This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Long-Horizon Mean Reversion for the Brussels Stock Exchange: Evidence for the 19th Century

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
J. ANNAERT ()
W. VAN HYFTE ()
Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a completely new and unique historical dataset of Belgian stock returns during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. This high-quality database comprises stock price and company related information on more than 1500 companies. Given the extensive use of CRSP return data and the data mining risks involved it provides an interesting out-of-sample dataset with which to test the robustness of ‘prevailing’ asset pricing anomalies. We re-examine mean reversals in long-horizon returns using the framework of Hodrick (1992) and Jegadeesh (1991). Our simulation experiments demonstrate that it has considerably better small sample properties than the traditional regression framework of Fama and French (1988a). In the short run, returns exhibit strong persistence, which is partially induced by infrequent trading. Contrary to Fama and French (1988a) and Poterba and Summers (1988), our results suggest that, in the long run, there is little to no evidence of stock prices containing autoregressive stationary components but instead resemble a random walk. Capital appreciation returns exhibit stronger time-varying behavior than total returns. Belgian stock returns demonstrate significant seasonality in January notwithstanding the absence of taxes. In addition, in contrast to other months, January months do show some evidence of mean reversion.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.FEB.UGent.be/nl/Ondz/wp/Papers/wp_06_376.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in its series Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium with number 06/376.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 46 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:06/376

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Hoveniersberg 4, B-9000 Gent
Phone: ++ 32 (0) 9 264 34 61
Fax: ++ 32 (0) 9 264 35 92
Web page: http://www.feb.ugent.be/
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Nathalie Verhaeghe).

Related research
Keywords: Brussels Stock Exchange; Financial Market History; Market Efficiency; Univariate Stock Return Predictability;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies
N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Newey, Whitney K & West, Kenneth D, 1987. "A Simple, Positive Semi-definite, Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 703-08, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Kim, Myung Jig & Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1991. "Mean Reversion in Stock Prices? A Reappraisal of the Empirical Evidence," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 58(3), pages 515-28, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. " Does the Stock Market Rationally Reflect Fundamental Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 591-601, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Shiller, Robert J. & Perron, Pierre, 1985. "Testing the random walk hypothesis : Power versus frequency of observation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 381-386. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Cutler, David M & Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1990. "Speculative Dynamics and the Role of Feedback Traders," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 63-68, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "The Use of Volatility Measures in Assessing Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 291-304, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2001. "Stock Return Predictability: Is it There?," NBER Working Papers 8207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1988. " Stock Prices, Earnings, and Expected Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 661-76, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Hansen, Lars Peter & Hodrick, Robert J, 1980. "Forward Exchange Rates as Optimal Predictors of Future Spot Rates: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(5), pages 829-53, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. John Y. Campbell & Motohiro Yogo, 2003. "Efficient Tests of Stock Return Predictability," NBER Working Papers 10026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  13. Sydney Ludvigson & Martin Lettau, 1999. "Consumption, aggregate wealth and expected stock returns," Staff Reports 77, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Huizinga, John, 1987. "An empirical investigation of the long-run behavior of real exchange rates," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 149-214, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Hodrick, Robert J, 1992. "Dividend Yields and Expected Stock Returns: Alternative Procedures for Inference and Measurement," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 357-86. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Richardson, Matthew & Stock, James H., 1989. "Drawing inferences from statistics based on multiyear asset returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 323-348, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Robert J. Shiller, 1981. "The Use of Volatility Measures in Assessing Market Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 0565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Martin Lettau, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, 06. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Keim, Donald B. & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1986. "Predicting returns in the stock and bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 357-390, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  20. Reinganum, Marc R., 1983. "The anomalous stock market behavior of small firms in January : Empirical tests for tax-loss selling effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 89-104, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Richardson, Matthew, 1993. "Temporary Components of Stock Prices: A Skeptic's View," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 11(2), pages 199-207, April.
  22. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  23. McQueen, Grant, 1992. "Long-Horizon Mean-Reverting Stock Prices Revisited," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(01), pages 1-18, March. [Downloadable!]
  24. John H. Cochrane, 1999. "Portfolio Advice for a Multifactor World," CRSP working papers 491, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  25. Nelson, Charles R & Kim, Myung J, 1993. " Predictable Stock Returns: The Role of Small Sample Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 641-61, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Josef Lakonishok, Seymour Smidt, 1988. "Are Seasonal Anomalies Real? A Ninety-Year Perspective," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(4), pages 403-425. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  28. Wayne E. Ferson & Sergei Sarkissian & Timothy T. Simin, 2003. "Spurious Regressions in Financial Economics?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1393-1414, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  29. John Y. Campbell, 1991. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 3246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  30. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1991. " Seasonality in Stock Price Mean Reversion: Evidence from the U.S. and the U.K," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1427-44, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Goetzmann, William Nelson & Jorion, Philippe, 1993. " Testing the Predictive Power of Dividend Yields," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 663-79, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  32. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  33. Merton, Robert C., 1985. "On the current state of the stock market rationality hypothesis," Working papers 1717-85., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management. [Downloadable!]
  34. Denton, Frank T, 1985. "Data Mining as an Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 124-27, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  35. Daniel, Kent, 2001. "The power and size of mean reversion tests," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 493-535, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  36. Goetzmann, William N & Jorion, Philippe, 1995. "A Longer Look at Dividend Yields," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 483-508, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  37. Fama, Eugene F, 1990. " Stock Returns, Expected Returns, and Real Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1089-1108, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  38. Richardson, Matthew P & Smith, Tom, 1994. "A Unified Approach to Testing for Serial Correlation in Stock Returns," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 371-99, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  39. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1988. "Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 246-73, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  40. Valkanov, Rossen, 2003. "Long-horizon regressions: theoretical results and applications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 201-232, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  41. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  42. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1988. "Mean reversion in stock prices : Evidence and Implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 27-59, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  43. G. William Schwert, 2002. "Anomalies and Market Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 9277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  44. Balvers, Ronald J & Cosimano, Thomas F & McDonald, Bill, 1990. " Predicting Stock Returns in an Efficient Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1109-28, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  45. Cutler, David M & Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1991. "Speculative Dynamics," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 58(3), pages 529-46, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  46. Goetzmann, William Nelson, 1993. "Patterns in Three Centuries of Stock Market Prices," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(2), pages 249-70, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Benjamin Chabot & Eric Ghysels & Ravi Jagannathan, 2008. "Price Momentum In Stocks: Insights From Victorian Age Data," NBER Working Papers 14500, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? Use the JEL tree to browse through the database by subfields.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-19.


This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.