IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v12y2009i4p672-702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gone fishin': Seasonality in trading activity and asset prices

Author

Listed:
  • Hong, Harrison
  • Yu, Jialin

Abstract

We use seasonality in stock trading activity associated with summer vacation as a source of exogenous variation to study the relationship between trading volume and expected return. Using data from 51 stock markets, we first confirm a widely held belief that stock turnover is significantly lower during the summer because market participants are on vacation. Interestingly, we find that mean stock return is also lower during the summer for countries with significant declines in trading activity. This relationship is not due to time-varying volatility. Moreover, both large and small investors trade less and the price of trading (bid-ask spread) is higher during the summer. These findings suggest that heterogeneous agent models are essential for a complete understanding of asset prices.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:12:y:2009:i:4:p:672-702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386-4181(09)00037-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Cao, Melanie & Wei, Jason, 2005. "Stock market returns: A note on temperature anomaly," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1559-1573, June.
    2. John Y. Campbell & Sanford J. Grossman & Jiang Wang, 1993. "Trading Volume and Serial Correlation in Stock Returns," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(4), pages 905-939.
    3. Lakonishok, Josef, et al, 1991. "Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 227-231, May.
    4. 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.
    5. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    6. Baker, Malcolm & Stein, Jeremy C., 2004. "Market liquidity as a sentiment indicator," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 271-299, June.
    7. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:617-37 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Saunders, Edward M, Jr, 1993. "Stock Prices and Wall Street Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1337-1345, December.
    9. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    10. Karpoff, Jonathan M., 1987. "The Relation between Price Changes and Trading Volume: A Survey," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 109-126, March.
    11. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    12. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim, 1986. "Asset pricing and the bid-ask spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 223-249, December.
    13. Grossman, S.J. & Miller, M.H., 1988. "Liquidity And Market Structure," Papers 88, Princeton, Department of Economics - Financial Research Center.
    14. 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.
    15. Keim, Donald B., 1983. "Size-related anomalies and stock return seasonality : Further empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 13-32, June.
    16. Lee, Charles M C & Ready, Mark J, 1991. "Inferring Trade Direction from Intraday Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 733-746, June.
    17. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 2007. "Disagreement and the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 109-128, Spring.
    18. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    19. Dyl, Edward A, 1977. "Capital Gains Taxation and Year-End Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(1), pages 165-175, March.
    20. Chan, Wesley S., 2003. "Stock price reaction to news and no-news: drift and reversal after headlines," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 223-260, November.
    21. 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.
    22. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1993. "Differences of Opinion Make a Horse Race," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 473-506.
    23. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:701-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Wang, Jiang, 1994. "A Model of Competitive Stock Trading Volume," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 127-168, February.
    25. J. Michael Harrison & David M. Kreps, 1978. "Speculative Investor Behavior in a Stock Market with Heterogeneous Expectations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 92(2), pages 323-336.
    26. Owen Lamont & Andrea Frazzini, 2007. "The Earnings Announcement Premium and Trading Volume," NBER Working Papers 13090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. 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).
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    3. Qian, Xiaolin, 2014. "Small investor sentiment, differences of opinion and stock overvaluation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 219-246.
    4. Vidal-García, Javier & Vidal, Marta, 2014. "Seasonality and idiosyncratic risk in mutual fund performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(3), pages 613-624.
    5. Coakley, Jerry & Kuo, Jing-Ming & Wood, Andrew, 2012. "The School’s Out effect: A new seasonal anomaly!," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 133-143.
    6. Chu, Gang & Li, Xiao & Zhang, Yongjie, 2022. "Information demand and net selling around earnings announcement," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    7. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2011. "Recent trends in trading activity and market quality," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 243-263, August.
    8. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    9. Shigeki Sakakibara & Takashi Yamasaki & Katsuhiko Okada, 2013. "The Calendar Structure of the Japanese Stock Market: The ‘Sell in May Effect’ versus the ‘Dekansho-bushi Effect’," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 161-185, June.
    10. Kiran Thapa, 2013. "Stock Message Board Recommendations and Share Trading Activity," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 3-2013, January-A.
    11. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, 1998. "Dynamic equilibrium and volatility in financial asset markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 93-127, May.
    12. Sonya Zhu, 2023. "Volume dynamics around FOMC announcements," BIS Working Papers 1079, Bank for International Settlements.
    13. Lillyn L. Teh & Werner F. M. de Bondt, 1997. "Herding Behavior and Stock Returns: An Exploratory Investigation," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 133(II), pages 293-324, June.
    14. Weng, Pei-Shih, 2018. "Lucky issuance: The role of numerological superstitions in irrational return premiums," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 79-91.
    15. Qadan, Mahmoud & Kliger, Doron, 2016. "The short trading day anomaly," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 62-80.
    16. Chang, Shao-Chi & Chen, Sheng-Syan & Chou, Robin K. & Lin, Yueh-Hsiang, 2008. "Weather and intraday patterns in stock returns and trading activity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1754-1766, September.
    17. Albert Wang, F., 1998. "Strategic trading, asymmetric information and heterogeneous prior beliefs," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 321-352, September.
    18. Fotini Economou & Konstantinos Gavriilidis & Bartosz Gebka & Vasileios Kallinterakis, 2022. "Feedback trading: a review of theory and empirical evidence," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(4), pages 429-476, February.
    19. Yao, Yi & Yang, Rong & Liu, Zhiyuan & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2013. "Government intervention and institutional trading strategy: Evidence from a transition country," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 44-68.
    20. Penasse, J.N.G. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2014. "Bubbles and Trading Frenzies : Evidence from the Art Market," Other publications TiSEM bf0d8984-df7f-4f02-afc7-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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:eee:finmar:v:12:y:2009:i:4:p:672-702. 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/finmar .

    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.