IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/beexfi/v38y2023ics2214635023000229.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The beta anomaly and the quality effect in international stock markets

Author

Listed:
  • Bradrania, Reza
  • Veron, Jose Francisco
  • Wu, Winston

Abstract

We investigate the beta anomaly and its relationship with stock quality in international stock markets. The beta anomaly exists in three aggregates (Europe, Pacific, and Global) and fourteen of the twenty-two country portfolios. We further demonstrate that stock quality explains the beta anomaly in international markets. The beta anomaly is statistically significant among junk (low-quality) stocks, and it does not exist among quality (high-quality) stocks. The results are robust in portfolio and regression analyses, both before and after controls. Finally, we show that the alphas of the beta anomaly estimated using the Fama–French–Carhart factor as well as Fama–French five-factor models disappear when augmented by the quality-minus-junk (QMJ) factor.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradrania, Reza & Veron, Jose Francisco & Wu, Winston, 2023. "The beta anomaly and the quality effect in international stock markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:38:y:2023:i:c:s2214635023000229
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2023.100808
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635023000229
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbef.2023.100808?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
    ---><---

    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. De Santis, Giorgio & Gerard, Bruno, 1997. "International Asset Pricing and Portfolio Diversification with Time-Varying Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1881-1912, December.
    3. Christopher Fiore & Atanu Saha, 2015. "A Tale of Two Anomalies: Higher Returns of Low-Risk Stocks and Return Seasonality," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 257-273, May.
    4. Hwang, Soosung & Rubesam, Alexandre & Salmon, Mark, 2021. "Beta herding through overconfidence: A behavioral explanation of the low-beta anomaly," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    5. John Lintner, 1965. "Security Prices, Risk, And Maximal Gains From Diversification," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 587-615, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Paul Schneider & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2020. "Low‐Risk Anomalies?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2673-2718, October.
    8. Stambaugh, Robert F., 1982. "On the exclusion of assets from tests of the two-parameter model : A sensitivity analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 237-268, November.
    9. 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.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    11. Sheridan Titman & Seiichiro Iwasawa & Tomonori Uchiyama, 2014. "The Beta Anomaly in the Japanese Equity Market and Investor Behavior," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 53-73, March.
    12. Bruce N. Lehmann, 1990. "Fads, Martingales, and Market Efficiency," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 1-28.
    13. Asness, Cliff & Frazzini, Andrea & Gormsen, Niels Joachim & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2020. "Betting against correlation: Testing theories of the low-risk effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 629-652.
    14. 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.
    15. Baker, Malcolm & Hoeyer, Mathias F. & Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2020. "Leverage and the Beta Anomaly," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(5), pages 1491-1514, August.
    16. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    17. Boguth, Oliver & Simutin, Mikhail, 2018. "Leverage constraints and asset prices: Insights from mutual fund risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(2), pages 325-341.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. James L. Davis & Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2000. "Characteristics, Covariances, and Average Returns: 1929 to 1997," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 389-406, February.
    21. Blitz, David & Vidojevic, Milan, 2017. "The profitability of low-volatility," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 33-42.
    22. Ali, Fahad & Ülkü, Numan, 2021. "Quest for a parsimonious factor model in the wake of quality-minus-junk, misvaluation and Fama-French-six factors," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    23. 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.
    24. Liu, Jianan & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yuan, Yu, 2018. "Absolving beta of volatility’s effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 1-15.
    25. Gibbons, Michael R., 1982. "Multivariate tests of financial models : A new approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 3-27, March.
    26. Randolph B. Cohen & Christopher Polk & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2005. "Money Illusion in the Stock Market: The Modigliani-Cohn Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 639-668.
    27. Petri Jylhä, 2018. "Margin Requirements and the Security Market Line," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(3), pages 1281-1321, June.
    28. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    29. Scott Cederburg & Michael S. O'Doherty, 2016. "Does It Pay to Bet Against Beta? On the Conditional Performance of the Beta Anomaly," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 737-774, April.
    30. Blitz, David & Pang, Juan & van Vliet, Pim, 2013. "The volatility effect in emerging markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 31-45.
    31. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan, 1990. "Evidence of Predictable Behavior of Security Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 881-898, July.
    32. Ali Boloorforoosh & Peter Christoffersen & Mathieu Fournier & Christian Gouriéroux & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2020. "Beta Risk in the Cross-Section of Equities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(9), pages 4318-4366.
    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. Constantinos Antoniou & John A. Doukas & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2016. "Investor Sentiment, Beta, and the Cost of Equity Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 347-367, February.
    35. McNichols, M & O'Brien, PC, 1997. "Self-selection and analyst coverage," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35, pages 167-199.
    36. 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.
    37. 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.
    38. Haugen, Robert A. & Heins, A. James, 1975. "Risk and the Rate of Return on Financial Assets: Some Old Wine in New Bottles," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 775-784, December.
    39. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Murray, Scott & Tang, Yi, 2017. "A Lottery-Demand-Based Explanation of the Beta Anomaly," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(6), pages 2369-2397, December.
    40. 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.
    41. 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.
    42. Black, Fischer, 1972. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Restricted Borrowing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(3), pages 444-455, July.
    43. González-Urteaga, Ana & Rubio, Gonzalo, 2021. "The quality premium with leverage and liquidity constraints," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    44. Blitz, D.C. & van Vliet, P., 2007. "The Volatility Effect: Lower Risk without Lower Return," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-044-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    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. Gao, Ya & Bradrania, Reza, 2024. "Property crime and lottery-related anomalies," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(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. Bradrania, Reza & Veron, Jose Francisco, 2023. "The beta anomaly in the Australian stock market and the lottery demand," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, April.
    3. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    4. Joshua Traut, 2023. "What we know about the low-risk anomaly: a literature review," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 37(3), pages 297-324, September.
    5. Khasawneh, Maher & McMillan, David G. & Kambouroudis, Dimos, 2024. "Left-tail risk and UK stock return predictability: Underreaction, overreaction, and arbitrage difficulties," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    6. 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.
    7. Shiyang Huang & Xin Liu & Dong Lou & Christopher Polk, 2024. "The Booms and Busts of Beta Arbitrage," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(8), pages 5367-5385, August.
    8. Poon, Percy & Yao, Tong & Zhang, Andrew (Jianzhong), 2022. "The alphas of beta and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Han, Xing & Li, Kai & Li, Youwei, 2020. "Investor overconfidence and the security market line: New evidence from China," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    10. 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).
    11. Turan G. Bali & Robert F. Engle & Yi Tang, 2017. "Dynamic Conditional Beta Is Alive and Well in the Cross Section of Daily Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3760-3779, November.
    12. Sebastien Valeyre & Sofiane Aboura & Denis Grebenkov, 2019. "The Reactive Beta Model," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 42(1), pages 71-113, March.
    13. Hanauer, Matthias X. & Lauterbach, Jochim G., 2019. "The cross-section of emerging market stock returns," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 265-286.
    14. Cyril Bachelard & Apostolos Chalkis & Vissarion Fisikopoulos & Elias Tsigaridas, 2022. "Randomized geometric tools for anomaly detection in stock markets," Papers 2205.03852, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    15. Sehgal, Sanjay & Rakhyani, Sarika & Deisting, Florent, 2022. "Does betting against beta strategy work in major Asian Markets?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    16. Huang, Tao & Li, Junye, 2019. "Option-Implied variance asymmetry and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 21-36.
    17. David Blitz & Matthias X. Hanauer & Pim Vliet, 2021. "The Volatility Effect in China," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(5), pages 338-349, September.
    18. Constantinos Antoniou & John A. Doukas & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2016. "Investor Sentiment, Beta, and the Cost of Equity Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 347-367, February.
    19. Flögel, Volker & Schlag, Christian & Zunft, Claudia, 2022. "Momentum-Managed Equity Factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    20. Asness, Cliff & Frazzini, Andrea & Gormsen, Niels Joachim & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2020. "Betting against correlation: Testing theories of the low-risk effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 629-652.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beta; Stock returns; Beta anomaly; Betting against beta; Abnormal returns; Stock quality;
    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

    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:beexfi:v:38:y:2023:i:c:s2214635023000229. 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: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance .

    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.