Essays on Idiosyncratic Volatility and Asset Pricing

Essays on Idiosyncratic Volatility and Asset Pricing PDF Author: Fatma Sonmez Saryal
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Languages : en
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In this thesis, I study three aspects of idiosyncratic volatility. First, I examine the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns. Next, I examine the share price effect and its interaction with the idiosyncratic volatility on stock returns. Finally, I examine the time series pattern of monthly aggregate monthly idiosyncratic volatility. In the first chapter, I examine the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns. In their paper, Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang [AHXZ (2006)] show that idiosyncratic volatility is inversely related to future stock returns: low idiosyncratic volatility stocks earn higher returns than do high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence that it is the month to month changes in idiosyncratic volatility that produce AHXZ's results. More specifically, a portfolio of stocks that move from Quintile 1 (low idiosyncratic volatility) to Quintile 5 (high idiosyncratic volatility) earns an average risk-adjusted return of 5.64% per month in the month of the change. Whereas, a portfolio of stocks that move from the highest to the lowest idiosyncratic volatility quintiles earns -0.94% per month in the month of the change. Eliminating all firm-month observations with idiosyncratic volatility quintile changes, I find the opposite results to AHXZ: it is persistently low idiosyncratic volatility stocks that earn lower returns than do persistently high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. I find that many of the extreme changes in idiosyncratic volatility are related to business events. In general, the pattern usually observed is that an announcement or an event increases uncertainty about a stock and hence, its idiosyncratic volatility increases. After the event, uncertainty is resolved and the stock returns to a lower idiosyncratic volatility quintile. In the second chapter, I examine how the level of the share price interacts with idiosyncratic volatility to affect future stock returns. Ignoring transaction costs, a trading strategy that is long high-priced and short low-priced stocks earns positive abnormal returns with respect to the Fama-French (1992) three factor model. However, the observed positive abnormal returns are less significant if momentum is taken into account via the Carhart (1997) four factor model. Also the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns differs for price sorted portfolios: it is negative for low and mid-priced stocks but positive for high-priced ones. These results are robust for low and-mid-priced stocks even after momentum is included. However, the positive relation for high-priced stocks disappears due to relatively large loadings on momentum for high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. I also show that skewness and momentum are significant determinants of idiosyncratic volatility for low-priced stocks and high-priced stocks respectively. One implication is that the importance of idiosyncratic volatility for future stock returns may in part be due its role as a disguised risk factor: either for momentum for high-priced stocks and skewness for low and mid-priced stocks. In the third chapter, I investigate the time series pattern of aggregate monthly idiosyncratic volatility. It has been shown that new riskier listings in the US stock markets are a reason for the increase in idiosyncratic volatility during the period 1963-2004. First, I show that this is more pronounced for Nasdaq new listings. Second, I show that for Nasdaq, prior to 1994 low-priced new listings became riskier, whereas during the internet bubble period it is the higher-priced listings that became riskier. Third, I show that institutional holdings have increased over time and have had a different impact on each new listing group: a negative for pre-1994 listings and a positive impact for post-1994 listings. Hence, I conclude that the observed time-series pattern of idiosyncratic volatility is a result of the changing nature of Nasdaq's investor clientele.

Essays on Idiosyncratic Volatility and Asset Pricing

Essays on Idiosyncratic Volatility and Asset Pricing PDF Author: Fatma Sonmez Saryal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this thesis, I study three aspects of idiosyncratic volatility. First, I examine the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns. Next, I examine the share price effect and its interaction with the idiosyncratic volatility on stock returns. Finally, I examine the time series pattern of monthly aggregate monthly idiosyncratic volatility. In the first chapter, I examine the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns. In their paper, Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang [AHXZ (2006)] show that idiosyncratic volatility is inversely related to future stock returns: low idiosyncratic volatility stocks earn higher returns than do high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence that it is the month to month changes in idiosyncratic volatility that produce AHXZ's results. More specifically, a portfolio of stocks that move from Quintile 1 (low idiosyncratic volatility) to Quintile 5 (high idiosyncratic volatility) earns an average risk-adjusted return of 5.64% per month in the month of the change. Whereas, a portfolio of stocks that move from the highest to the lowest idiosyncratic volatility quintiles earns -0.94% per month in the month of the change. Eliminating all firm-month observations with idiosyncratic volatility quintile changes, I find the opposite results to AHXZ: it is persistently low idiosyncratic volatility stocks that earn lower returns than do persistently high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. I find that many of the extreme changes in idiosyncratic volatility are related to business events. In general, the pattern usually observed is that an announcement or an event increases uncertainty about a stock and hence, its idiosyncratic volatility increases. After the event, uncertainty is resolved and the stock returns to a lower idiosyncratic volatility quintile. In the second chapter, I examine how the level of the share price interacts with idiosyncratic volatility to affect future stock returns. Ignoring transaction costs, a trading strategy that is long high-priced and short low-priced stocks earns positive abnormal returns with respect to the Fama-French (1992) three factor model. However, the observed positive abnormal returns are less significant if momentum is taken into account via the Carhart (1997) four factor model. Also the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns differs for price sorted portfolios: it is negative for low and mid-priced stocks but positive for high-priced ones. These results are robust for low and-mid-priced stocks even after momentum is included. However, the positive relation for high-priced stocks disappears due to relatively large loadings on momentum for high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. I also show that skewness and momentum are significant determinants of idiosyncratic volatility for low-priced stocks and high-priced stocks respectively. One implication is that the importance of idiosyncratic volatility for future stock returns may in part be due its role as a disguised risk factor: either for momentum for high-priced stocks and skewness for low and mid-priced stocks. In the third chapter, I investigate the time series pattern of aggregate monthly idiosyncratic volatility. It has been shown that new riskier listings in the US stock markets are a reason for the increase in idiosyncratic volatility during the period 1963-2004. First, I show that this is more pronounced for Nasdaq new listings. Second, I show that for Nasdaq, prior to 1994 low-priced new listings became riskier, whereas during the internet bubble period it is the higher-priced listings that became riskier. Third, I show that institutional holdings have increased over time and have had a different impact on each new listing group: a negative for pre-1994 listings and a positive impact for post-1994 listings. Hence, I conclude that the observed time-series pattern of idiosyncratic volatility is a result of the changing nature of Nasdaq's investor clientele.

Two Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing

Two Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing PDF Author: Yangqiulu Luo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Finance
Languages : en
Pages :

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This dissertation consists of two essays on empirical asset pricing. The first essay examines if the idiosyncratic risk is priced. Theories such as Merton (1987) predict that idiosyncratic risk should be priced when investors do not diversify their portfolio. However, the previous literature has presented a mixed set of results of the pricing of idiosyncratic risk. We find strong evidence that idiosyncratic risk is priced differently across bull and bear markets. For the sample period from June 1946 to the end of 2010, a factor portfolio long on stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility and short on stocks with low idiosyncratic volatility yields an equal-weighted monthly return of 1.59% for bull markets but -1.29% for bear markets. These evidences support the hypothesis that investors are rewarded for betting on individual stocks during bull markets and holding more diversified portfolios during bear markets. The second essay examines the role of the limits to arbitrage in the negative effect of liquidity on subsequent stock returns. I hypothesize that if the negative effect persists because of the limits to arbitrage, the effect should be more pronounced when there are more severe limits to arbitrage. My empirical evidence supports the hypothesis. In addition, I find that the effect of the limits to arbitrage on the liquidity anomaly is not correlated to the liquidity risk.

Three Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing

Three Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing PDF Author: Gang Li
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This dissertation contains three essays on empirical asset pricing. In the first essay, I study the relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns of risky assets. I find that when the true asset pricing model cannot be identified, the idiosyncratic volatility obtained from a misspecified model contains information regarding the hedge portfolio in Merton's (1973) ICAPM. Empirically, I find that from 1815 to 2018, a combination of equal-weighted idiosyncratic volatility (EWIV) and value-weighted idiosyncratic volatility (VWIV) can strongly forecast stock market returns over short- and long-term horizons. Furthermore, EWIV and VWIV jointly can explain the cross-section of average stock returns. I show that the combination of EWIV and VWIV is a proxy for the conditional covariance risk in the ICAPM. The deduction also provides new insights concerning the tail risk measure proposed by Kelly and Jiang (2014). The second essay is a joint work with Bing Han. We propose a new and robust predictor of stock market returns and real economic activities based on information from equity options. We aggregate the difference in implied volatilities of at-the-money call and put options across stocks and find that the aggregate implied volatility spread (IVS) is significantly and positively related to future stock market returns. We attribute the predictive power to common informed trading in equity options instead of time-varying risk premium. The third essay, coauthored with Yoontae Jeon and Raymond Kan, studies the expected option return under an extended Black-Scholes model that incorporates the presence of stock return autocorrelation. We show that expected returns of both call and put options are increasing functions of return autocorrelation coefficient of the underlying stock. We find strong empirical evidence from the cross-section of average returns of equity options to support this prediction. Average returns of calls and puts as well as straddle returns all show monotonically increasing relationship with the degree of underlying stock's return autocorrelation coefficient. We also examine how the information on stock return autocorrelation helps investors to improve the out-of-sample performance of their portfolios.

Essays on Volatility Risk Premia in Asset Pricing

Essays on Volatility Risk Premia in Asset Pricing PDF Author:
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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This thesis contains two essays. In the first essay, we investigate the impact of time varying volatility of consumption growth on the cross-section and time-series of equity returns. While many papers test consumption-based pricing models using the first moment of consumption growth, less is known about how the time-variation of consumption growth volatility affects asset prices. In a model with recursive preferences and unobservable conditional mean and volatility of consumption growth, the representative agent's estimates of conditional moments of consumption growth affect excess returns. Empirically, we find that estimated consumption volatility is a priced source of risk, and exposure to it predicts future returns in the cross-section. Consumption volatility is also a strong predictor of aggregate quarterly excess returns in the time-series. The estimated negative price of risk together with the evidence on equity premium predictability suggest that the elasticity of intertemporal substitution of the representative agent is greater than unity, a finding that contributes to a long standing debate in the literature. In the second essay, I present a simple model to show that if agents face binding portfolio constraints, stocks with high volatility in states of low market returns demand a premium beyond the one implied by systematic risks. Assets whose volatility positively covaries with market volatility also have high expected returns. Both effects of this idiosyncratic volatility risk premium are strongest for assets that face more binding trading restrictions. Unlike the prior empirical literature that obtains mixed results when focusing on the level of idiosyncratic volatility, I investigate the dynamic behavior of idiosyncratic volatility and find strong support for my predictions. Comovement of innovations of idiosyncratic volatility with market returns negatively predicts returns for trading restricted stocks relative to unrestricted stocks, and comovement.

Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing

Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing PDF Author: Stefan Koch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Two Essays on the Impact of Idiosyncratic Risk on Asset Returns

Two Essays on the Impact of Idiosyncratic Risk on Asset Returns PDF Author: Jie Cao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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In this dissertation, I explore the impact of idiosyncratic risk on asset returns. The first essay examines how idiosyncratic risk affects the cross-section of stock returns. I use an exponential GARCH model to forecast expected idiosyncratic volatility and employ a combination of the size effect, value premium, return momentum and short-term reversal to measure relative mispricing. I find that stock returns monotonically increase in idiosyncratic risk for relatively undervalued stocks and monotonically decrease in idiosyncratic risk for relatively overvalued stocks. This phenomenon is robust to various subsamples and industries, and cannot be explained by risk factors or firm characteristics. Further, transaction costs, short-sale constraints and information uncertainty cannot account for the role of idiosyncratic risk. Overall, these findings are consistent with the limits of arbitrage arguments and demonstrate the importance of idiosyncratic risk as an arbitrage cost. The second essay studies the cross-sectional determinants of delta-hedged stock option returns with an emphasis on the pricing of volatility risk. We find that the average delta-hedged option returns are significantly negative for most stocks, and they decrease monotonically with both total and idiosyncratic volatility of the underlying stock. Our results are robust and cannot be explained by the Fama-French factors, market volatility risk, jump risk, or the effect of past stock return and volatility-related option mispricing. Our results strongly support a negative market price of volatility risk specification that is proportional to the volatility level. Reflecting this volatility risk premium, writing covered calls on high volatility stocks on average earns about 2% more per month than selling covered calls on low volatility stocks. This spread is higher when it is more difficult to arbitrage between stock and option.

Three Essays in Asset Pricing

Three Essays in Asset Pricing PDF Author: Alan Picard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Abstract This dissertation consists of three essays. My first paper re-examines the link between idiosyncratic risk and expected returns for a large sample of firms in both developed and emerging markets. Recent studies using Fama-French three factor models have shown a negative relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns for developed markets. This relationship has not been studied to date for emerging markets. This study relates the current-month’s idiosyncratic volatility to the subsequent month’s returns for a sample of both developed and emerging markets expanding benchmark factors by including both a momentum and a systematic liquidity risk component. My second essay contributes to the important literature on the topic of the small capitalization stocks historical outperformance over large capitalization stocks by investigating the hypothesis that the small firm premium is related to macroeconomic and financial variables and that relationship is driven by the economic cycle in the United States and Canada. More specifically, this study employs recent advances in nonlinear time series models to explore the relationship between the small firm premium, and financial and macroeconomic variables in the Canadian and U.S. economies. My third paper re-examines the findings of a recent research paper that suggested that market wide liquidity may act as a leading indicator to the economic cycle. Using several liquidity measures and various macroeconomic variables to proxy for the economic conditions, the paper presents evidence that stock market liquidity could forecast business cycles: A major decrease in the overall level of market liquidity could indicate weak economic growth in the subsequent months. However, the drawback in the analysis is that the relationship is investigated in a linear approach even though it has been proven that most macroeconomic variables follow non-linear dynamics. Employing similar liquidity measures and macroeconomic proxies, and two popular econometrics models that account for non-linear behavior, this study hence re-investigates the relationship between stock market liquidity and business cycles.

Three Essays in Finance

Three Essays in Finance PDF Author: Haimanot Kassa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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This dissertation consists of three loosely related essays. In Essay I, I study the relationship between firm specific risk and return. In Essay II, I study the managerial and investor short-termism. And in Essay III, I study investors heterogeneous preference for skewness and its effect on the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle. Essay I: A spurious positive relation between EGARCH estimates of expected month t idiosyncratic volatility and month t stock returns arises when the month t return is included in estimation of model parameters. We illustrate via simulations that this look-ahead bias is problematic for empirically observed degrees of stock return skewness and typical monthly return time series lengths. Moreover, the empirical idiosyncratic risk-return relation becomes negligible when expected month t idiosyncratic volatility is estimated using returns only up to month t - 1. Essay II: The paper considers a model in which (1) managers allocate effort to both short and long-term projects, and (2) there is feedback between the managerial incentive contract and the number of speculators collecting information on each type of project. More weight placed on near-term price results in more speculation based on information about the short-term project, which induces further increases in the weight placed on near-term price. This feedback effect can result in short-term speculation crowding out the collection of long-term information, which in turn results in the withdrawal of incentives aimed at inducing effort in more profitable long-term projects. The paper shows that the equilibrium that obtains depends upon adjustment costs and initial conditions and is, in general, not efficient. Such outcomes are consistent with concerns about managerial and investor short-termism recently expressed by policy makers and market participants (e.g., the Aspen Institute). The paper considers the efficacy of various corporate and public policy remedies. Essay III: Consistent with models that incorporate investors heterogeneous preference for skewness, I show that (1) high skewness stocks are primarily held by investors with the strongest affinity for lottery-like payoff, (2) the negative skewness-return relation is the strongest for those stocks primarily held by agents with the strongest affinity for lottery-like payoff, (3) the idiosyncratic volatility-return relation is the strongest for those stocks held by agents with the strongest affinity for lottery-like payoff, and (4) investors heterogeneous preference for skewness help explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle. Taken together, the results provide evidence for the importance of investors heterogeneous preference for skewness in asset pricing and its implication on the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle.

Three Essays on Asset Pricing in Security and Housing Markets

Three Essays on Asset Pricing in Security and Housing Markets PDF Author: Minrong Zheng
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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In my first essay, I investigate the relationship between IPO long-run underperformance (Ritter, 1991) and the idiosyncratic risk puzzle (Ang, Hodrick, Xing and Zhang, 2006), the phenomenon of abnormally low returns for stocks with high idiosyncratic risk. I show that IPO long-run underperformance is in fact a manifestation of the surprisingly low returns for high idiosyncratic risk stocks. IPO underperformance disappears after I control for the idiosyncratic risk. Specifically, the underperformance of IPO firms only presents following the months in which they are classified into the highest idiosyncratic risk quintile. On the other hand, I find that the idiosyncratic risk puzzle is magnified by the IPO underperformance for two reasons. First, IPOs are over-represented in the highest volatility quintile. Second, while stocks in the highest volatility quintile underperform in general, the intra-quintile underperformance is substantially more severe for the IPO firms. My results are robust to different sample requirements.

Three Essays on Asset Pricing, Portfolio Choice and Behavioral Finance

Three Essays on Asset Pricing, Portfolio Choice and Behavioral Finance PDF Author: Ehud Peleg
Publisher: ProQuest
ISBN:
Category : Capital assets pricing model
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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