Madhu Veeraraghavan

A Closer Look at the Size and Value Premium in Emerging Markets: Evidence from the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

In this study of asset pricing in emerging markets, two questions are asked. First, Is there a size and value premium in markets outside the USA? Second, Can the multifactor model of Fama and French (1996) capture the cross–section of average stock returns for the Malaysian setting? The answers from this study suggest that size and value premium exist in markets outside the USA. We find that the two mimic portfolios, ‘small minus big’ (SMB) and ‘high minus low’ (HML), generate a return of 17.70% and 17.69% per annum, respectively, while the market generates a return of 1.92% per annum. Our findings suggest that the multi–factor model of Fama and French (1996) is a parsimonious representation of the risk factors for Malaysia, explaining returns in an economically meaningful manner. Our findings also reject the claim that the multifactor model results can be explained by the turn–of–the–year effect.

Anomalies and Stock Returns: Australian Evidence

Prior research has identified the existence of several cross-sectional patterns in equity returns, commonly referred to as effects. This paper tests for the existence of a number of well-known effects using data from the Australian equities market. Specifically, we investigate the size effect, book-to-market effect, earnings-to-price effect, cashflow-to-price effect, leverage effect and the liquidity effect. An additional aim of this paper is to investigate the capability of the Fama–French model in explaining any observed effects. We document a size, book-to-market, earnings-to-price and cashflow-to-price effect but fail to find evidence of a leverage or liquidity effect. Although our findings indicate that the Fama–French model can partially explain some of the observed effects, we conclude that its performance is less than satisfactory in Australia.

Beta, Firm Size, Book-to-Market Equity and Stock Returns

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which has dominated finance theory for over thirty years, is concerned with the relationship between risk and the expected return on risky assets. According to the CAPM the market beta alone is sufficient to explain security returns and that there is a positive expected premium for investing in beta risks. However, evidence shows that the single risk factor is not quite adequate for describing the cross-section of stock returns. The current consensus is that firm size and book-to-market equity factors are pervasive risk factors besides the overall market factor. In this paper we compare the explanatory power of a single index model with the multifactor asset-pricing model of Fama and French (1996) for Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. Our findings suggest that the CAPM beta alone is not sufficient to describe the cross-section of expected returns. We also find that the absolute pricing errors of the CAPM are quite large when compared with the multifactor model of Fama and French (1996). Our findings show that firm size and book-to-market equity help explain the variation in average stock returns in a meaningful manner.

Value versus growth: Australian evidence

Fama and French (1992) and Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) show that value stocks earn substantially higher returns than growth stocks. Barbee, Mukherji and Raines (1996) and Leledakis and Davidson (2001) show that the ratio of sales-to-price and debt-to-equity are better predictors of average equity returns than book-to-market equity and firm size. In this paper, we evaluate the ability of size, book-to-market, sales-to-price, cash flow-to-price, earnings-to-price and debt-to-equity in explaining the cross-sectional variation in equity returns. Our findings show that sales-to-price, earnings-to-price and cash flow-to-price are highly significant in explaining cross-sectional variation in equity returns. However, book-to-market emerges as the best predictor of average equity returns, displaying the highest level of significance in joint regressions. In summary, we document that book-to-market is the best predictor of equity returns in Australia and thus is the best proxy for value/glamour.

Local Gambling Preferences and Corporate Innovative Success

This paper examines the role of local attitudes toward gambling on corporate innovative activity. Using a county’s Catholics-to-Protestants ratio as a proxy for local gambling preferences, we find that firms located in gambling-prone areas tend to undertake riskier projects, spend more on innovation, and experience greater innovative output. We contrast the local gambling effect with chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence, another behavioral effect reported to influence innovation. We find that local gambling preferences are a stronger determinant of innovative activity, with CEO overconfidence being more relevant to innovation in areas where gambling attitudes are strong.

Does Idiosyncratic Volatility Matter? New Zealand Evidence

Standard asset pricing models ignore idiosyncratic risk. In this study, we examine if idiosyncratic or unique risk affects returns for New Zealand stocks using the factor portfolio mimicking approach of Fama and French (1993, 1996). We find evidence of a negative relationship between firm size and a stocks idiosyncratic volatility. We also find that high idiosyncratic volatility firms have high betas and generate low earnings on book equity.

Idiosyncratic volatility and security returns: Australian evidence

This article examines whether idiosyncratic risk is priced for equities listed in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Specifically, this article follows the methodology of Bali et al. (2005) and investigates whether idiosyncratic volatility is able to predict 1-month ahead excess returns on the value-weighted market index (the All Ordinaries Index–AOI), over the period 1980:01 to 2004:12. We also investigate whether the idiosyncratic volatility is priced differently in partitioned subperiods. Our findings suggest that idiosyncratic volatility is not priced in the Australian market.

Are Australian Investors Smart

This paper examines the smart money effect on Australian superannuation funds. Specifically, we investigate whether Australian investors make smart choices in selecting funds. We build on previous research which shows that sophisticated investors have the ability to invest in funds that subsequently perform well. Our findings deviate from the existing literature in that we fail to uncover supporting evidence for a smart money effect in the Australian superannuation fund industry. However, we do find some evidence of investors who are able to identify funds whose future performance will be poor and who disinvest accordingly. Our findings have serious policy implications, as we show that investors generally are not able to recognise high performing superannuation funds.

Small Firm Effect, Liquidity and Security Returns Australian Evidence

Standard asset pricing models ignore the costs of liquidity. In this study we advance the ongoing debate on empirical asset pricing and test if liquidity costs (as proxied by turnover rate, turnover ratio and bid-ask spread) affect stock returns for Australian stocks. Our tests use the factor portfolio mimicking approach of Fama and French (1993, 1996). We find small and less liquid firms generate positive risk premia after controlling for market returns and firm size. We find no evidence of any seasonal effects that can explain our multifactor asset pricing model findings. In summary, our study provides support for a broader asset pricing model with multiple risk factors.

Do Australian hedge fund managers possess timing abilities

This article focuses on the performance of Australian hedge funds. Using a survivorship bias free sample, we investigate whether Australian hedge fund managers have the ability to outguess the market. Specifically, we test the market timing and volatility timing skills of fund managers. Our findings show that Australian hedge fund managers do not possess market timing skills, but they do exhibit superior stock selection ability. Our findings also show that while Australian managers do not have market volatility timing skills, their US counterparts do exhibit such skills.