IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v47y2022ipas1544612322001015.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Idiosyncratic return variation: Firm-specific information or noise?

Author

Listed:
  • Shu, Yaruo
  • Sohn, Sungbin

Abstract

There has been a long debate on the interpretation of idiosyncratic return variation. We inform this debate by examining the extent to which stock return synchronicity is associated with post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD) in China. We find that firms with higher synchronicity exhibit less pronounced PEAD and that this negative association weakens for firms with high institutional ownership. The findings suggest that in the Chinese stock markets, where retail investors are in the majority, idiosyncratic returns reflect noise rather than firm-specific information on average, and institutional investors play a role in reducing noise in idiosyncratic returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Shu, Yaruo & Sohn, Sungbin, 2022. "Idiosyncratic return variation: Firm-specific information or noise?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:47:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612322001015
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2022.102789
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612322001015
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2022.102789?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. Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2000. "Financial markets and the allocation of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 187-214.
    2. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    4. Art Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2004. "Value-Enhancing Capital Budgeting and Firm-specific Stock Return Variation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 65-105, February.
    5. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    6. Qi Chen & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2007. "Price Informativeness and Investment Sensitivity to Stock Price," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 619-650.
    7. Chan, Kalok & Chan, Yue-Cheong, 2014. "Price informativeness and stock return synchronicity: Evidence from the pricing of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 36-53.
    8. Dasgupta, Sudipto & Gan, Jie & Gao, Ning, 2010. "Transparency, Price Informativeness, and Stock Return Synchronicity: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1189-1220, October.
    9. Mingyi Hung & Xi Li & Shiheng Wang, 2015. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift in Global Markets: Evidence from an Information Shock," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(4), pages 1242-1283.
    10. Artyom Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung & Paul Zarowin, 2003. "Does Greater Firm‐Specific Return Variation Mean More or Less Informed Stock Pricing?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 797-836, December.
    11. Guilong Cai & Bingxuan Lin & Minghai Wei & Xiaowei Xu, 2021. "The role of institutional investors in post-earnings announcement drift: evidence from China," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 206-236, February.
    12. Stefano Dellavigna & Joshua M. Pollet, 2009. "Investor Inattention and Friday Earnings Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 709-749, April.
    13. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    14. David Hirshleifer & Sonya Seongyeon Lim & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "Driven to Distraction: Extraneous Events and Underreaction to Earnings News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2289-2325, October.
    15. Xi Li & Mingyi Hung & Shiheng Wang, 2015. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift in Global Markets: Evidence from an Information Shock," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2015-17, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2015.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    2. Van Ness, Bonnie & Van Ness, Robert & Yildiz, Serhat, 2021. "Private information in trades, R2, and large stock price movements," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. De Cesari, Amedeo & Huang-Meier, Winifred, 2015. "Dividend changes and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-17.
    4. Jennifer N. Carpenter & Fangzhou Lu & Robert F. Whitelaw, 2015. "The Real Value of China's Stock Market," NBER Working Papers 20957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Abedifar, Pejman & Bouslah, Kais & Qamhieh Hashem, Shatha & Song, Liang, 2020. "How informative are stock prices of Islamic Banks?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Doron Israeli & Charles M. C. Lee & Suhas A. Sridharan, 2017. "Is there a dark side to exchange traded funds? An information perspective," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1048-1083, September.
    7. Marco Wölfle, 2009. "Information-based trade in Russia and the effects of listing abroad," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 229-262, November.
    8. Chue, Timothy K. & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2019. "Aggregate investor sentiment and stock return synchronicity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Ahmad Fraz & Arshad Hassan, 2017. "Stock Price Synchronicity and Information Environment," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 9(4), pages 213-232, December.
    10. Todea Anita, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Stock Price Informativeness: a Cross-Country Study," Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Oeconomica, Sciendo, vol. 63(1), pages 63-72, April.
    11. Heidi Quah & Janto Haman & Dharmendra Naidu, 2021. "The effect of stock liquidity on investment efficiency under financing constraints and asymmetric information: Evidence from the United States," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 2109-2150, April.
    12. Wenjing Ouyang & Samuel H. Szewczyk, 2018. "Stock price informativeness on the sensitivity of strategic M&A investment to Q," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 745-774, April.
    13. Bennett, Benjamin & Stulz, René & Wang, Zexi, 2020. "Does the stock market make firms more productive?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 281-306.
    14. Hasan, Iftekhar & Song, Liang & Wachtel, Paul, 2014. "Institutional development and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 92-108.
    15. Joachim Gassen & Hollis A. Skaife & David Veenman, 2020. "Illiquidity and the Measurement of Stock Price Synchronicity," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 419-456, March.
    16. Carpenter, Jennifer N. & Lu, Fangzhou & Whitelaw, Robert F., 2021. "The real value of China’s stock market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 679-696.
    17. Dang, Tung Lam & Moshirian, Fariborz & Zhang, Bohui, 2015. "Commonality in news around the world," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 82-110.
    18. Xiang Zhang & Han Zhou, 2020. "Leverage structure and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, July.
    19. Todea, Alexandru & Petrescu, Daiana Florina, 2021. "Is stock price informativeness shaped by our genes?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Cosset, Jean-Claude, 2014. "State Ownership, Political Institutions, and Stock Price Informativeness: Evidence from Privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 179-199.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stock return synchronicity; Price informativeness; Post-earnings announcement drift; Institutional ownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:finlet:v:47:y:2022:i:pa:s1544612322001015. 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/frl .

    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.