An Analysis of Contrarian Investment Strategies in the UK

The performance of contrarian, or value strategies – those that invest in stocks that have low market value relative to a measure of their fundamentals – continues to attract attention from researchers and practitioners alike. While there is much extant evidence on the profitability of value strategies, however, most of this evidence pertains to the US. In this paper, we provide a detailed characterisation of value strategies using data on UK stocks for the period 1975 to 1998. We first undertake simple one-way and two-way classifications of stocks in which value is defined using both past performance and expected future performance. Using sales growth as a proxy for past performance and book-to-market, earnings yield and cash flow yield as measures of expected future performance, we find that that stocks that have both poor past performance and low expected future performance have significantly higher returns than those that have either good past performance or good expected future performance. Allowing for size effects in returns reduces the value premium but it nevertheless remains significant. We go on to explore whether the profitability of value strategies in the UK can be explained using the three factor model of Fama and French (1996). Broadly consistent with the results for the US, we find that using the one-way classification the excess returns to almost all value strategies can be explained by their loading on the market, book-to-market and size factors. However, in contrast with the US, using the two-way classification there are excess returns to value strategies based on book-to-market and sales growth, even after controlling for their loading on the market, book-to-market and size factors.     

Net equity issuance effect in the UK

Net equity issuance (NEI) by firms has predictive power for US stock returns. This paper examines the NEI anomaly for UK stocks, using regression on firm characteristics and sorted portfolios with several factor models. The anomaly generalises to the UK only in part. We confirm the existence of a large NEI effect for small and midsize stocks, but not for large stocks. The repurchase effect, of positive abnormal returns following repurchases, is absent in the UK. We also find that the NEI effect in smaller stocks is not exploitable by investors, allowing for transaction costs.     

Is the Value Spread a Good Predictor of Stock Returns? UK Evidence

Abstract:  This paper explores the predictive ability of the value spread in the UK. I replicate the US analysis of Liu and Zhang (2007) using UK data. In addition, I extend their work by exploring the predictive ability of the book-to-market, market-to-book and value spread on other size and value investment strategies, namely: large-caps only; small-caps minus large-caps (SML); value stocks only; growth stocks only; value stocks minus growth stocks (VMG) and a market portfolio that includes all stocks. The results are consistent with Liu and Zhang (2007) on the value spread. The value spread shows no predictive power for portfolio returns. Therefore, I show that the predictive power of book-to-market and market-to-book spreads depend on the portfolio formation strategies and the relative proportion of small-cap, large-cap, value and growth stocks in the portfolio.     

Industry Cost of Equity Capital: UK Evidence

Abstract:  This paper explores the industry cost of equity capital for the UK. We replicate the Fama and French (1997) US analysis for UK industries, but additionally investigate the industry cost of equity capital obtained from a conditional CAPM, the Cahart (1997) four factor model, and the Al-Horani, Pope and Stark (2003) R&D model. In line with the Fama-French US results, the out of sample performance of all the models is disappointing Whilst the FF3F model has a somewhat higher explanatory power than the CAPM in terms of explaining past returns, the SMB and HML factor slopes show considerable variability through time. However, all our models of the cost of equity capital in the UK outperform a simple 'beta one' model, a result that has implications for the regulatory process. There is also some evidence to suggest that a conditional CAPM may be of interest to regulators. The new R&D model of Al-Horani et al. clearly has potential, in that over the limited period for which data is available it yields return errors not dissimilar to those found under the FF3F model, but exhibits slope coefficients on the fourth R&D factor that seem to be relatively stable.     

Contrarian Investment and Macroeconomic Risk

It is now widely accepted that contrarian, or value investment strategies deliver superior returns. Gregory, Harris and Michou (2001) examine the performance of contrarian investment strategies in the UK and find that value strategies formed on the basis of a wide range of measures of value have delivered excess returns that are both statistically and economically significant. However, while value strategies appear to be profitable, the reason for their superior perform‐ ance is far from clear. Under the contrarian model, value strategies are profitable because they are contrarian to naïve strategies such as those that erroneously extrapolate past performance, while under the rational pricing model, value strategies are profitable because they are fundamentally riskier in some sense. In this paper, we discriminate between these two possibilities by undertaking a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between the returns to value investment strategies and various macroeconomic state variables that in a multi‐factor asset pricing model could reasonably be taken as proxies for risk. Moreover, we examine whether the returns to value strategies predict future GDP, consumption and investment growth over and above the contribution of the Fama and French (1993 and 1996) SMB, HML and market factors. While the SMB and HML factors behave in a manner consistent with the rational pricing model, we show that some value strategies in the UK are able to generate excess returns that do not seem to be related to known risk factors.