IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/fmktpm/v35y2021i2d10.1007_s11408-020-00373-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seasonalities in the German stock market

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Hofmann

    (European University Viadrina)

  • Karl Ludwig Keiber

    (European University Viadrina)

Abstract

This paper suggests innovative investment strategies drawing on return seasonalities. By means of an out-of-sample study of the German stock market, we report that these long–short investment strategies earn on average raw returns up to 233 basis points per month throughout two decades from 1998 to 2017. On a monthly basis, this documents an outperformance of the corresponding Heston and Sadka (J Financ Econ 87(2):418–445, 2008) strategy by 66%. This outperformance is robust in magnitude even after adjusting for common risk factors along both the three-factor Fama and French (J Financ Econ 33(1):3–56, 1993) model and the four-factor Carhart (J Finance 52(1):57–82, 1997) model. Categorizing stocks into three risk profiles lets us conclude that long–short momentum portfolios of stocks with a low-risk profile generate robust investment performance.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:fmktpm:v:35:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11408-020-00373-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11408-020-00373-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11408-020-00373-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11408-020-00373-1?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. Richards, Anthony J, 1997. "Winner-Loser Reversals in National Stock Market Indices: Can They Be Explained?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 2129-2144, December.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    3. Nijman, Theo & Swinkels, Laurens & Verbeek, Marno, 2004. "Do countries or industries explain momentum in Europe?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 461-481, September.
    4. Chaves, Denis B. & Viswanathan, Vivek, 2016. "Momentum and mean-reversion in commodity spot and futures markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 39-53.
    5. Peter S. Schmidt & Urs von Arx & Andreas Schrimpf & Alexander F. Wagner & Andreas Ziegler, 2019. "Common risk factors in international stock markets," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 33(3), pages 213-241, September.
    6. Anna Scherbina & Bernd Schlusche, 2020. "Follow the Leader: Using the Stock Market to Uncover Information Flows between Firms [Trade credit and cross-country predictable firm returns]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 24(1), pages 189-225.
    7. Cooper, Michael J. & McConnell, John J. & Ovtchinnikov, Alexei V., 2006. "The other January effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 315-341, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Matti Keloharju & Juhani T. Linnainmaa & Peter Nyberg, 2016. "Return Seasonalities," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 1557-1590, August.
    10. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    11. Okunev, John & White, Derek, 2003. "Do Momentum-Based Strategies Still Work in Foreign Currency Markets?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 425-447, June.
    12. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    13. Lo, Andrew W & MacKinlay, A Craig, 1990. "When Are Contrarian Profits Due to Stock Market Overreaction?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 175-205.
    14. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 1998. "Investor Psychology and Security Market Under- and Overreactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 1839-1885, December.
    15. Friedrich-Carl Franz & Tobias Regele, 2016. "Beating the DAX, MDAX, and SDAX: investment strategies in Germany," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(2), pages 161-204, May.
    16. Engel, Charles & Hamilton, James D, 1990. "Long Swings in the Dollar: Are They in the Data and Do Markets Know It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 689-713, September.
    17. Ronald Balvers & Yangru Wu & Erik Gilliland, 2000. "Mean Reversion across National Stock Markets and Parametric Contrarian Investment Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 745-772, April.
    18. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    19. Schiereck, D. & De Bondt, W. & Weber, M., 1999. "Contrarian and Momentum Strategies in Germany," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35306, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    20. John M. Griffin & Xiuqing Ji & J. Spencer Martin, 2003. "Momentum Investing and Business Cycle Risk: Evidence from Pole to Pole," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2515-2547, December.
    21. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    22. Jennifer Conrad & M. Deniz Yavuzm, 2017. "Momentum and Reversal: Does What Goes Up Always Come Down?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 555-581.
    23. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard H, 1987. "Further Evidence on Investor Overreaction and Stock Market Seasonalit y," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 557-581, July.
    24. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 1999. "A Unified Theory of Underreaction, Momentum Trading, and Overreaction in Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2143-2184, December.
    25. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2015. "Editor's Choice Digesting Anomalies: An Investment Approach," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 650-705.
    26. 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.
    27. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    28. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    29. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    30. Miffre, Joelle & Rallis, Georgios, 2007. "Momentum strategies in commodity futures markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1863-1886, June.
    31. 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.
    32. 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.
    33. Li, Fengyun & Zhang, Huacheng & Zheng, Dazhi, 2018. "Seasonality in the cross section of stock returns: Advanced markets versus emerging markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 263-281.
    34. Chopra, Navin & Lakonishok, Josef & Ritter, Jay R., 1992. "Measuring abnormal performance : Do stocks overreact?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 235-268, April.
    35. Ozgur S. Ince & R. Burt Porter, 2006. "Individual Equity Return Data From Thomson Datastream: Handle With Care!," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 29(4), pages 463-479, December.
    36. Gong, Qiang & Liu, Ming & Liu, Qianqiu, 2015. "Momentum is really short-term momentum," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 169-182.
    37. Brown, Stephen J. & Sotes-Paladino, Juan & Wang, Jiaguo(George) & Yao, Yaqiong, 2017. "Starting on the wrong foot: Seasonality in mutual fund performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 133-150.
    38. Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Cross-sectional seasonalities in international government bond returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 80-94.
    39. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2012. "Is momentum really momentum?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 429-453.
    40. 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.
    41. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    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. Song, Jian & Balvers, Ronald J., 2022. "Seasonality and momentum across national equity markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    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, September.
    2. Martin H. Schmidt, 2017. "Trading strategies based on past returns: evidence from Germany," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 31(2), pages 201-256, May.
    3. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    4. Hofmann, Daniel & Keiber, Karl Ludwig & Luczak, Adalbert, 2022. "Up and down together? On the linkage of momentum and reversal," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    5. Adam Zaremba, 2019. "The Cross Section of Country Equity Returns: A Review of Empirical Literature," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, October.
    6. Sina Ehsani & Juhani T. Linnainmaa, 2019. "Factor Momentum and the Momentum Factor," NBER Working Papers 25551, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Chiah, Mardy & Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Umar, Zaghum, 2023. "Trade competitiveness and the aggregate returns in global stock markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    8. Doron Avramov & Guy Kaplanski & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2022. "Postfundamentals Price Drift in Capital Markets: A Regression Regularization Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7658-7681, October.
    9. Hongwei Chuang, 2021. "Momentum Has Its Own Values," Working Papers EMS_2021_02, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    10. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    11. Kaplanski, Guy, 2023. "The race to exploit anomalies and the cost of slow trading," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    12. Gao, Ya & Guo, Bin & Xiong, Xiong, 2021. "Signed momentum in the Chinese stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    13. Song, Jian & Balvers, Ronald J., 2022. "Seasonality and momentum across national equity markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    14. Sanjay Sehgal & Sakshi Jain & Pr Laurence the Porteu de la Morandiere, 2013. "Long-term Prior Return Patterns in Stock Returns: Evidence from Emerging Markets," The International Journal of Business and Finance Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 7(2), pages 53-78.
    15. Kobana Abukari & Isaac Otchere, 2020. "Dominance of hybrid contratum strategies over momentum and contrarian strategies: half a century of evidence," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(4), pages 471-505, December.
    16. Tobias Wiest, 2023. "Momentum: what do we know 30 years after Jegadeesh and Titman’s seminal paper?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 37(1), pages 95-114, March.
    17. Gong, Qiang & Liu, Ming & Liu, Qianqiu, 2015. "Momentum is really short-term momentum," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 169-182.
    18. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    19. Balvers, Ronald J. & Wu, Yangru, 2006. "Momentum and mean reversion across national equity markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 24-48, January.
    20. Minye Zhang & Yongheng Deng, 2010. "Is the Mean Return of Hotel Real Estate Stocks Apt to Overreact to Past Performance?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 497-543, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Seasonalities; Momentum investment; Performance attribution; Autocorrelation; Forecasting returns;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation

    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:kap:fmktpm:v:35:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11408-020-00373-1. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.