IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/ohidic/2016-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Does Idiosyncratic Risk Increase with Market Risk?

Author

Listed:
  • Bartram, Sohnke M.

    (University of Warwick)

  • Brown, Gregory W.

    (University of North Carolina)

  • Stulz, Rene M.

    (Ohio State University and European Corporate Governance Institute)

Abstract

From 1963 through 2015, idiosyncratic risk (IR) is high when market risk (MR) is high. We show that the positive relation between IR and MR is highly stable through time and is robust across exchanges, firm size, liquidity, and market-to-book groupings. Though stock liquidity affects the strength of the relation, the relation is strong for the most liquid stocks. The relation has roots in fundamentals as higher market risk predicts greater idiosyncratic earnings volatility and as firm characteristics related to the ability of firms to adjust to higher uncertainty help explain the strength of the relation. Consistent with the view that growth options provide a hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty, we find evidence that the relation is weaker for firms with more growth options.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartram, Sohnke M. & Brown, Gregory W. & Stulz, Rene M., 2016. "Why Does Idiosyncratic Risk Increase with Market Risk?," Working Paper Series 2016-13, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2016-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=206100072072112018084091085081108073116045093077065045102115105100025124110003001118000017006006033051111097075020016110088025105040068036092021082088071031014010108059061060116117088079079122095112115105113073116117005084112090109103021089003067113099&EXT=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Luigi Guiso & Giuseppe Parigi, 1999. "Investment and Demand Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 185-227.
    3. Nick Bloom & Stephen Bond & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 391-415.
    4. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    5. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    6. Herskovic, Bernard & Kelly, Bryan & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2016. "The common factor in idiosyncratic volatility: Quantitative asset pricing implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 249-283.
    7. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    8. Leahy, John V & Whited, Toni M, 1996. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Investment: Some Stylized Facts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(1), pages 64-83, February.
    9. Ang, Andrew & Hodrick, Robert J. & Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2009. "High idiosyncratic volatility and low returns: International and further U.S. evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-23, January.
    10. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    11. Söhnke M. Bartram & Gregory Brown & René M. Stulz, 2012. "Why Are U.S. Stocks More Volatile?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1329-1370, August.
    12. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    13. Jae Sim & Egon Zakrajsek & Simon Gilchrist, 2010. "Uncertainty, Financial Frictions, and Investment Dynamics," 2010 Meeting Papers 1285, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. 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.
    15. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Hanno Lustig & Bryan Kelly & Bernard Herskovic, 2014. "The Common Factor in Idiosyncratic Volatility," 2014 Meeting Papers 810, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Yexiao Xu & Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "Investigating the Behavior of Idiosyncratic Volatility," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(4), pages 613-644, October.
    17. Anna Orlik & Laura Veldkamp, 2014. "Understanding Uncertainty Shocks and the Role of Black Swans," NBER Working Papers 20445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. 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.
    19. Tobias Adrian & Hyun Song Shin, 2014. "Procyclical Leverage and Value-at-Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(2), pages 373-403.
    20. 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.
    21. Ľuboš Pástor & Veronesi Pietro, 2003. "Stock Valuation and Learning about Profitability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1749-1789, October.
    22. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    23. Brown, Gregory & Kapadia, Nishad, 2007. "Firm-specific risk and equity market development," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 358-388, May.
    24. Ghysels, Eric & Santa-Clara, Pedro & Valkanov, Rossen, 2005. "There is a risk-return trade-off after all," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 509-548, June.
    25. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    26. Pontiff, Jeffrey, 2006. "Costly arbitrage and the myth of idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 35-52, October.
    27. Opler, Tim & Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene & Williamson, Rohan, 1999. "The determinants and implications of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-46, April.
    28. 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.
    29. Michael W. Brandt & Alon Brav & John R. Graham & Alok Kumar, 2010. "The Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle: Time Trend or Speculative Episodes?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 863-899, February.
    30. Bekaert, Geert & Hodrick, Robert J. & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2012. "Aggregate Idiosyncratic Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(6), pages 1155-1185, December.
    31. Ryan Kellogg, 2014. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Investment: Evidence from Texas Oil Drilling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1698-1734, June.
    32. Laura Veldkamp & Anna Orlik, 2014. "Uncertainty Shocks and the Role of the Black Swan," 2014 Meeting Papers 275, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    33. Steven X. Wei & Chu Zhang, 2006. "Why Did Individual Stocks Become More Volatile?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(1), pages 259-292, January.
    34. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    35. Manela, Asaf & Moreira, Alan, 2017. "News implied volatility and disaster concerns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 137-162.
    36. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Bayer, Christian, 2013. "‘Wait-and-See’ business cycles?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 704-719.
    37. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:975-1008 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Charles Cao & Timothy Simin & Jing Zhao, 2008. "Can Growth Options Explain the Trend in Idiosyncratic Risk?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2599-2633, November.
    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. Zhiyao Chen & Ilya A. Strebulaev & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2021. "Strategic Risk Shifting and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle: An Empirical Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2751-2772, May.
    2. Saurabh Mishra & Sachin B. Modi & Michael A. Wiles, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and shareholder wealth: the role of marketing, operations, and R&D capabilities," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(5), pages 1011-1031, September.
    3. Fan, Yaoyao & Boateng, Agyenim & Ly, Kim Cuong & Jiang, Yuxiang, 2021. "Are bonds blind? Board-CEO social networks and firm risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(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. Kiseok Nam & Shahriar Khaksari & Moonsoo Kang, 2017. "Trend in aggregate idiosyncratic volatility," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(1), pages 11-28, November.
    2. 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).
    3. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Wu, Ji, 2013. "Is there a volatility effect in the Hong Kong stock market?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-135.
    4. Woon Sau Leung & Nicholas Taylor, 2013. "Testing for contagion: the impact of US structured markets on international financial markets," Chapters, in: Adrian R. Bell & Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Finance, chapter 11, pages 256-284, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Ana Isabel Ramos Domingues & António de Melo da Costa Cerqueira & Elísio Fernando Moreira Brandão, 2016. "Idiosyncratic Volatility and Earnings Quality: Evidence from United Kingdom," FEP Working Papers 579, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    6. Jungshik Hur & Cedric Mbanga Luma, 2017. "Aggregate idiosyncratic volatility, dynamic aspects of loss aversion, and narrow framing," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 407-433, August.
    7. Zhong, Angel, 2018. "Idiosyncratic volatility in the Australian equity market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 105-125.
    8. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Wu, Ji & Liu, Zhentao, 2013. "Does idiosyncratic volatility matter in emerging markets? Evidence from China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 137-160.
    9. Vozlyublennaia, Nadia, 2013. "Do firm characteristics matter for the dynamics of idiosyncratic risk?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 35-46.
    10. Hasan, Mostafa Monzur & Habib, Ahsan, 2017. "Firm life cycle and idiosyncratic volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 164-175.
    11. Berner, Julian & Buchholz, Manuel & Tonzer, Lena, 2020. "Asymmetric investment responses to firm-specific forecast errors," IWH Discussion Papers 5/2020, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    12. Mostafa Monzur Hasan & Ahsan Habib, 2019. "Social capital and idiosyncratic return volatility," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 44(1), pages 3-31, February.
    13. Kumari, Jyoti & Mahakud, Jitendra & Hiremath, Gourishankar S., 2017. "Determinants of idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from the Indian stock market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 172-184.
    14. Li, Xiao & Shen, Dehua & Zhang, Wei, 2018. "Do Chinese internet stock message boards convey firm-specific information?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-14.
    15. Rubin, Amir & Smith, Daniel R., 2011. "Comparing different explanations of the volatility trend," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1581-1597, June.
    16. Bhamra, Harjoat S. & Shim, Kyung Hwan, 2017. "Stochastic idiosyncratic cash flow risk and real options: Implications for stock returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 400-431.
    17. Shahzad, Farrukh & Fareed, Zeeshan & Wang, Zhenkun & Shah, Syed Ghulam Meran, 2020. "Do idiosyncratic risk, market risk, and total risk matter during different firm life cycle stages?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 537(C).
    18. Herskovic, Bernard & Kelly, Bryan & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2016. "The common factor in idiosyncratic volatility: Quantitative asset pricing implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 249-283.
    19. Buchholz, Manuel & Tonzer, Lena & Berner, Julian, 2016. "Asymmetric Investment Responses to Firm-specific Uncertainty," IWH Discussion Papers 7/2016, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    20. Gerlach, Richard & Obaydin, Ivan & Zurbruegg, Ralf, 2015. "The impact of leverage on the idiosyncratic risk and return relationship of REITs around the financial crisis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 207-219.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ecl:ohidic:2016-13. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdohsus.html .

    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.