IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v41y2017icp292-302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seasonality in government bond returns and factor premia

Author

Listed:
  • Zaremba, Adam
  • Schabek, Tomasz

Abstract

The study investigated both the January effect and the “sell-in-May-and-go-away” anomaly in government bond returns. It also tested whether the two seasonal patterns impact the performance of fixed-income factor strategies related to volatility, credit risk, value, and momentum premia. Our examination of government bond markets in 25 countries for years 1992–2016 proved that both the bond returns and factor premia had remained unaffected by the January and “sell-in-May” effects. These seasonal patterns in government bond markets appear to be merely a statistical artifact.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:41:y:2017:i:c:p:292-302
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2017.04.036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531916302434
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2017.04.036?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. Lakonishok, Josef, et al, 1991. "Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 227-231, May.
    2. 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.
    3. William T Ziemba, 2012. "Calendar Anomalies and Arbitrage," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 8467, January.
    4. Dirk Brounen & Yair Ben-Hamo, 2009. "Calendar Anomalies: The Case of International Property Shares," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 115-136, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Rozeff, Michael S. & Kinney, William Jr., 1976. "Capital market seasonality: The case of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 379-402, October.
    7. Davis, James L, 1994. "The Cross-Section of Realized Stock Returns: The Pre-COMPUSTAT Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1579-1593, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    10. Horowitz, Joel L. & Loughran, Tim & Savin, N. E., 2000. "Three analyses of the firm size premium," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 143-153, August.
    11. Zaremba, Adam, 2016. "Investor sentiment, limits on arbitrage, and the performance of cross-country stock market anomalies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 136-163.
    12. Mark J. Kamstra & Lisa A. Kramer & Maurice D. Levi, 2003. "Winter Blues: A SAD Stock Market Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 324-343, March.
    13. Kelly, Patrick J. & Meschke, Felix, 2010. "Sentiment and stock returns: The SAD anomaly revisited," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1308-1326, June.
    14. Haggard, K. Stephen & Witte, H. Douglas, 2010. "The Halloween effect: Trick or treat?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 379-387, December.
    15. Jacobsen, Ben & Marquering, Wessel, 2008. "Is it the weather?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 526-540, April.
    16. Nikunj Patel & Martin Sewell, 2015. "Calendar anomalies: a survey of the literature," International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(2), pages 99-121.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Keef, Stephen P. & Khaled, Mohammed S., 2011. "A review of the seasonal affective disorder hypothesis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 959-967.
    20. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    21. Ogden, Joseph P, 1990. "Turn-of-Month Evaluations of Liquid Profits and Stock Returns: A Common Explanation for the Monthly and January Effects," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1259-1272, September.
    22. Kaustia, Markku & Rantapuska, Elias, 2016. "Does mood affect trading behavior?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-26.
    23. Ritter, Jay R & Chopra, Navin, 1989. " Portfolio Rebalancing and the Turn-of-the-Year Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(1), pages 149-166, March.
    24. Lucey, Brian M & Zhao, Shelly, 2008. "Halloween or January? Yet another puzzle," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1055-1069, December.
    25. Kramer, Charles, 1994. "Macroeconomic Seasonality and the January Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1883-1891, December.
    26. Loughran, Tim, 1997. "Book-to-Market across Firm Size, Exchange, and Seasonality: Is There an Effect?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(3), pages 249-268, September.
    27. Yao, Yaqiong, 2012. "Momentum, contrarian, and the January seasonality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2757-2769.
    28. Priestley, Richard, 1997. "Seasonality, Stock Returns and the Macroeconomy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1742-1750, November.
    29. Adam Zaremba, 2015. "The January seasonality and the performance of country-level value and momentum strategies," Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 4(2), pages 195-209.
    30. Hong, Harrison & Yu, Jialin, 2009. "Gone fishin': Seasonality in trading activity and asset prices," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 672-702, November.
    31. 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.
    32. Sidney B. Wachtel, 1942. "Certain Observations on Seasonal Movements in Stock Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15, pages 184-184.
    33. 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.
    34. Jeffrey R. Gerlach, 2007. "Macroeconomic News And Stock Market Calendar And Weather Anomalies," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 30(2), pages 283-300, June.
    35. Ritter, Jay R, 1988. " The Buying and Selling Behavior of Individual Investors at the Turn of the Year," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 701-717, July.
    36. Gamble, Ralph Jr., 1993. "The January effect and intergenerational transfers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 295-304.
    37. Ronald Doeswijk, 2008. "The Optimism Cycle: Sell in May," De Economist, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 175-200, June.
    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. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, November.
    2. Zaremba, Adam & Czapkiewicz, Anna, 2017. "The cross section of international government bond returns," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 171-183.
    3. Peter Arendas & Viera Malacka & Maria Schwarzova, 2018. "A Closer Look at the Halloween Effect: The Case of the Dow Jones Industrial Average," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-12, April.
    4. Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Cross-sectional seasonalities in international government bond returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 80-94.

    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. Degenhardt, Thomas & Auer, Benjamin R., 2018. "The “Sell in May” effect: A review and new empirical evidence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 169-205.
    3. Zhang, Cherry Y. & Jacobsen, Ben, 2021. "The Halloween indicator, “Sell in May and Go Away”: Everywhere and all the time," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2020. "Introducere în analiza anomaliilor calendaristice, Partea a doua [An Introduction to the Analysis of the Calendar Anomalies, Part 2]," MPRA Paper 97961, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Kenourgios, Dimitris & Samios, Yiannis, 2021. "Halloween effect and active fund management," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 534-544.
    7. Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Cross-sectional seasonalities in international government bond returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 80-94.
    8. Gu, Anthony Yanxiang, 2003. "The declining January effect: evidences from the U.S. equity markets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 395-404.
    9. Wagner, Moritz & Lee, John Byong-Tek & Margaritis, Dimitris, 2022. "Mutual fund flows and seasonalities in stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Jochen M. Schmittmann & Jenny Pirschel & Steffen Meyer & Andreas Hackethal, 2015. "The Impact of Weather on German Retail Investors," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1143-1183.
    11. Benjamin R. Auer, 2019. "Does the strength of capital market anomalies exhibit seasonal patterns?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(1), pages 91-103, January.
    12. Plastun, Alex & Sibande, Xolani & Gupta, Rangan & Wohar, Mark E., 2020. "Halloween Effect in developed stock markets: A historical perspective," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 130-138.
    13. Sun, Qian & Tong, Wilson H.S., 2010. "Risk and the January effect," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 965-974, May.
    14. Adam Zaremba, 2015. "The January seasonality and the performance of country-level value and momentum strategies," Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 4(2), pages 195-209.
    15. Suliman Zakaria Suliman Abdalla, 2015. "An Investigation of the Month-of-The-Year Effect for the Sudanese Stock Market," Working Papers 924, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2015.
    16. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2016. "The impact of the Great Lent and of the Nativity Fast on the Bucharest Stock Exchange," MPRA Paper 89023, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Dec 2016.
    17. Chui, David & Wing Cheng, Wui & Chi Chow, Sheung & LI, Ya, 2020. "Eastern Halloween effect: A stochastic dominance approach," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Beladi, Hamid & Chao, Chi Chur & Hu, May, 2016. "Another January effect—Evidence from stock split announcements," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 123-138.
    19. Kaustia, Markku & Rantapuska, Elias, 2016. "Does mood affect trading behavior?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-26.
    20. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2020. "Efectul Turn-of-the-Year pe piaţa valutară din România [The Turn-of-the-Year Effect in the Romanian foreign exchange market]," MPRA Paper 99365, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Mar 2020.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Seasonal anomalies; Calendar anomalies; January effect; Sell in may and go away; Halloween indicator; Government bonds; Sovereign bonds; Fixed-income securities;
    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:riibaf:v:41:y:2017:i:c:p:292-302. 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/ribaf .

    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.