scholarly journals CROSS-SECTIONAL VARIATION IN STOCK RETURNS: EVIDENCE FROM AN EMERGING MARKET

Author(s):  
Sana Tauseef
2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Sehgal ◽  
Vidisha Garg

Executive Summary Cross-sectional volatility measures dispersion of security returns at a particular point of time. It has received very little focus in research. This article studies the cross-section of volatility in the context of economies of Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, South Korea, and South Africa (BRIICKS). The analysis is done in two parts. The first part deals with systematic volatility (SV), that is, cross-sectional variation of stock returns owing to their exposure to market volatility measure ( French, Schwert, & Stambaugh, 1987 ). The second part deals with unsystematic volatility (UV), measured by the residual variance of stocks in a given period by using error terms obtained from Fama–French model. The study finds that high SV portfolios exhibit low returns in case of Brazil, South Korea, and Russia. The risk premium is found to be statistically significantly negative for these countries. This finding is consistent with Ang et al. and is indicative of hedging motive of investors in these markets. Results for other sample countries are somewhat puzzling. No significant risk premiums are reported for India and China. Significantly positive risk premiums are observed for South Africa and Indonesia. Further, capital asset pricing model (CAPM) seems to be a poor descriptor of returns on systematic risk loading sorted portfolios while FF is able to explain returns on all portfolios except high SV loading portfolio (i.e., P1) in case of South Africa which seems to be an asset pricing anomaly. It is further observed that high UV portfolios exhibit high returns in all the sample countries except China. In the Chinese market, the estimated risk premium is statistically significantly negative. This negative risk premium is inconsistent with the theory that predicts that investors demand risk compensation for imperfect diversification. The remaining sample countries show significantly positive risk premium. CAPM does not seem to be a suitable descriptor for returns on UV sorted portfolios. The FF model does a better job but still fails to explain the returns on high UV sorted portfolio in case of Brazil and China and low UV sorted portfolio in South Africa. The findings are relevant for global fund managers who plan to develop emerging market strategies for asset allocation. The study contributes to portfolio management as well as market efficiency literature for emerging economies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 826-841 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Constantinou ◽  
Angeliki Karali ◽  
Georgios Papanastasopoulos

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firm-level asset investment effects in returns found for US firms occur within the Greek stock market. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilizes portfolio-level tests and cross-sectional regressions. Findings The authors find that growth in total assets is strongly negatively related to future stock returns of Greek firms. In fact, the relation remains statistically significant, even when the authors control for other strong predictors of future returns (i.e. market capitalization and book-to-market ratio). Furthermore, the authors find that a hedge trading strategy on asset growth rate consisting of a long (short) position in firms with low (high) balance sheet growth generates positive returns, confirming that investment growth has significant predictive power for future returns of Greek listed firms. Originality/value The paper adds to the literature on the generalization of asset pricing regularities attributable to accounting figures in an emerging market.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dar-Hsin Chen ◽  
Chun-Da Chen ◽  
Su-Chen Wu

In this paper we investigate the explanatory power of the market beta, firm size, and the book-to-market ratio, as well as Value-at-Risk regarding the cross-sectional expected stock returns in a less developed stock market – Taiwan's stock market. The main purpose is to examine whether the Value-at-Risk factor has marginal explanatory power related to the Fama-French three-factor model. The empirical results show that Value-at-Risk can account for the average stock returns at both 1% and 5% significance levels based on cross-sectional regression analysis. Moreover, from the perspective of the time series regression, the Value-at-Risk factor can also demonstrate the variation of the stock market, especially for the larger companies in the Taiwan stock market.


Author(s):  
Ying Tay Lee ◽  
Devinaga Rasiah ◽  
Ming Ming Lai

Human rights and fundamental freedoms such as economic, political, and press freedoms vary widely from country to country. It creates opportunity and risk in investment decisions. Thus, this study is carried out to examine if the explanatory power of the model for capital asset pricing could be improved when these human rights movement indices are included in the model. The sample for this study comprises of 495 stocks listed in Bursa Malaysia, covering the sampling period from 2003 to 2013. The model applied in this study employed the pooled ordinary least square regression estimation. In addition, the robustness of the model is tested by using firm size as a controlled variable. The findings show that market beta as well as the economic and press freedom indices could explain the cross-sectional stock returns of the Malaysian stock market. By controlling the firm size, it adds marginally to the explanation of the extended CAP model which incorporated economic, political, and press freedom indices.


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