Industry Concentration and Average Stock Returns

Firms in more concentrated industries earn lower returns, even after controlling for size, book‐to‐market, momentum, and other return determinants. Explanations based on chance, measurement error, capital structure, and persistent in‐sample cash flow shocks do not explain this finding. Drawing on work in industrial organization, we posit that either barriers to entry in highly concentrated industries insulate firms from undiversifiable distress risk, or firms in highly concentrated industries are less risky because they engage in less innovation, and thereby command lower expected returns. Additional time‐series tests support these risk‐based interpretations.     

Liquidity,Skewness and Stock Returns: Evidence from Chinese Stock Market

In this paper, a capital asset pricing model (CAPM) incorporating liquidity and skewness factors is proposed and tested by using the Chinese stock market data. The empirical results indicate that, under various market conditions, the liquidity-adjusted three-moment CAPM provides a better fit to the realized returns of various stock portfolios. Overall, this research reveals that illiquidity cost, liquidity risk and as well as skewness have important impacts on asset pricing in the Chinese stock market.     

交易偏好、公司特征与股票收益——基于我国个体投资者交易数据的实证检验

噪音交易是影响股票收益的重要风险因素,对于那些噪音交易活跃、套利成本较高的股票,噪音交易者需求变动对股票价格的影响更为显著。本文以我国个体投资者2006年-2011年的交易数据为样本,按照公司特征对样本股进行分组,发现个体投资者对小盘、低价、高账面市值比、高收益和高特质波动的股票具有更强的交易偏好,且对股票需求的变动存在显著的系统相关性,个体投资者需求变动对股票价格的影响程度与其交易偏好有关。本文的研究结论为个体投资者交易行为理论提供了有价值的实证支持。     

Investor Sentiment and Stock Returns: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates the relation between investor sentiment and stock returns on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, employing vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis and Granger causality tests. The sample period extends from July 1997 to June 2005. In the VAR models, stock portfolio returns and investor sentiment proxies are used as endogenous variables. Two dummy variables accounting for natural and economic crises are used as exogenous variables. The analysis results suggest that, excepting shares of equity issues in aggregate issues, stock portfolio returns seem to affect all investor sentiment proxies, namely closed-end fund discount, mutual fund flows, odd-lot sales-to-purchases ratio, and repo holdings of mutual funds. Investor sentiment does not appear to forecast future stock returns; only the turnover ratio of the stock market seems to have forecasting potential.     

Stock Market Returns and Inflation: Evidence from Other Countries

This paper investigates the relation between common stock returns and inflation in twenty-six countries for the postwar period. Our results do not support the Fisher Hypothesis, which states that real rates of return on common stocks and expected inflation rates are independent and that nominal stock returns vary in one-to-one correspondence with expected inflation. There is a consistent lack of positive relation between stock returns and inflation in most of the countries.     

投资者分歧、异常交易量和股票横截面收益率预测——基于中国股票市场的经验证据

本文定义月度异常交易量为本月与上个月交易金额的比值,发现中国市场月度收益率与滞后一个月的异常交易量显著负相关。在控制了公司规模、账面市值比、流动性以及动量效应等指标后仍然具有显著的解释作用。进一步研究表明,在出现高异常交易量后的12个月内,换手率和特质性波动率都有大幅上升。本文认为,交易量上升代表着市场分歧程度和受关注程度的增加,在卖空约束下会使得股票价值高估,从而造成未来收益率下降。     

Firm Size and Cyclical Variations in Stock Returns

Recent imperfect capital market theories predict the presence of asymmetries in the variation of small and large firms' risk over the economic cycle. Small firms with little collateral should be more strongly affected by tighter credit market conditions in a recession state than large, better collateralized ones. This paper adopts a flexible econometric model to analyze these mplications empirically. Consistent with theory, small firms display the highest degree of asymmetry in their risk across recession and expansion states, which translates into a higher sensitivity of their expected stock returns with respect to variables that measure credit market conditions.     

Investor Attention and Stock Returns: International Evidence

This article examines the asymmetric/discriminative effects of investor attention on expected stock returns among 15 markets through economic expansions and recessions. The predictive power of attention tends to be short-lived and weakens the autocorrelation within returns. Accounting for business cycles not only confirms that the predictability of attention endures with volatility but also explicates the asymmetric effects that underlying pessimism functions better. International evidence contributes to the literature on investor attention and reveals the discrepant effects of attention with three levels of market efficiency: semi-strong, stronger than semi-strong, and weak.     

Equity Ownership and Firm Value: Evidence from Targeted Stock Repurchases

In contrast to the negative average abnormal return associated with the announcement of a control‐related targeted repurchase (greenmail transaction), we find that the announcement of a noncontrol‐related targeted repurchase is associated with a positive and significant average abnormal return. Cross‐sectional analysis indicates that the change in firm value at the announcement of a noncontrol‐related targeted repurchase is negatively related to the resulting changes in both insider ownership and outside blockholdings. We also find significant differences in announcement‐period stock price effects depending on the identity of the selling shareholder.     

Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

Dividend Stability, Dividend Yield and Stock Returns: UK Evidence

This paper establishes an empirical role for two measures of dividend stability (as a proxy for dividend policy) in explaining UK stock returns. There is little systematic empirical evidence concerning the relation between dividend stability, dividend yield and stock returns despite the fact that a variety of theoretical models point to dividend policy as an important stock attribute. Here we construct two definitions of dividend stability, one of which involves dividend cuts, and use a sample of all listed UK firms from 1975 to 1997 to explore the relationship between stock returns and a variety of characteristics, including dividend stability. We find an inverse correlation between the stability of past dividend policy and systematic risk. Both stability measures have explanatory power over returns, but this is concentrated in January.     

Structural Changes in Expected Stock Returns Relationships: Evidence from ASE

Abstract:  This paper suggests a recursive application of Fama and MacBeth's (1973) testing procedure to assess the significance of macroeconomic factors and firm-specific effects priced in explaining the cross-sectional variation of expected stock returns over time. The paper applies the suggested testing procedure to investigate the source of risks of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Among the variables examined, it finds out that the changes in the short term interest rates and firm size can explain a significant proportion of the variation of the ASE individual returns. The paper argues that the significance of interest rate changes can be associated with monetary policy changes introduced by the Greek authorities after the mid-nineties. These changes were focused on targeting interest rates, instead of monetary aggregates.     

Corporate Social Performance and Stock Returns: UK Evidence from Disaggregate Measures

This study examines the relation between corporate social performance and stock returns in the UK. We closely evaluate the interactions between social and financial performance with a set of disaggregated social performance indicators for environment, employment, and community activities instead of using an aggregate measure. While scores on a composite social performance indicator are negatively related to stock returns, we find the poor financial reward offered by such firms is attributable to their good social performance on the environment and, to a lesser extent, the community aspects. Considerable abnormal returns are available from holding a portfolio of the socially least desirable stocks. These relationships between social and financial performance can be rationalized by multi-factor models for explaining the cross-sectional variation in returns, but not by industry effects.     

Volatility,Efficiency, and Trading: Evidence from the Japanese Stock Market

We study the joint effect of the trading mechanism and the time at which transactions take place on the behavior of stock returns using data from Japan. The Tokyo Stock Exchange employs a periodic clearing procedure twice a day, at the opening of both the morning and the afternoon sessions. This enables us to discern the effect of the clearing mechanism from the effect of the overnight trading halt. While the periodic clearing at the beginning of the trading day is noisy and inefficient, the midday clearing transaction appears to be no worse than the two closing transactions.     

Volatility Clustering, Asymmetry and Hysteresis in Stock Returns: International Evidence

Encompassing a very broad family of ARCH-GARCH models, we show that the AT-GARCH (1,1) model, where volatility rises more in response to bad newsthan to good news, and where news are considered bad only below a certain level, is a remarkably robust representation of worldwide stock market returns. The residual structure is then captured by extending ATGARCH (1,1) to an hysteresis model, HGARCH, where we modelstructured memory effects from past innovations. Obviously, this feature relates to the psychology of the markets and the way traders process information. For the French stock market we show that votalitity is affected differently, depending on the recent past being characterized by returns all above or below a certain level. In the same way a longer term trend may also influence volatility. It is found that bad news are discounted very quickly in volatility, this effect being reinforced when it comes after a negative trend in the stock index. On the opposite, good news have a very small impact on volatility except when they are clustered over a few days, which in this case reduces volatility.     

Relations Between Stock Returns and Fundamental Variables: Evidence from a Segmented Market

This study examines relations between stock returns and potential explanatory factors in Korea, an important and segmented emerging market. Our results show that Korean stock returns in general and returns on stocks listed in Section 1 in particular are significantly positively related to book-to-market, sales-price, and debt-equity ratios, but not significantly related to market value of equity. Returns on stocks listed in Section 2 are, however, negatively related to market value of equity and not significantly related to the other three variables. Among the variables investigated by us, book-to-market ratio has the greatest explanatory power for stock returns and it indicates superior returns for value stocks. Our findings strengthen the international evidence of the role of book-to-market ratio in explaining stock returns by demonstrating its significance even in the segmented Korean market.     

Stock Returns Under High Inflation and Interest Rates: Evidence from the Brazilian Market

We analyze the relationship of high inflation and interest rates with stock returns in Brazil from May 1986 to May 2011, during which Brazil experienced subperiods of both high inflation (May 1986-June 1994) and relative monetary stability (July 1994-May 2011). The result in the total period is dominated by high inflation volatility, and the findings suggest a bidirectional relationship between stock returns and inflation. During the high-inflation subperiod, interest rates are relevant to explain future changes in inflation and stock returns. Under low inflation, movements in interest rates are better anticipated by equity investors, suggesting higher market efficiency than in high-inflation circumstances.     

证券投资基金与公司绩效关系研究——基于中国A股上市公司的证据

机构投资者倾向于长期投资和价值投资,可以对上市公司的治理发挥积极作用,从而改善公司绩效。在这种观点的影响下,近年来政府监管部门出台了一系列促进机构投资者发展的政策和措施,中国证券投资基金也出现了大规模增长,那么证券投资基金与上市公司绩效的关系究竟如何是值得我们关注的问题,本文运用面板数据的固定效应模型分析证券投资基金持股比例与公司绩效的关系,并对结果进行稳健型检验。     

The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns: New Evidence from an Emerging Market

Over 300 factors have been found to explain the cross-section of expected stock returns. Empirical studies also show that findings from multifactor asset-pricing models have not been consistent in an emerging market. Using DuPont analysis and a residual income valuation model for 284 nonfinancial companies on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during the period 2008–2014, findings suggest that the return on equity and its change are informative for stock returns in Vietnam. In addition, the level of capital turnover, financial cost ratio (FCR), and changes in capital and in the FCR contain incremental explanatory power for stock returns.     

Federal Reserve Monetary Policy and Industry Stock Returns

Recent studies identify stock return patterns associated with changes in Federal Reserve monetary policy. We find that these return patterns prevail across sixteen industry stock indices. However, significant cross-industry variation exists as the apparel industry exhibits mean annual returns that are 50% higher under an expansive Fed policy than under a restrictive policy, while the same return difference for the oil industry is only 20%. This cross-industry variation suggests that monetary conditions may be used by investors to estimate different expected returns across industries. Furthermore, the findings support the view that monetary considerations should be considered in ex ante asset pricing models such as the CAPM.