IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v98y2019icp80-94.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cross-sectional seasonalities in international government bond returns

Author

Listed:
  • Zaremba, Adam

Abstract

We are the first to document the cross-sectional return seasonality effect in international government bonds. Using a variety of tests, we examine fixed-income securities from 22 countries for the years 1980–2018. The bonds with high (low) returns in the same-calendar month in the past continue to overperform (underperform) in the future. The effect is robust to many considerations, including controlling for established predictors of bond returns. Our results support the behavioural story of the anomaly, demonstrating its highest profitability in the periods of elevated investor sentiment and in the market segments of strong limits to arbitrage. Nonetheless, investment application of bond seasonality might be challenging due to high trading costs and the required short holding periods.

Suggested Citation

  • Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Cross-sectional seasonalities in international government bond returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 80-94.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:98:y:2019:i:c:p:80-94
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2018.11.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426618302450
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2018.11.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    2. Chang, Eric C. & Pinegar, J. Michael, 1986. "Return seasonality and tax-loss selling in the market for long-term government and corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 391-415, December.
    3. Chan, Kam C. & Wu, H. K., 1993. "Bond market seasonality and business cycles," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 377-386.
    4. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    5. Zaremba, Adam & Czapkiewicz, Anna, 2017. "The cross section of international government bond returns," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 171-183.
    6. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    7. Bulkley, George & Nawosah, Vivekanand, 2009. "Can the Cross-Sectional Variation in Expected Stock Returns Explain Momentum?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 777-794, August.
    8. Schneeweis, Thomas & Woolridge, J. Randall, 1979. "Capital Market Seasonality: The Case of Bond Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 939-958, December.
    9. Lam, F.Y. Eric C. & Wei, K.C. John, 2011. "Limits-to-arbitrage, investment frictions, and the asset growth anomaly," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 127-149, October.
    10. Clare, A.D. & Thomas, S.H., 1992. "International evidence for the predictability of bond and stock returns," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 9206, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    11. Hirshleifer, David & Jiang, Danling & DiGiovanni, Yuting Meng, 2020. "Mood beta and seasonalities in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 272-295.
    12. Tomasz Schabek & Henrique Castro, 2017. "“Sell not only in May”. Seasonal Effects on Stock Markets," Dynamic Econometric Models, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 17, pages 5-18.
    13. Conrad, Jennifer & Kaul, Gautam, 1998. "An Anatomy of Trading Strategies," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(3), pages 489-519.
    14. Boris Hofmann & Elod Takáts, 2015. "International monetary spillovers," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    15. Nagel, Stefan, 2005. "Short sales, institutional investors and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 277-309, November.
    16. Hou, Kewei & Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "R2 and Price Inefficiency," Working Paper Series 2006-23, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    17. Ball, Ray & Gerakos, Joseph & Linnainmaa, Juhani T. & Nikolaev, Valeri, 2016. "Accruals, cash flows, and operating profitability in the cross section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 28-45.
    18. Gueorgui Konstantinov, 2016. "Capturing short-term and long-term alpha of global bond portfolios: evidence from EUR-investors’ perspective," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(3), pages 337-365, August.
    19. Ejsing, Jacob & Grothe, Magdalena & Grothe, Oliver, 2012. "Liquidity and credit risk premia in government bond yields," Working Paper Series 1440, European Central Bank.
    20. Zaremba, Adam & Schabek, Tomasz, 2017. "Seasonality in government bond returns and factor premia," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 292-302.
    21. R. David Mclean & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2016. "Does Academic Research Destroy Stock Return Predictability?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 5-32, February.
    22. Gebhardt, William R. & Hvidkjaer, Soeren & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 2005. "Stock and bond market interaction: Does momentum spill over?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 651-690, March.
    23. Heston, Steven L. & Sadka, Ronnie, 2008. "Seasonality in the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 418-445, February.
    24. Haesen, Daniel & Houweling, Patrick & van Zundert, Jeroen, 2017. "Momentum spillover from stocks to corporate bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 28-41.
    25. Clifford S. Asness & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2013. "Value and Momentum Everywhere," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 929-985, June.
    26. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    27. Srivastava, Sasha & Lin, Hai & Premachandra, Inguruwatte M. & Roberts, Helen, 2016. "Global risk spillover and the predictability of sovereign CDS spread: International evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 371-390.
    28. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    29. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    30. Gu, Ming & Kang, Wenjin & Xu, Bu, 2018. "Limits of arbitrage and idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from China stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 240-258.
    31. Heston, Steven L. & Sadka, Ronnie, 2010. "Seasonality in the Cross Section of Stock Returns: The International Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1133-1160, October.
    32. Jongsub Lee & Andy Naranjo & Stace Sirmans, 2016. "Exodus from Sovereign Risk: Global Asset and Information Networks in the Pricing of Corporate Credit Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1813-1856, August.
    33. Deven Bathia & Don Bredin & Dirk Nitzsche, 2016. "International Sentiment Spillovers in Equity Returns," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 332-359, October.
    34. X. Frank Zhang, 2006. "Information Uncertainty and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 105-137, February.
    35. Gerhard Hambusch & KiHoon Jimmy Hong & Ellenora Webster, 2015. "Enhancing Risk-Adjusted Return Using Time Series Momentum in Sovereign Bonds," Published Paper Series 2015-4, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    36. Matti Keloharju & Juhani T. Linnainmaa & Peter Nyberg, 2016. "Return Seasonalities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1557-1590, August.
    37. Ozcan Ceylan, 2017. "Global Risk Aversion Spillover Dynamics and Investors' Attention Allocation," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 18(1), pages 99-109, May.
    38. Michael J. Cooper & Roberto C. Gutierrez & Allaudeen Hameed, 2004. "Market States and Momentum," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1345-1365, June.
    39. Sven Bouman & Ben Jacobsen, 2002. "The Halloween Indicator, "Sell in May and Go Away": Another Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1618-1635, December.
    40. Jessica Leutert, 2018. "The Swiss franc safety premium," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-21, December.
    41. Tarun Chordia & Lakshmanan Shivakumar, 2002. "Momentum, Business Cycle, and Time‐varying Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 985-1019, April.
    42. Robert Novy-Marx & Mihail Velikov, 2016. "A Taxonomy of Anomalies and Their Trading Costs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 104-147.
    43. Clare, A. D. & Thomas, S. H., 1992. "International evidence for the predictability of bond and stock returns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 105-112, September.
    44. Bakshi, Gurdip & Panayotov, George, 2013. "Predictability of currency carry trades and asset pricing implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 139-163.
    45. Kenneth L. Smith, 2002. "Government Bond Market Seasonality, Diversification, and Cointegration: International Evidence," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 203-221, June.
    46. Mashruwala, Christina & Rajgopal, Shivaram & Shevlin, Terry, 2006. "Why is the accrual anomaly not arbitraged away? The role of idiosyncratic risk and transaction costs," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 3-33, October.
    47. Zaremba, Adam & Andreu, Laura, 2018. "Paper profits or real money? Trading costs and stock market anomalies in country ETFs," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 181-192.
    48. Cho, Jin-Wan & Choi, Joung Hwa & Kim, Taeyong & Kim, Woojin, 2016. "Flight-to-quality and correlation between currency and stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 191-212.
    49. Lu, Helen & Jacobsen, Ben, 2016. "Cross-asset return predictability: Carry trades, stocks and commodities," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 62-87.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Konstantinov, Gueorgui S. & Fabozzi, Frank J., 2021. "Towards a dead end? EMU bond market exposure and manager performance," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    2. Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Demir, Ender & Szczygielski, Jan Jakub & Vasenin, Mikhail, 2020. "Seasonality in the Cross-Section of Cryptocurrency Returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    3. Mikutowski, Mateusz & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas & Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Return seasonalities in government bonds and macroeconomic risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 114-116.
    4. Zaremba, Adam & Long, Huaigang & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas, 2019. "Short-term momentum (almost) everywhere," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Huynh, Toan Luu Duc & Foglia, Matteo & Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Angelini, Eliana, 2021. "Feverish sentiment and global equity markets during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1088-1108.
    6. Guo, Shuxin & Yuan, Yue & Ma, Feng, 2022. "Cross-sectional seasonalities and seasonal reversals: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Daniel Hofmann & Karl Ludwig Keiber, 2021. "Seasonalities in the German stock market," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 35(2), pages 151-192, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, November.
    2. Zaremba, Adam & Umutlu, Mehmet & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas, 2019. "Alpha momentum and alpha reversal in country and industry equity indexes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 144-161.
    3. Zaremba, Adam & Cakici, Nusret & Bianchi, Robert J. & Long, Huaigang, 2023. "Interest rate changes and the cross-section of global equity returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    4. Zaremba, Adam & Szyszka, Adam & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas & Mikutowski, Mateusz, 2021. "Herding for profits: Market breadth and the cross-section of global equity returns," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 348-364.
    5. Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Zhou, Wenyu & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Macroeconomics matter: Leading economic indicators and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    6. Keloharju, Matti & Linnainmaa, Juhani T. & Nyberg, Peter, 2021. "Are return seasonalities due to risk or mispricing?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 138-161.
    7. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Recency bias and the cross-section of international stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    9. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam & Bianchi, Robert J. & Pham, Nga, 2021. "False discoveries in the anomaly research: New insights from the Stock Exchange of Melbourne (1927–1987)," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2022. "Salience theory and the cross-section of stock returns: International and further evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 689-725.
    11. Zaremba, Adam & Kizys, Renatas & Raza, Muhammad Wajid, 2020. "The long-run reversal in the long run: Insights from two centuries of international equity returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 177-199.
    12. Zaremba, Adam & Long, Huaigang & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas, 2019. "Short-term momentum (almost) everywhere," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    13. Ma, Yao & Yang, Baochen & Su, Yunpeng, 2021. "Stock return predictability: Evidence from moving averages of trading volume," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    14. Zaremba, Adam & Szyszka, Adam & Long, Huaigang & Zawadka, Dariusz, 2020. "Business sentiment and the cross-section of global equity returns," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    15. Zaremba, Adam & Mikutowski, Mateusz & Karathanasopoulos, Andreas & Osman, Mohamed, 2019. "Picking winners to pick your winners: The momentum effect in commodity risk factors," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    16. Guo, Shuxin & Yuan, Yue & Ma, Feng, 2022. "Cross-sectional seasonalities and seasonal reversals: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    17. Zaremba, Adam & Bianchi, Robert J. & Mikutowski, Mateusz, 2021. "Long-run reversal in commodity returns: Insights from seven centuries of evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    18. Chen, Tsung-Yu & Chao, Ching-Hsiang & Wu, Zhen-Xing, 2021. "Does the turnover effect matter in emerging markets? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. Zaremba, Adam & Czapkiewicz, Anna, 2017. "The cross section of international government bond returns," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 171-183.
    20. Jang, Jeewon & Kang, Jangkoo, 2019. "Probability of price crashes, rational speculative bubbles, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 222-247.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Return seasonalities; Seasonal anomalies; Calendar anomalies; Government bonds; Sovereign bonds; Fixed-income securities; Asset pricing; Return predictability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:98:y:2019:i:c:p:80-94. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.