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Are return seasonalities due to risk or mispricing?

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

21 Citations (Web of Science)

Abstract

Stocks tend to earn high or low returns relative to other stocks every year in the same month (Heston and Sadka, 2008). We show these seasonalities are balanced out by seasonal reversals: a stock that has a high expected return relative to other stocks in one month has a low expected return relative to other stocks in the other months. The seasonalities and seasonal reversals add up to zero over the calendar year, which is consistent with seasonalities being driven by temporary mispricing. Seasonal reversals are economically large and statistically highly significant, and they resemble, but are distinct from, long-term reversals.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)138-161
Number of pages24
JournalJournal of Financial Economics
Volume139
Issue number1
Early online date15 Jul 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

We thank Chris Hrdlicka, Mark Kamstra, Owen Lamont, Jon Lewellen, an anonymous referee, and the seminar and conference participants at the Australian National University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, University of New South Wales, University of Technology Sydney, 2018 Citi Quant Research Conference, and 2019 Chicago Quantitative Alliance Conference for insightful comments. Financial support from the Academy of Finland, Inquire Europe, and Nasdaq Nordic Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

Keywords

  • Cross-sectional seasonalities
  • Mispricing
  • Reversals
  • Risk

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