stocks and stocks with high individual ownership, low analyst following, and high idiosyncratic volatility. Our findings suggest that the breadth of information dissemination affects stock returns.