IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v132y2019i1p222-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Probability of price crashes, rational speculative bubbles, and the cross-section of stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Jang, Jeewon
  • Kang, Jangkoo

Abstract

We estimate an ex ante probability of extreme negative returns (crashes) of individual stocks as a measure of potential overpricing and find that stocks with a high probability of crashes earn abnormally low returns. Stocks with high crash probability are overpriced regardless of the level of institutional ownership or variations in investor sentiment, and moreover, they exhibit increasing institutional demand until their prices reach the peak of overvaluation. We also find that institutional investors who overweight high crash probability stocks outperform the others, indicating that they have skill in timing bubbles and crashes of individual stocks. Our findings imply that sophisticated investors may not always trade against mispricing but time the correction of overpricing, and suggest that the crash effect we find could arise at least partially from rational speculative bubbles, not entirely from sentiment-driven overpricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Jang, Jeewon & Kang, Jangkoo, 2019. "Probability of price crashes, rational speculative bubbles, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 222-247.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:132:y:2019:i:1:p:222-247
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.10.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X18302812
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.10.005?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. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    2. Karl B. Diether & Christopher J. Malloy & Anna Scherbina, 2002. "Differences of Opinion and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2113-2141, October.
    3. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    4. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    5. Thompson, Samuel B., 2011. "Simple formulas for standard errors that cluster by both firm and time," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 1-10, January.
    6. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    7. Bali, Turan G. & Cakici, Nusret & Whitelaw, Robert F., 2011. "Maxing out: Stocks as lotteries and the cross-section of expected returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 427-446, February.
    8. Jennifer Conrad & Robert F. Dittmar & Eric Ghysels, 2013. "Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 85-124, February.
    9. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2011. "Institutional investors and the limits of arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 62-80, October.
    10. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Dissecting Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1653-1678, August.
    11. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    12. Dow, James & Gorton, Gary, 1994. "Arbitrage Chains," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 819-849, July.
    13. Avramov, Doron & Chordia, Tarun & Jostova, Gergana & Philipov, Alexander, 2013. "Anomalies and financial distress," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 139-159.
    14. 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.
    15. Hirshleifer, David & Kewei Hou & Teoh, Siew Hong & Yinglei Zhang, 2004. "Do investors overvalue firms with bloated balance sheets?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 297-331, December.
    16. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    17. Pastor, Lubos & Stambaugh, Robert F., 2003. "Liquidity Risk and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 642-685, June.
    18. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Michael J. Schill, 2008. "Asset Growth and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1609-1651, August.
    19. Brian Boyer & Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2010. "Expected Idiosyncratic Skewness," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 169-202, January.
    20. Nagel, Stefan, 2005. "Short sales, institutional investors and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 277-309, November.
    21. Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi & Runkle, David E, 1993. "On the Relation between the Expected Value and the Volatility of the Nominal Excess Return on Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1779-1801, December.
    22. Engle, Robert F & Ng, Victor K, 1993. "Measuring and Testing the Impact of News on Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1749-1778, December.
    23. Kent Daniel & Sheridan Titman, 2006. "Market Reactions to Tangible and Intangible Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1605-1643, August.
    24. Conrad, Jennifer & Kapadia, Nishad & Xing, Yuhang, 2014. "Death and jackpot: Why do individual investors hold overpriced stocks?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 455-475.
    25. Edelen, Roger M. & Ince, Ozgur S. & Kadlec, Gregory B., 2016. "Institutional investors and stock return anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 472-488.
    26. R. David Mclean & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2016. "Does Academic Research Destroy Stock Return Predictability?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 5-32, February.
    27. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    28. De Long, J Bradford, et al, 1990. "Positive Feedback Investment Strategies and Destabilizing Rational Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 379-395, June.
    29. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    30. Robert F. Stambaugh & Jianfeng Yu & Yu Yuan, 2015. "Arbitrage Asymmetry and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1903-1948, October.
    31. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    32. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    33. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    34. Ritter, Jay R, 1991. "The Long-run Performance of Initial Public Offerings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 3-27, March.
    35. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    36. Simon Gervais & Ron Kaniel & Dan H. Mingelgrin, 2001. "The High‐Volume Return Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 877-919, June.
    37. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    38. X. Frank Zhang, 2006. "Information Uncertainty and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 105-137, February.
    39. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    40. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2013. "The other side of value: The gross profitability premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-28.
    41. Abreu, Dilip & Brunnermeier, Markus K., 2002. "Synchronization risk and delayed arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 341-360.
    42. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    43. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    44. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    45. Bekaert, Geert & Wu, Guojun, 2000. "Asymmetric Volatility and Risk in Equity Markets," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-42.
    46. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel, 2004. "Hedge Funds and the Technology Bubble," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(5), pages 2013-2040, October.
    47. John M. Griffin & Jeffrey H. Harris & Tao Shu & Selim Topaloglu, 2011. "Who Drove and Burst the Tech Bubble?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1251-1290, August.
    48. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    49. Bhardwaj, Ravinder K & Brooks, LeRoy D, 1992. "The January Anomaly: Effects of Low Share Price, Transaction Costs, and Bid-Ask Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 553-575, June.
    50. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    51. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    52. 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.
    53. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    54. Maria Vassalou & Yuhang Xing, 2004. "Default Risk in Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(2), pages 831-868, April.
    55. Campbell R. Harvey & Yan Liu & Heqing Zhu, 2016. "Editor's Choice … and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 5-68.
    56. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2006. "Profitability, investment and average returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 491-518, December.
    57. Alok Kumar & Charles M.C. Lee, 2006. "Retail Investor Sentiment and Return Comovements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2451-2486, October.
    58. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fang, Yan & Yuan, Jie & Yang, J. Jimmy & Ying, Shangjun, 2022. "Crash-based quantitative trading strategies: Perspective of behavioral finance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    2. Ruwei Zhao & Ruixin Fan & Xiong Xiong & Jianli Wang & Jitka Hilliard, 2023. "Media Tone and Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from China," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-14, August.
    3. Bae, Jaewan & Kang, Jangkoo, 2022. "The negative hiring rate premium on stock returns in the Korean stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Irfan Safdar & Michael Neel & Babatunde Odusami, 2022. "Accounting information and left-tail risk," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1709-1740, May.
    5. Cheng, Feiyang & Wang, Chunfeng & Cui, Xin & Wu, Ji & He, Feng, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty exposure and stock price bubbles: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Ji Cao & Marc Oliver Rieger & Lei Zhao, 2019. "Safety First, Loss Probability, and the Cross Section of Expected Stock Returns," Working Paper Series 2019-02, University of Trier, Research Group Quantitative Finance and Risk Analysis.
    7. Zhu, Hongbing & Yang, Lihua & Xu, Changxin, 2023. "Tracking investor gambling intensity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Gong, Xiao-Li & Liu, Jian-Min & Xiong, Xiong & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "Research on stock volatility risk and investor sentiment contagion from the perspective of multi-layer dynamic network," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    9. Fang, Yi & Niu, Hui & Tong, Xiangda, 2022. "Crash probability anomaly in the Chinese stock market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    10. Luo, Deming & Yao, Zhongwei & Zhu, Yanjian, 2022. "Bubble-crash experience and investment styles of mutual fund managers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Choi, Young Mok & Park, Kunsu, 2022. "Zero-leverage policy and stock price crash risk: Evidence from Korea," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Fang, Yi & Niu, Hui & Lin, Yuen, 2023. "Ex-ante Valuation based on Prospect Theory," MPRA Paper 116386, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Lambertides, Neophytos, 2021. "Financial distress risk and stock price crashes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Chabi-Yo, Fousseni & Huggenberger, Markus & Weigert, Florian, 2022. "Multivariate crash risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1), pages 129-153.
    15. Cui, Xin & Sensoy, Ahmet & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Yao, Shouyu & Wu, Yiyao, 2022. "Positive information shocks, investor behavior and stock price crash risk," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 493-518.
    16. Jorge M. Uribe & Natalia Restrepo & Montserrat Guillen, 2021. ""Price Bubbles in Lithium Markets around the World"," IREA Working Papers 202110, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2021.
    17. Moreira, Afonso M. & Martins, Luis F., 2020. "A new mechanism for anticipating price exuberance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 199-221.
    18. Cao, Ji & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Zhao, Lei, 2023. "Safety first, loss probability, and the cross section of expected stock returns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 345-369.
    19. Fan, Ruixin & Xiong, Xiong & Gao, Ya, 2021. "Can the probability of extreme returns be the basis for profitable portfolios? Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    20. Borochin, Paul & Rush, Stephen, 2022. "Information networks in the financial sector and systemic risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).

    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. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, November.
    3. Robert F. Stambaugh & Yu Yuan, 2017. "Mispricing Factors," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 1270-1315.
    4. Fang, Yi & Niu, Hui & Lin, Yuen, 2023. "Ex-ante Valuation based on Prospect Theory," MPRA Paper 116386, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Guo, Li & Li, Frank Weikai & John Wei, K.C., 2020. "Security analysts and capital market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 204-230.
    6. Doron Avramov & Si Cheng & Allaudeen Hameed, 2020. "Mutual Funds and Mispriced Stocks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2372-2395, June.
    7. Turan G. Bali & Florian Weigert, 2018. "Have Hedge Funds Solved the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle?," Working Papers on Finance 1827, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    8. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Lambertides, Neophytos & Panayides, Photis M., 2021. "Distress risk anomaly and misvaluation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
    9. Bali, Turan G. & Weigert, Florian, 2021. "Hedge funds and the positive idiosyncratic volatility effect," CFR Working Papers 21-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. Hou, Kewei & Xue, Chen & Zhang, Lu, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," Working Paper Series 2017-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    11. Jacobs, Heiko, 2016. "Market maturity and mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 270-287.
    12. Wu, Juan (Julie) & Zhang, Jianzhong (Andrew), 2019. "Short selling and market anomalies," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    13. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    14. Doron Avramov & Guy Kaplanski & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2022. "Postfundamentals Price Drift in Capital Markets: A Regression Regularization Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7658-7681, October.
    15. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Kagkadis, Anastasios & Philip, Dennis & Tuneshev, Ruslan, 2018. "Differences in options investors’ expectations and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 315-336.
    16. Nguyen, Hung T. & Pham, Mia Hang, 2021. "Air pollution and behavioral biases: Evidence from stock market anomalies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    17. Paul Calluzzo & Fabio Moneta & Selim Topaloglu, 2019. "When Anomalies Are Publicized Broadly, Do Institutions Trade Accordingly?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4555-4574, October.
    18. Mateus, Irina B. & Mateus, Cesario & Todorovic, Natasa, 2019. "Review of new trends in the literature on factor models and mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 344-354.
    19. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    20. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price crashes; Overpricing; Anomalies; Institutional investors; Rational speculative bubbles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • 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:jfinec:v:132:y:2019:i:1:p:222-247. 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/inca/505576 .

    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.