This article examines the role of idiosyncratic volatility in explaining the cross-sectional variation of size- and value-sorted portfolio returns. We show that the premium for bearing idiosyncratic volatility varies inversely with the number of stocks included in the portfolios. This conclusion...

Measuring individual investors' speculative demand for stocks using the Google search volume index (hereafter “SVI”) on penny stocks, we examine how it relates to the return dynamics of U.S. stock indices. Speculative demand leads to a short-term return reversal. A simple trading strategy...

We survey the textual sentiment literature, comparing and contrasting the various information sources, content analysis methods, and empirical models that have been used to date. We summarize the important and influential findings about how textual sentiment impacts on individual, firm-level and...

The study examines the value creation of Merger and Acquisition (M&A) deals in European banking from 1990 to 2004. This is performed, first, by examining the stock price reaction of banks to the announcement of M&A deals and, second, by analysing the determinants of this reaction. The findings...

Evidence suggests that rational, periodically collapsing speculative bubbles may be pervasive in stock markets globally, but there is no research that considers them at the individual stock level. In this study we develop and test an empirical asset pricing model that allows for speculative...

The extent to which accruals quality (AQ) is relevant for asset pricing has been debated widely. Prior research in this area has focused almost exclusively on the US. Using UK data, we investigate whether AQ portfolios exhibit evidence of significant mispricing, and whether an AQ factor is...

On the basis of raw return analysis, economically significant anomalies appear to exist in relation to the size, momentum, book-to-market and profitability of Australian firms. However, characteristic-sorted portfolios are shown to load in very particular ways on multiple risk factors. After...

It is widely accepted that some firms' attributes or characteristics, such as a firm's size or book-to-market ratio, attract premiums in terms of average returns, which is a pervasive phenomenon not restricted to just a few individual markets. However, the way to derive these premiums by sorting...

This paper re-examines the liquidity effect on stock expected returns in the NYSE over the period 1926–2008, the pre-1963 period, for which there is a lack of research, and the post-1963 period. The results from the entire sample of 1926–2008 show that expected returns increase with the...

We test whether firm idiosyncratic risk is priced in a large cross-section of U.K. stocks. A distinguishing feature of our paper is that our tests allow for a conditional relationship between systematic risk (beta) and returns, i.e., conditional on whether the excess market return is positive or...