IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucd/wpaper/201804.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are equity market anomalies disappearing? Evidence from the U.K

Author

Listed:
  • John Cotter

    (University College Dublin)

  • Niall McGeever

    (University College Dublin)

Abstract

We study the persistence over time of nine well-known equity market anomalies in the cross-section of U.K. stocks. We find strong evidence of diminished statistical significance for most of these anomalies including the return reversal and momentum effects. Two anomalies – firm profitability and stock turnover – remain quite robust throughout our sample period. These results hold for both portfolio sorts and Fama-MacBeth regression analyses and are robust to the use of alternative methods of risk adjustment. Our findings are consistent with improvements in market efficiency overtime with respect to well-known anomaly variables.

Suggested Citation

  • John Cotter & Niall McGeever, 2018. "Are equity market anomalies disappearing? Evidence from the U.K," Working Papers 201804, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp201804.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    2. Jerry Hausman, 2001. "Mismeasured Variables in Econometric Analysis: Problems from the Right and Problems from the Left," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 57-67, Fall.
    3. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2013. "The other side of value: The gross profitability premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-28.
    4. Weimin Lui & Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 1999. "The Profitability of Momentum Investing," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(9-10), pages 1043-1091.
    5. Andrew Chan & Alice P.L. Chui, 1996. "An Empirical Re-Examination of the Cross-Section of Expected Returns: UK Evidence," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1435-1452, December.
    6. Sam Agyei‐Ampomah, 2007. "The Post‐Cost Profitability of Momentum Trading Strategies: Further Evidence from the UK," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(4), pages 776-802, September.
    7. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:251:p:369-82 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Denis Gromb & Dimitri Vayanos, 2010. "Limits of Arbitrage: The State of the Theory," NBER Working Papers 15821, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Hon, Mark T. & Tonks, Ian, 2003. "Momentum in the UK stock market," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 43-70, February.
    10. Akbas, Ferhat & Armstrong, Will J. & Sorescu, Sorin & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2015. "Smart money, dumb money, and capital market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 355-382.
    11. Schwert, G. William, 2003. "Anomalies and market efficiency," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 939-974, Elsevier.
    12. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Bagella, Michele & Becchetti, Leonardo & Carpentieri, Andrea, 2000. ""The first shall be last". Size and value strategy premia at the London Stock Exchange," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 893-919, June.
    15. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    16. Colin Clubb & Mounir Naffi, 2007. "The Usefulness of Book‐to‐Market and ROE Expectations for Explaining UK Stock Returns," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1‐2), pages 1-32, January.
    17. 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.
    18. Panagiotis Andrikopoulos & Arief Daynes & David Latimer & Paraskevas Pagas, 2008. "Size effect, methodological issues and 'risk-to-default': evidence from the UK stock market," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 299-314.
    19. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    20. David McLean, R. & Pontiff, Jeffrey & Watanabe, Akiko, 2009. "Share issuance and cross-sectional returns: International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 1-17, October.
    21. Xiafei Li & Chris Brooks & Joëlle Miffre, 2009. "Low-cost momentum strategies," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(6), pages 366-379, February.
    22. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    23. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. "Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-1617, December.
    24. Jeremy C. Stein, 2009. "Presidential Address: Sophisticated Investors and Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1517-1548, August.
    25. Antonios Antoniou & Emilios C. Galariotis & Spyros I. Spyrou, 2006. "Short‐term Contrarian Strategies in the London Stock Exchange: Are They Profitable? Which Factors Affect Them?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5‐6), pages 839-867, June.
    26. Papanastasopoulos, Georgios A. & Tsiritakis, Emmanuel, 2015. "The accrual anomaly in Europe: The role of accounting distortions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 176-185.
    27. Michael Goldstein & Jonathan Brogaard & Terrence Hendershott & Stefan Hunt & Carla Ysusi, 2014. "High-Frequency Trading and the Execution Costs of Institutional Investors," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 49(2), pages 345-369, May.
    28. Antonios Antoniou & Emilios C. Galariotis & Spyros I. Spyrou, 2006. "Short-term Contrarian Strategies in the London Stock Exchange: Are They Profitable? Which Factors Affect Them?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5-6), pages 839-867.
    29. 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.
    30. Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Tong, Qing, 2014. "Have capital market anomalies attenuated in the recent era of high liquidity and trading activity?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 41-58.
    31. Cotter, John & Sullivan, Niall O' & Rossi, Francesco, 2015. "The conditional pricing of systematic and idiosyncratic risk in the UK equity market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 184-193.
    32. 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.
    33. van Dijk, Mathijs A., 2011. "Is size dead? A review of the size effect in equity returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 3263-3274.
    34. Dimson, Elroy & Marsh, Paul, 1986. "Event study methodologies and the size effect : The case of UK press recommendations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 113-142, September.
    35. Watanabe, Akiko & Xu, Yan & Yao, Tong & Yu, Tong, 2013. "The asset growth effect: Insights from international equity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 529-563.
    36. Colin Clubb & Mounir Naffi, 2007. "The Usefulness of Book-to-Market and ROE Expectations for Explaining UK Stock Returns," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1-2), pages 1-32.
    37. Alain P. Chaboud & Benjamin Chiquoine & Erik Hjalmarsson & Clara Vega, 2014. "Rise of the Machines: Algorithmic Trading in the Foreign Exchange Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2045-2084, October.
    38. Jeffrey Pontiff & Artemiza Woodgate, 2008. "Share Issuance and Cross‐sectional Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 921-945, April.
    39. Ozgur S. Ince & R. Burt Porter, 2006. "Individual Equity Return Data From Thomson Datastream: Handle With Care!," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 29(4), pages 463-479, December.
    40. Datar, Vinay T. & Y. Naik, Narayan & Radcliffe, Robert, 1998. "Liquidity and stock returns: An alternative test," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 203-219, August.
    41. 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.
    42. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2006. "Profitability, investment and average returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 491-518, December.
    43. Denis Gromb & Dimitri Vayanos, 2010. "Limits of Arbitrage," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 251-275, December.
    44. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:267-284 is not listed on IDEAS
    45. Markus Leippold & Harald Lohre, 2012. "Data snooping and the global accrual anomaly," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(7), pages 509-535, April.
    46. Brennan, Michael J. & Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 1998. "Alternative factor specifications, security characteristics, and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 345-373, September.
    47. Samuel G. Hanson & Adi Sunderam, 2014. "The Growth and Limits of Arbitrage: Evidence from Short Interest," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 1238-1286.
    48. Simlai, Prodosh E., 2016. "Time-varying risk, mispricing attributes, and the accrual premium," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 150-161.
    49. Titman, Sheridan & John Wei, K. C. & Xie, Feixue, 2013. "Market Development and the Asset Growth Effect: International Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(5), pages 1405-1432, October.
    50. Weimin Lui & Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 1999. "The Profitability of Momentum Investing," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(9‐10), pages 1043-1091, November.
    51. 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.
    52. Ekkehart Boehmer & Eric K. Kelley, 2009. "Institutional Investors and the Informational Efficiency of Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3563-3594, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Progress in economics
      by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2018-05-04 11:43:28

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Auer, Benjamin R. & Rottmann, Horst, 2019. "Have capital market anomalies worldwide attenuated in the recent era of high liquidity and trading activity?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 61-79.
    2. Rachel Geoffroy & Heemin Lee, 2021. "The Role of Academic Research in SEC Rulemaking: Evidence from Business Roundtable v. SEC," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 375-435, May.

    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. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2022. "Salience theory and the cross-section of stock returns: International and further evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 689-725.
    2. Tobek, Ondrej & Hronec, Martin, 2021. "Does it pay to follow anomalies research? Machine learning approach with international evidence," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    3. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Recency bias and the cross-section of international stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," NBER Working Papers 23394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Long, Huaigang & Chiah, Mardy & Zaremba, Adam & Umar, Zaghum, 2024. "Changes in shares outstanding and country stock returns around the world," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Grinblatt, Mark, 2021. "Global market inefficiencies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 234-259.
    7. Jacobs, Heiko, 2016. "Market maturity and mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 270-287.
    8. Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Tong, Qing, 2014. "Have capital market anomalies attenuated in the recent era of high liquidity and trading activity?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 41-58.
    9. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    10. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    11. Auer, Benjamin R. & Rottmann, Horst, 2019. "Have capital market anomalies worldwide attenuated in the recent era of high liquidity and trading activity?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 61-79.
    12. Jacobs, Heiko, 2015. "What explains the dynamics of 100 anomalies?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 65-85.
    13. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    14. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Grinblatt, Mark, 2018. "Agnostic fundamental analysis works," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 125-147.
    15. Clarke, Charles, 2022. "The level, slope, and curve factor model for stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 159-187.
    16. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    17. Kewei Hou & Haitao Mo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2019. "Which Factors?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-35.
    18. Wang, Xue & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling) & Zheng, Lingling, 2020. "Shorting flows, public disclosure, and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 191-212.
    19. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam & Bianchi, Robert J. & Pham, Nga, 2021. "False discoveries in the anomaly research: New insights from the Stock Exchange of Melbourne (1927–1987)," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Kaplanski, Guy, 2023. "The race to exploit anomalies and the cost of slow trading," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anomalies; Asset Pricing; Market Efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • 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:ucd:wpaper:201804. 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: Geary Tech (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/geucdie.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.