The turn-of-the-year effect and tax-loss-selling by institutional investors

Prior studies attribute the turn-of-the-year effect whereby small capitalization stocks earn unusually high returns in early January to tax-loss-selling by individual investors and window-dressing by institutional investors. My results suggest that a significant portion of the effect on turn-of-the-year returns that prior studies attribute to window-dressing is actually attributable to tax-loss-selling by institutional investors. Among small capitalization stocks, I find that institutional investors with strong tax incentives and weak window-dressing incentives realize significantly more losses in the fourth quarter than in the first three quarters of the calendar year, and that their fourth quarter realized losses have a significant impact on turn-of-the-year returns. A one percentage point change in these institutional investors' fourth quarter realized losses scaled by a firm's market capitalization results in an increase of 47 basis points in the firm's average daily return over the first three trading days of January, which represents a 46 percent change for the mean firm.     

Size-related anomalies and stock return seasonality: Further empirical evidence

This study examines, month-by-month, the empirical relation between abnormal returns and market value of NYSE and AMEX common stocks. Evidence is provided that daily abnormal return distributions in January have large means relative to the remaining eleven months, and that the relation between abnormal returns and size is always negative and more pronounced in January than in any other month — even in years when, on average, large firms earn larger risk-adjusted returns than small firms. In particular, nearly fifty percent of the average magnitude of the ‘size effect’ over the period 1963–1979 is due to January abnormal returns. Further, more than fifty percent of the January premium is attributable to large abnormal returns during the first week of trading in the year, particularly on the first trading day.     

Revisiting calendar anomalies in Asian stock markets using a stochastic dominance approach

Extensive evidence on the prevalence of calendar effects suggests that there exist abnormal returns. Some recent studies, however, have concluded that calendar effects have largely disappeared. In spite of the non-normal nature of stock returns, most previous studies have employed the mean-variance criterion or CAPM statistics. These methods rely on the normality assumption and depend only on the first two moments to test for calendar effects. A limitation of these approaches is that they miss important information contained in the data such as higher moments. In this paper we use a stochastic dominance (SD) test to test for the existence of day-of-the-week and January effects. We use daily data for 1988–2002 for several Asian markets. Our empirical results support the existence of weekday and monthly seasonality effects in some Asian markets, but suggest that first-order SD for the January effect has largely disappeared.     

Long‐term Performance of Greek IPOs

We analyse the long‐run performance of 254 Greek IPOs that were listed during the period 1994–2002, computing buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns (BHAR) and cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) over 36 months of secondary market performance. The empirical results differ from international evidence and reveal long‐term overperformance that continues for a substantial interval after listing. Measuring these returns in calendar time, we find statistical significance with several of the benchmarks employed. We also find that long‐term overperformance is a feature of the mass of IPOs conducted during a pronounced IPO wave. Cross‐sectional regressions of long‐run performance disclose several significant factors. The study demonstrates that although Greek IPOs overperform the market for a longer period, underperformance eventually emerges, in line with much international evidence. Our interpretation is that the persistence of overperformance over a significant interval is due to excessive supply of issues during the ‘hot IPO period’. Results associated with pricing during the ‘hot IPO period’ indicate positive short‐ (1‐year), medium‐ (2‐year) and negative long‐term (3‐year) performance.     

East meets West: When the Islamic and Gregorian calendars coincide

Recent research has documented that at the time of religious celebrations in Muslim countries, such as Ramadan, there is a “festival” effect in share returns. In the Gregorian calendar, December is also a time of celebration and festivities which may be associated with patterns in the behaviour of security prices. Further, the first month of the year in the Islamic calendar, Muharram, is a time of sadness and mourning for some believers, and there may be an effect when the Islamic first month of the year overlaps with the first month of the Gregorian year - January. Over a 33-year cycle, each Islamic month falls in a Gregorian month for about 5–6 consecutive years; when this happens, an Islamic (Eastern) calendar effect may interact with a Gregorian (Western) calendar effect. The current paper addresses this issue by examining the behaviour of share returns and volatility for individual companies listed in Muslim countries’ stock exchanges when the two calendars coincide for: (i) religious festival effects; (ii) first-month-of-the-year effects; and (iii) the two most common effects reported in the Islamic and Gregorian calendars (Ramadan and January). The results show that the Western and Eastern effects interact more prominently in larger companies and in larger or more developed markets.     

A COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION OF VOLUME EFFECTS AND SEASONALITY IN DAILY SECURITY RETURNS

In this study, an integrated model of return seasonality is developed and the hypothesis that seasonality is associated with changes in relative trading volume is examined. Return regularities associated with the turn of the month, the week of the month, and holiday closings are documented. Beyond these effects, neither the turn of the year nor the January effect is significant for large firms. Relative volume is shown to display calendar regularities similar to those in returns, and tests indicate a causal relationship flowing from volume to returns.     

Calendar Anomalies: The Case of International Property Shares

In this paper we analyze the price dynamics of international property shares for the ten most prominent markets from around the world plus South-Africa. We focus on the presence of calendar effects in daily and monthly price returns and examine these effects both over time and across countries. For the daily returns we find price anomalies for Fridays and Mondays in all markets. Friday returns tend to be the highest of the week, while Mondays are weakest. We find that these patterns were most prominent during the 1980s and early 1990s and in the smaller markets in our sample. For the monthly returns we found little evidence for price irregularities. In most cases January was superior to most other months, but these differences lacked statistical significance. More interesting was the sell in May effect that seemed to be present in ten out of 11 markets. Price returns during the winter season outperformed the summer months and in five countries these difference were both economically and statistically significant. Finally, we looked at firm level returns to isolate the drivers of these infamous calendar effects. The day-of-the-week effect appears to be most pronounced among small and young firms that have little or no institutional investors. Large and long-established listed real estate firms with a large portion of loyal block-holders experience no significant price patterns during the trading week.

Loan loss provisions and return predictability: A dynamic perspective

This paper examines the impact of loan loss provisions (LLPs) on return predictability during 1994–2017. We find that on average, LLPs are negatively associated with one year ahead stock returns. This effect is particularly significant during the global financial crisis but much weaker during the Basel II and III periods. Consistent with these findings, a long–short trading strategy based on LLPs generates positive abnormal returns during the Basel II and III periods but negative abnormal returns during the financial crisis. Cross-sectional tests show that this effect is more pronounced among banks with greater information asymmetry. Decomposition of LLPs suggests that these findings are driven mainly by nondiscretionary LLPs. Overall, our results suggest that the relationship between LLPs and future stock returns is not linear but contingent on bank regulations and macroeconomic conditions.     

The anomalous stock market behavior of small firms in January: Empirical tests for tax-loss selling effects

Small firms experience large returns in January and exceptionally large returns during the first few trading days of January. The empirical tests indicate that the abnormally high returns witnessed at the very beginning of January appear to be consistent with tax-loss selling. However, tax-loss selling cannot explain the entire January seasonal effect. The small firms least likely to be sold for tax reasons (prior year ‘winners’) also exhibit large average January returns, although not unusually large returns during the first few days of January.     

The abnormal return associated with consecutive dividend increases

Several studies conclude that dividend changes that are seemingly predictable on a calendar basis attract abnormal returns. We study the abnormal returns associated with consecutive dividend increases to understand this puzzle. We use regression techniques to study the relation between the number of consecutive dividend increases and the abnormal return associated with the events. Further, we study whether this relation is sensitive to firm characteristics by partitioning the regressions by the characteristics that influence the abnormal return. Our results show that the abnormal returns associated with consecutive dividend increases decline at a diminishing rate and they do not disappear, consistent with the puzzle. In addition, the decline in returns is slowest among firms that are unprofitable, small, or have high payouts. These findings suggest that the abnormal returns persist because firms that are not expected to continue a dividend-increase streak based on their characteristics do so, surprising the market and perpetuating the abnormal return.     

Long-run Performance after Stock Splits: 1927 to 1996

We measure the postsplit performance of 12,747 stock splits from 1927 to 1996 using two methods to measure abnormal returns: size and book‐to‐market reference portfolios with bootstrapping, and calendar‐time abnormal returns combined with factor models. Between 1927 and 1996, neither method applied to splits 25 percent or larger finds performance significantly different from zero. Over selected subperiods, subsamples of 2–1 splits restricted by book‐to‐market availability requirements display positive abnormal returns using some methods. However, these samples show small or negligible abnormal returns using the calendar‐time method. Overall, the stock split evidence against market efficiency is neither pervasive nor compelling.     

Turn-of-Month Evaluations of Liquid Profits and Stock Returns: A Common Explanation for the Monthly and January Effects

This paper presents and tests a hypothesis that the standardization of payments in the United States at the turn of each calendar month generally induces a surge in stock returns at the turn of each calendar month. The hypothesis also asserts that returns generally will be greater following the month of December and will vary inversely with the stringency of monetary policy. Empirical results using stock index returns for 1969–1986 support the hypothesis. This analysis provides an explanation for the previously documented monthly effect in stock returns and a partial explanation for the January effect.     

BENCHMARK ERROR AND THE SMALL FIRM EFFECT: A REVISIT

In this study benchmark error is tested for as a source of the small firm effect by comparing the results from ordinary least squares and instrumental variable methods. Although the instrument is not perfect, results show that benchmark error could be a cause of the overall (all months) small firm effect. Results from the instrumental variable method indicate that large January abnormal returns are still present, but that they are offset by negative non-January abnormal returns. As a result, the instrumental variable results show that there is no longer a significant overall “effect,” merely a seasonal effect. It is also found that the results are not sensitive to the choice of the market index.     

A monthly effect in stock returns

The mean return for stocks is positive only for days immediately before and during the first half of calendar months, and indistinguishable from zero for days during the last half of the month. This ‘monthly effect’ is independent of other known calendar anomalies such as the January effect documented by others and appears to be caused by a shift in the mean of the distribution of returns from days in the first half of the month relative to days in the last half.     

The tax-loss selling hypothesis,market liquidity,and price pressure around the turn-of-the-year

In this paper, we use intra-day data for all stocks listed on the ISSM and provide new and direct evidence consistent with the tax-loss selling hypothesis. We find that (a) there is abnormal selling pressure prior to the year-end for stocks that have experienced large capital losses in the current and prior years (b) investors delay realizing capital gain by postponing the sale of capital gain stocks until after the new year (c) there is a significant decrease in the average trade size for stocks with large capital losses before the year-end and for stocks with capital gains in the new year, which suggests that individuals, rather than institutional investors, are the major sellers around the year-end (d) the tax-loss selling hypothesis, and not firm size or share price, is the fundamental explanation for abnormal January returns. Further, small or low share priced firms with capital gains do not experience abnormal returns in January. However, conditional on capital losses, small or low share priced firms magnify the turn-of-the-year effect (e) On average, the increase in selling activity adversely affects market liquidity by increasing bid-ask spreads and reducing depths. (f) The tax-loss selling pressure not only causes the price to be at the bid at the year-end, it also temporarily depresses the equilibrium price indicating the short run demand curve is not perfectly elastic (g) the year-end buying activity suggests that large investors buy capital loss stocks prior to the year-end to take advantage of the temporarily depressed price and capital gain stocks after the new year to reinvest the proceeds of the tax-loss selling.     

TAX-LOSS SELLING,INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS,AND THE JANUARY EFFECT: A NOTE

In this note we test the hypothesis that trading by tax-motivated individual investors is responsible for the January effect. We examine the ownership structure of a large sample of firms over a four-year period and find that the small firms that usually exhibit high January returns have low institutional ownership. After controlling for firm size, we still find that institutional ownership is significantly related to January abnormal returns. These results suggest that one reason the January effect may concentrate in small firms is because these firms are held by tax-motivated individual investors.     

Probability of information-based trading and the January effect

We investigate the seasonality in the probability of information-based trading (PIN)–return relationship, the ‘January PIN effect’. We find that on average stock returns decrease with PIN in January, in contrast to other calendar months. This pattern is more apparent for small stocks. We argue that this seasonality is related to the January effect. According to the analysis, the December selling pressure associated with the January effect decreases in PIN, especially for small stocks. This suggests that when the price bounces back in January, low-PIN stocks will exhibit a larger return within a small stock group, leading to the negative PIN–return pattern. Furthermore, this seasonality is not the same as other January anomalies associated with momentum and idiosyncratic risk.     

The January effect for individual corporate bonds

We examine the presence, magnitude and determinants of a January effect for individual corporate bonds. Our results provide empirical evidence of positive and statistically (but not economically) significant abnormal returns in January across different event windows and models. Our results suggest that, in the addition to the term and default factors, the excess stock returns, size and book-to-market factors are priced for individual bond returns. We investigate a number of determinants of the January abnormal returns for individual bonds. Our findings suggest that the reversal and tax-loss selling effects are important determinants of the abnormal returns on individual bonds.     

Another January effect—Evidence from stock split announcements

This paper examines whether there is a January effect in the propensity and abnormal returns of stock split announcements. It provides primary evidence in the investigation of using monthly effects to explain the patterns of stock splits. The results show that the January effect exists in the likelihood of the occurrence of share splits and in the associated short-term abnormal returns. We also find that another monthly effect—the Halloween effect—exists in stock split announcements. However, the January effect has a much larger and considerably more significant impact on the probability and returns of these announcements. The results of this paper shed light on why we observe patterns in the announcement of corporate events.     

Stock Price Adjustment to the Information in Dividend Changes

This paper examines abnormal stock returns in the three years surrounding relatively large changes in dividends announced during the 1971 to 1990 period. The main results are that statistically and economically significant negative post-announcement abnormal returns of 11% and 17% over the post-announcement year are found for firms which decrease dividends and those which omit their dividends. Firms resuming and firms increasing dividends do not exhibit significant abnormal returns, on average, over the post-announcement year. The pattern of lagged price adjustment to negative dividend change information differs from that reported for 'earnings surprise' firms in important respects. While the dividend change firms do exhibit returns behavior consistent with year-to-year returns momentum, differences in prior year returns do not explain the differences in returns over the post-announcement period.