Idiosyncratic Risk and REIT Returns

The volatility of a stock returns can be decomposed into market and firm-specific volatility, with the former commonly known as systematic risk and the later as idiosyncratic risk. This study examines the relevance of idiosyncratic risk in explaining the monthly cross-sectional returns of REIT stocks. Contrary to the CAPM theory, a significant positive relationship is found between idiosyncratic volatility and the cross-sectional returns. This suggests that firm-specific risk matters in REIT pricing. The regression results further show that once idiosyncratic risk is controlled for in the asset-pricing model, the size and book-to-market equity ratio factors ceased to be significant. The explanatory power of the momentum effect remains robust in the presence of idiosyncratic risk.

Idiosyncratic Risk in Emerging Markets

In this study, I examine the properties and portfolio management implications of value‐weighted idiosyncratic volatility in 24 emerging markets. This paper provides evidence against the view that the rise of idiosyncratic risk is a global phenomenon. Furthermore, specific and market risks jointly predict market returns as there is a negative (positive) relation between idiosyncratic (market) risk and subsequent stock returns. Idiosyncratic volatility is the most important component of tracking error volatility, and it does not exhibit either an upward or a downward trend. Thus, investors do not have to increase, on average, the number of stocks they hold to keep the active risk constant.     

Idiosyncratic Cash Flows and Systematic Risk

We show that unpriced cash flow shocks contain information about future priced risk. A positive idiosyncratic shock decreases the sensitivity of firm value to priced risk factors and simultaneously increases firm size and idiosyncratic risk. A simple model can therefore explain book‐to‐market and size anomalies, as well as the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. Empirically, we find that anomalies are more pronounced for firms with high idiosyncratic cash flow volatility. More generally, our results imply that any economic variable correlated with the history of idiosyncratic shocks can help to explain expected stock returns.     

Does Idiosyncratic Risk Really Matter?

Goyal and Santa‐Clara (2003) find a significantly positive relation between the equal‐weighted average stock volatility and the value‐weighted portfolio returns on the NYSE/AMEX/Nasdaq stocks for the period of 1963:08 to 1999:12. We show that this result is driven by small stocks traded on the Nasdaq, and is in part due to a liquidity premium. In addition, their result does not hold for the extended sample of 1963:08 to 2001:12 and for the NYSE/AMEX and NYSE stocks. More importantly, we find no evidence of a significant link between the value‐weighted portfolio returns and the median and value‐weighted average stock volatility.     

Investment,Idiosyncratic Risk,and Ownership

High‐powered incentives may induce higher managerial effort, but they also expose managers to idiosyncratic risk. If managers are risk averse, they might underinvest when firm‐specific uncertainty increases, leading to suboptimal investment decisions from the perspective of well‐diversified shareholders. We empirically document that, when idiosyncratic risk rises, firm investment falls, and more so when managers own a larger fraction of the firm. This negative effect of managerial risk aversion on investment is mitigated if executives are compensated with options rather than with shares or if institutional investors form a large part of the shareholder base.     

Idiosyncratic Risk,Investor Base,and Returns

Using four different proxies for a firm's investor base we demonstrate that idiosyncratic risk premiums are larger for neglected stocks and smaller or economically insignificant for visible stocks. Since neglected stocks have greater idiosyncratic volatility (IV), the total IV risk premium (price × quantity) for neglected stocks will be greater than that of visible stocks. Additionally, we find a positive size effect and negative beta effect after controlling for IV. Overall, our results provide strong support for Merton's theory that market segmentation induced by incomplete information is an important component of the influence of IV in the cross‐section of returns.     

Idiosyncratic Risk and Corporate Governance: Evidence from Jordan

ABSTRACT

This article offers evidence in support of the hypothesis that when investors have weak protection, small investors can suffer expropriation by large shareholders. In this kind of situation, a stock’s idiosyncratic risk is found to be negatively related to ownership concentration, which indicates that the cost of controlling ownership may outweigh its benefits. This is consistent with the view that minority investors have less incentive to invest in companies with weak protection for investors. When this is accompanied by low-quality information disclosed to the public, private information is not likely to be reflected in stock prices, resulting in lower idiosyncratic risk.     

Corporate Governance, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Information Flow

We study the relationship of corporate governance policy and idiosyncratic risk. Firms with fewer antitakeover provisions display higher levels of idiosyncratic risk, trading activity, private information flow, and information about future earnings in stock prices. Trading interest by institutions, especially those active in merger arbitrage, strengthens the relationship of governance to idiosyncratic risk. Our results indicate that openness to the market for corporate control leads to more informative stock prices by encouraging collection of and trading on private information. Consistent with an information‐flow interpretation, the component of volatility unrelated to governance is associated with the efficiency of corporate investment.     

Corporate Sustainability Performance and Idiosyncratic Risk: A Global Perspective

Does investing in sustainability leaders affect portfolio performance? Analyzing two mutually exclusive leading and lagging global corporate sustainability portfolios (Dow Jones) finds that (1) leading sustainability firms do not underperform the market portfolio, and (2) their lagging counterparts outperform the market portfolio and the leading portfolio. Notably, we find leading (lagging) corporate social performance (CSP) firms exhibit significantly lower (higher) idiosyncratic risk and that idiosyncratic risk might be priced by the broader global equity market. We develop an idiosyncratic risk factor and find that its inclusion significantly reduces the apparent difference in performance between leading and lagging CSP portfolios.     

Idiosyncratic Consumption Risk and the Cross Section of Asset Returns

This paper investigates the importance of idiosyncratic consumption risk for the cross‐sectional variation in asset returns. We find that besides the rate of aggregate consumption growth, the cross‐sectional variance of consumption growth is also a priced factor. This suggests that consumers are not fully insured against idiosyncratic consumption risk, and that asset returns reflect their attempts to reduce their exposure to this risk. The resulting two‐factor consumption‐based asset pricing model significantly outperforms the CAPM, and its performance compares favorably with that of the Fama–French three‐factor model.     

Expected Returns and Idiosyncratic Risk: Industry-Level Evidence from Russia

We explore a relation between expected returns and idiosyncratic risk in Russia. Investors in the Russian stock market cannot fully diversify their portfolios due to transaction costs, information gathering and processing costs, and shortcomings in investor protection. This implies that investors demand a premium for idiosyncratic risk. We estimate the price of idiosyncratic risk using MIDAS regressions and a cross section of Russian industry portfolios. We find that idiosyncratic risk is economically significant and commands a negative (positive) premium, on average, of 10.0% (8.0) per year before (after) the global financial crisis in 2008. The results remain unaffected after controlling for global pricing factors and return reversal.     

机构持股、特质风险与股票收益的实证研究

机构投资者的投资行为对股票市场的风险与收益产生了极大的影响,机构投资者的大量参与有助于股票市场的稳定、特质风险的分散以及超额收益的减少。文章选取机构投资者持股占股票市值比例这一指标来刻画机构投资者的行为,检验机构持股比例、特质风险和股票收益之间的关系。实证发现,在中国股市,特质风险与股票收益呈显著的正相关关系;机构大量持股有助于降低股票的特质风险;机构投资者持股比例越低的股票,特质风险越大,股票预期收益越高。     

人民币理财市场风险当防患未然

在目前股市低迷、房地产价格高企、投资渠道狭窄的情况下,人民币理财产品作为金融市场的创新品种,由商业银行率先推出后立即受到投资人的热烈关注。短期的快速发展人民币理财产品是指经过银监会批准、由商业银行推出的有一定额度、期限和利率预期的金融产品,商业银行接受投资人委托,将其资金投资于银行间债券市场上信誉级别较高的国债,金融债和央行票据的债券,并保证到期一次还本付息的代客理财业务。一般人民币理财产品的期限较短,有三个月、半年,一年的,最长是三年期,预期收益率通常远远高于同期的储蓄存款利率,而且该产品的收益免予税收。由于这一产品在安全性、流动性和收益性上具有其他产品所无法比拟的优势,所以在许多城市一经推出便出现了老百姓排队抢购     

The Effectiveness of Consumption Taxes and Transfers as Insurance Against Idiosyncratic Risk

We quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of a consumption tax and lump-sum transfer program as insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. We use a heterogeneous agent, incomplete markets model in which households adjust savings and employment in each period in the presence of idiosyncratic productivity risk and a borrowing constraint. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy. We find a weak insurance effect of the consumption tax and transfer program. Expanding the tax and transfer program from the current U.S. level increases the capital-output ratio and reduces the interest rate. Consumption inequality also decreases only slightly.     

金融强监管对银行个体风险影响的实证研究

本文基于我国168家商业银行2011—2018年的动态面板数据,首先运用系统广义矩估计(SYS-GMM)方法,研究了全面加强金融监管后,银行个体风险的变动情况;然后,通过双重差分(DID)模型,分析了金融强监管对不同类型银行个体风险影响的差异及差异产生的可能原因。研究结果表明,整体上看,金融强监管显著降低了银行的个体风险。此外,以大型商业银行作为参照后发现,强监管环境下,农村商业银行较股份制商业银行和城市商业银行,缩减同业业务规模更加积极,个体风险的下降程度也最大。2017年全面加强金融监管后,在降低银行个体风险、引导资金"脱虚向实"方面效果明显。本文认为,监管政策的制定要注重协调性与渐近性,综合考量各类银行之间的现实差异,以进一步提升金融监管的针对性和有效性。     

Tracking the Evolution of Idiosyncratic Risk and Cross-Sectional Expected Returns for US REITs

This paper adopts the methodology in Bali and Cakici (Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, 43, 29–58, 2008) in tracking the evolution of the relation between equity REITs’ idiosyncratic risk and their cross-sectional expected returns between 1981 and 2010. In addition to the full sample period, we study this relation for (i) January 1981–December 1992, (ii) January 1993–September 2001, (iii) November 2001–August 2008 and (iv) November 2001–December 2010 and produce empirical results for (i) all sample REITs, (ii) REITs with a price greater than $10 or (iii) REITs with a price greater than $5. Each period represents different dynamics (including the Global Financial Crisis) in the life of the REIT industry and leads to a different hypothesis. Further, we present comparative results based on the Fama-French 3- and 4-factor models. Overall, we document a negative relation between idiosyncratic risk and cross-sectional expected returns and demonstrate that this negative relation changes over time. These findings amplify the “idiosyncratic volatility puzzle,” as reported in the recent finance literature. Interestingly, REITs with a price of $5-to-$10 do well in 2009 and 2010. Further, the momentum factor appears to be influential since the first-ever listing of a REIT in the S&P500 Index in early October 2001.     

Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk

This paper uses a disaggregated approach to study the volatility of common stocks at the market, industry, and firm levels. Over the period from 1962 to 1997 there has been a noticeable increase in firm-level volatility relative to market volatility. Accordingly, correlations among individual stocks and the explanatory power of the market model for a typical stock have declined, whereas the number of stocks needed to achieve a given level of diversification has increased. All the volatility measures move together countercyclically and help to predict GDP growth. Market volatility tends to lead the other volatility series. Factors that may be responsible for these findings are suggested.     

浙江省上市企业股价特殊风险的信息特征研究

金融市场的事实已经证明,股票价格风险波动不仅受市场风险波动的制约,而且随资本市场的环境变化,股价特殊风险已越来越显著的影响和决定着股价总体波动水平的变化。文章从浙江省上市企业的股价收益序列中分解、提炼出股价特殊风险,用投资者行为效应来判断其信息特征的变动规律,通过与系统风险信息特征及其投资者行为效应的对比,获取特殊风险呈现的信息特征规律。     

Can Asset Pricing Models Price Idiosyncratic Risk in U.K. Stock Returns?

I examine how well different linear factor models and consumption‐based asset pricing models price idiosyncratic risk in U.K. stock returns. Correctly pricing idiosyncratic risk is a significant challenge for many of the models I consider. For some consumption‐based models, there is a clear tradeoff in the performance of the models between correctly pricing systematic risk and idiosyncratic risk. Linear factor models do a better job in most cases in pricing systematic risk than consumption‐based models but the reverse is true for idiosyncratic risk.     

Measuring Financial Integration via Idiosyncratic Risk: What Effects Are We Really Picking Up?

We study the method proposed by Flood and Rose (FR, 2004, 2005) for checking for financial integration by estimating the risk-free rate using the idiosyncratic component of individual stock returns. Performing simulations with data with a known return generation process, we find that the FR methodology produces poor estimates of the risk-free rate, and hence the FR method fails to accept integration when true. We then show analytically that the FR method actually provides an estimate of the market return, and conclude the FR methodology would also falsely accept integration as long as the market returns in the two markets do not differ widely.