We explore whether the well publicized anomalous returns associated with low-volatility stocks can be attributed to market mispricing or to compensation for higher systematic risk. Our results, conducted over a 46 year study period (1966-2011), indicate that the high returns related to...

The idiosyncratic volatility anomaly, as first documented in Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang (2006), has received considerable attention in the literature. In this paper, we examine the pervasiveness of the anomaly in various stock samples and provide evidence towards distinguishing potential...