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The turn-of-the-year effect and tax-loss-selling by institutional investors

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  • Sikes, Stephanie A.

Abstract

Prior studies attribute the turn-of-the-year effect whereby small capitalization stocks earn unusually high returns in early January to tax-loss-selling by individual investors and window-dressing by institutional investors. My results suggest that a significant portion of the effect on turn-of-the-year returns that prior studies attribute to window-dressing is actually attributable to tax-loss-selling by institutional investors. Among small capitalization stocks, I find that institutional investors with strong tax incentives and weak window-dressing incentives realize significantly more losses in the fourth quarter than in the first three quarters of the calendar year, and that their fourth quarter realized losses have a significant impact on turn-of-the-year returns. A one percentage point change in these institutional investors' fourth quarter realized losses scaled by a firm's market capitalization results in an increase of 47 basis points in the firm's average daily return over the first three trading days of January, which represents a 46 percent change for the mean firm.

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  • Sikes, Stephanie A., 2014. "The turn-of-the-year effect and tax-loss-selling by institutional investors," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 22-42.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:57:y:2014:i:1:p:22-42
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2013.12.002
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    6. Frijns, Bart & Huynh, Thanh D. & Tourani-Rad, Alireza & Westerholm, P. Joakim, 2018. "Institutional trading and asset pricing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 59-77.
    7. Agapova, Anna & Kaprielyan, Margarita, 2020. "Stock volatility and trading," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
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    9. Easterday, Kathryn E. & Sen, Pradyot K., 2016. "Is the January effect rational? Insights from the accounting valuation model," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 168-185.
    10. Eichfelder, Sebastian & Lau, Mona, 2015. "Capitalization of capital gains taxes: (In)attention and turn-of-the-year returns," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 195, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Turn-of-the-year effect; Tax-loss-selling; Institutional investors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

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