Value Premium

How do widely recognized stock return anomalies (return variations unexplained by asset pricing models) mesh with efficient portfolio selection theory? In their paper entitled “Investing in Stock Market Anomalies”, Turan Bali, Stephen Brown and Ozgur Demirtas examine five prominent stock market anomalies whose existence is robust through time and across markets (size, book-to-market, short-term reversal, intermediate-term momentum and long-term reversion) in contexts of efficient portfolio selection via mean-variance and stochastic dominance methods. In other words, they test whether portfolios that apply these anomalies exhibit exceptionally good combinations of return and volatility, or obviously outperform on a purely statistical basis. Both these portfolio selection methods have shortcomings related to their inclusion of extreme, impractical choices. The authors consider relaxed (“Almost”) versions of these methods that prohibit such choices as “pathological.” The authors form value-weighted size and book-to-market portfolios annually and value-weighted reversal, momentum and reversion portfolios monthly. Using monthly data for July 1926 through December 2008 (990 months) for a broad sample of U.S. stocks to construct diversified anomaly portfolios, they find that: Keep Reading

Which firm fundamentals predict associated stocks returns, and which ones do not? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Returns Premia on Company Fundamentals”, Kateryna Shapovalova, Alexander Subbotin and Thierry Chauveau assess the significance, stability and interplay of excess returns for individual stocks as predicted by widely used firm fundamentals. Specifically, they consider: book-to-price ratio; earnings-to-price ratio; sales-to-price ratio; cash flow-to-price ratio; dividend yield; market capitalization; growth in sales per share over the past one, three and five years; growth in earnings per share over the past one, three and five years; forecasted growth of earnings per share next year; forecasted long-term growth in earnings per share; forecasted earnings-to-price ratio; five-year average reinvested fraction of return on equity (internal growth); and, for control purposes, past returns over one, three and 12 months. Their methodology is direct stock-by-stock rather than portfolio-mediated, with the values of fundamentals across stocks normalized to a range of zero to one. They impose a three-month lag for accounting data to ensure public availability. Using monthly/quarterly firm fundamentals and monthly total stock returns for 9,363 NYSE-listed firms during 1979 through 2008, they find that: Keep Reading

How and why do the value premium and size effect work? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Value and Size Puzzles: A Commented Survey”, Kateryna Shapovalova and Alexander Subbotin review and assess prior research on the value premium and size effect, which play key roles in the most widely use factor models of stock prices. Based on the body of research, they conclude that: Keep Reading

Can financial statement analysis expose stocks that investors incorrectly view as value or growth (glamor)? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Identifying Expectation Errors in Value/Glamour Strategies: A Fundamental Analysis Approach”, Joseph Piotroski and Eric So investigate stock misvaluation by contrasting firm performance expectations implied by value/growth classification with a simple financial statement metric that differentiates improving versus deteriorating financial performance. This metric (FSCORE, scale 0 to 9), based on nine binary financial statement parameters, measures both the overall financial condition of a firm and the degree to which the firm has improved this condition over the prior year. The authors examine how FSCORE interacts with five widely used relative valuation metrics (book-to-market ratio, cash flow-to-price ratio, earnings-to-price ratio, sales growth and equity share turnover) and with momentum. Using annual financial data and stock returns for a broad sample of firms over the period 1972 through 2008 (117,412 firm-year observations), they find that: Keep Reading

Does the relatively illiquid, opaque, retail environment of over-the-counter (OTC) stocks make them behave differently from comparable listed stocks? In their November 2010 paper entitled “The Cross Section of Over-the-Counter Equities”, Andrew Ang, Assaf Shtauber and Paul Tetlock test the abilities of market capitalization, book-to-market ratio, liquidity, return momentum and idiosyncratic volatility to predict OTC stock returns and compare results to those for listed stocks with comparable market capitalizations. As a part of the study, they examine hedge portfolios that are long/short extreme fifths of OTC stocks ranked by these characteristics to estimate of the magnitudes of the respective  premiums. Using trading volumes, market capitalizations, book-to-market ratios (as available) and closing, bid and ask prices for a large sample of OTC-only firms with at least one Financial Industry Regulatory Authority market maker, and for comparable listed firms, during 1975 through 2008, they find that: Keep Reading

Market capitalization is the most frequently used metric for weighting the individual stock components of market indexes. Other approaches range from equal weighting to weighting on firm fundamentals to weighting generated by return-risk optimization. How do such alternative metrics work empirically? In the October 2010 draft of their paper entitled “A Survey of Alternative Equity Index Strategies”, Tzee-man Chow, Jason Hsu, Vitali Kalesnik and Bryce Little examine several popular passive index weighting alternatives to market capitalization. They impose common assumptions to backtest these alternatives on U.S. and global equity data over long periods with either annual or quarterly rebalancing. They also apply the Fama-French three-factor model to investigate sources of outperformance relative to capitalization-weighted benchmarks. Using stock/firm data for the 1,000 largest global firms spanning 1987-2009 and for the largest 1,000 U.S. firms spanning 1964-2009, they find that: Keep Reading

Do value and momentum strategies work in the least mature equity markets? In the September 2010 update of their paper entitled “Value and Momentum in Frontier Emerging Markets”, Wilma de Groot, Juan Pang and Laurens Swinkels examine whether the value premium based on book-to-market ratio (B/M), earnings-to-price ratio (E/P) or dividend-to-price ratio (D/P) and the momentum effect exist in frontier equity markets. Their basic methodology is to form long-short portfolios of equally weighted extreme (most and least attractive) quintiles monthly and to hold each portfolio for six months, with monthly outcomes calculated as averages for the six active portfolios (in excess of U.S. Treasury bills). Using return and accounting data for over 1,400 S&P Frontier Broad Market Index stocks  from 24 of the most liquid frontier markets over the period January 1997 through November 2008, they find that: Keep Reading

Is there a simple way to identify and exploit relative differences in the values of emerging equity markets? In their September 2010 paper entitled “New Evidence on Value Investing in Emerging Equity Markets”, Zhipeng Yan and Yan Zhao define and test value investing strategies that compare a country’s weight among a set of emerging markets based on value (GDP, earning-price ratio or dividend yield) to its weight based on stock market capitalization. Specifically, they construct and rebalance quarterly a portfolio of emerging markets stock indexes with weights equal to value-capitalization weight deltas. They consider also a simple alternative portfolio similarly constructed from equal-capitalization weight deltas. If the delta for a country is positive (negative), the position in that country’s index is long (short), such that the overall portfolio is neutral. Using quarterly GDP measurements, monthly earnings-to-price ratio and dividend yield data and monthly dollar-denominated total stock index returns for 23 emerging markets spanning 1995-2008, they find that: Keep Reading

Studies of the U.S. stock market indicate that some factors and indicators may have predictive power for future returns. Do these findings consistently translate to other large equity markets? In the July 2010 version of their paper entitled “The Cross-Section of German Stock Returns: New Data and New Evidence”, Sabine Artmann, Philipp Finter, Alexander Kempf, Stefan Koch and Erik Theissen apply a new set of single-sorted and double-sorted factor portfolios based on market beta, size, book-to-market ratio and momentum to test for beta effect, size effect, value premium and momentum in the German equity market. In the July 2010 version of their paper entitled “The Impact of Investor Sentiment on the German Stock Market”, Philipp Finter, Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi and Stefan Ruenzi test the predictive power of a composite sentiment measure combining consumer confidence, net equity mutual funds flow, put-call ratio, aggregate trading volume, initial public offering (IPO) returns, number of IPOs and aggregate equity-to-debt ratio of new issues. Using data for 955 non-financial German firms for which sufficient data is available during the period 1960-2006 for the factor portfolios and 1993-2006 for the sentiment measure, these studies find that: Keep Reading

Is level of profitability alone, and in combination with other firm/stock characteristics, a useful indicator of future stock returns? In his April 2010 paper entitled “The Other Side of Value: Good Growth and the Gross Profitability Premium”, Robert Novy-Marx investigates the power of the gross profits-to-assets ratio to predict returns for individual stocks as a standalone indicator and in combination with the book-to-market ratio. Using annual firm characteristics and stock price data for a broad sample of U.S. companies spanning 1962-2009, he concludes that: Keep Reading