IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v56y2021i5p1713-1737_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk-Neutral Skewness, Informed Trading, and the Cross Section of Stock Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Chordia, Tarun
  • Lin, Tse-Chun
  • Xiang, Vincent

Abstract

In this article, we use volatility surface data from options contracts to document a strong, robust, and positive cross-sectional relation between risk-neutral skewness (RNS) and subsequent stock returns. The differential return between high- and low-RNS stocks amounts to 0.17% per week. Preannouncement RNS is positively related to earnings announcement returns, and the positive RNS–return relation is more pronounced for other nonscheduled news releases. This suggests that it is informed trading that drives the positive relation between RNS and subsequent stock returns. We also find that RNS contains incremental information beyond trading signals captured by option-implied volatility and volume.

Suggested Citation

  • Chordia, Tarun & Lin, Tse-Chun & Xiang, Vincent, 2021. "Risk-Neutral Skewness, Informed Trading, and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(5), pages 1713-1737, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:56:y:2021:i:5:p:1713-1737_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109020000551/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Xinxin & Bouri, Elie & Xu, Yahua & Zhang, Gongqiu, 2022. "The asymmetric relationship between returns and implied higher moments: Evidence from the crude oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    2. Ana‐Maria Fuertes & Zhenya Liu & Weiqing Tang, 2022. "Risk‐neutral skewness and commodity futures pricing," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 751-785, April.
    3. Silvia Bressan & Alex Weissensteiner, 2023. "Option-Implied Skewness and the Value of Financial Intermediaries," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 207-229, October.
    4. Gagnon, Marie-Hélène & Power, Gabriel J. & Toupin, Dominique, 2023. "The sum of all fears: Forecasting international returns using option-implied risk measures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Asgar Ali & K. N. Badhani, 2023. "Downside risk matters once the lottery effect is controlled: explaining risk–return relationship in the Indian equity market," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(1), pages 27-43, February.
    6. Jitsawatpaiboon, Kanokrak & Ruan, Xinfeng, 2023. "The COVID-19 risk in the cross-section of equity options," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    7. Alexandridis, Antonios K. & Apergis, Iraklis & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Voukelatos, Nikolaos, 2023. "Equity premium prediction: The role of information from the options market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Mengyu Zhang & Thanos Verousis & Iordanis Kalaitzoglou, 2022. "Information and the arrival rate of option trading volume," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 605-644, April.
    9. Junyu Zhang & Xinfeng Ruan & Jin E. Zhang, 2023. "Risk‐neutral moments and return predictability: International evidence," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1086-1111, August.

    More about this item

    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:cup:jfinqa:v:56:y:2021:i:5:p:1713-1737_7. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    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.