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Price Gap Anomaly in the US Stock Market: The Whole Story

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Plastun

    (Faculty of Economics and Management, Sumy State University, Sumy, Ukraine)

  • Xolani Sibande

    (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

  • Rangan Gupta

    (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

  • Mark E. Wohar

    (College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska; USA. School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK)

Abstract

This paper analyses the price gap anomaly in the US stock market (comprised of the DJI, S&P 500 and NASDAQ) covering the period 1928 to 2018. This paper aims to investigate whether or not price gaps create market inefficiencies. Price gaps occur when the current day’s opening price is different from the previous day’s closing price due orders placed before the opening of the market. Several hypotheses are tested using various statistical tests (Student’s t-test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney test), regression analysis, and special methods, that is, the modified cumulative returns and the trading simulation approaches. We find strong evidence in favour of abnormal price movements after price gaps. We observe that during a gap day prices tend to change in the direction of the gap. A trading strategy based on this anomaly was efficient in that its results were not random, indicating that this market was not efficient. The momentum effect was found to be temporary and no evidence of seasonality in price gaps was found. Lastly, our results were also contrary to the myth that price gaps tend to get filled.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Plastun & Xolani Sibande & Rangan Gupta & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "Price Gap Anomaly in the US Stock Market: The Whole Story," Working Papers 201963, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pre:wpaper:201963
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Su, Zhifang & Bao, Haohua & Li, Qifang & Xu, Boyu & Cui, Xin, 2022. "The prediction of price gap anomaly in Chinese stock market: Evidence from the dependent functional logit model," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price Gap Anomaly; Trading Strategy; Stock Market; Momentum Effect; Efficient Market Hypothesis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

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