IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v63y2021icp42-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Volatility timing, sentiment, and the short-term profitability of VIX-based cross-sectional trading strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Ding, Wenjie
  • Mazouz, Khelifa
  • Wang, Qingwei

Abstract

This paper explores the profitability of simple short-term cross-sectional trading strategies based on the implied volatility index (VIX), often referred to as an “investor fear gauge” in the stock market. These strategies involve holding sentiment-prone stocks when VIX is low and sentiment-immune stocks when VIX is high and generate significantly higher excess returns than the benchmark long–short portfolios that do not condition on VIX. We show that the profitability of our trading strategies is not subsumed by the well-known risk factors or transaction cost adjustments. Our findings are consistent with the theory of delayed arbitrage and the synchronization problem of Abreu and Brunnermeier (2002).

Suggested Citation

  • Ding, Wenjie & Mazouz, Khelifa & Wang, Qingwei, 2021. "Volatility timing, sentiment, and the short-term profitability of VIX-based cross-sectional trading strategies," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 42-56.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:63:y:2021:i:c:p:42-56
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2021.05.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539821000438
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2021.05.003?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wei Xiong & Jialin Yu, 2011. "The Chinese Warrants Bubble," Working Papers 1398, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..
    2. Matthias W. Uhl, 2017. "Emotions Matter: Sentiment and Momentum in Foreign Exchange," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 249-257, July.
    3. Levich, Richard M. & Thomas, Lee III, 1993. "The significance of technical trading-rule profits in the foreign exchange market: a bootstrap approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 451-474, October.
    4. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    5. Stefan Nagel, 2012. "Evaporating Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(7), pages 2005-2039.
    6. Alexander Ljungqvist & Wenlan Qian, 2016. "How Constraining Are Limits to Arbitrage?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(8), pages 1975-2028.
    7. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sarno, Lucio & Schmeling, Maik & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2012. "Currency momentum strategies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 660-684.
    8. DeMiguel, Victor & Plyakha, Yuliya & Uppal, Raman & Vilkov, Grigory, 2013. "Improving Portfolio Selection Using Option-Implied Volatility and Skewness," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(6), pages 1813-1845, December.
    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. Henriksson, Roy D & Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. II. Statistical Procedures for Evaluating Forecasting Skills," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 513-533, October.
    11. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2015. "Editor's Choice Digesting Anomalies: An Investment Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 650-705.
    12. Paul Schneider & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2020. "Low‐Risk Anomalies?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2673-2718, October.
    13. Chou, Pin-Huang & Hsieh, Chia-Hsun & Shen, Carl Hsin-Han, 2016. "What explains the orange juice puzzle: Sentiment, smart money, or fundamentals?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 47-65.
    14. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    15. Neal, Robert & Wheatley, Simon M., 1998. "Do Measures of Investor Sentiment Predict Returns?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 523-547, December.
    16. Hilscher, Jens Dietrich & Campbell, John Y. & Szilagyi, Jan, 2011. "Predicting Financial Distress and the Performance of Distressed Stocks," Scholarly Articles 9887619, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    17. 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.
    18. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    19. Abreu, Dilip & Brunnermeier, Markus K., 2002. "Synchronization risk and delayed arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 341-360.
    20. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2015. "Editor's Choice The Sum of All FEARS Investor Sentiment and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(1), pages 1-32.
    21. G. Rubbaniy & Robel Asmerom & Syed Kumail Abbas Rizvi & Bushra Naqvi, 2014. "Do fear indices help predict stock returns?," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 831-847, May.
    22. Sun, Licheng & Najand, Mohammad & Shen, Jiancheng, 2016. "Stock return predictability and investor sentiment: A high-frequency perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 147-164.
    23. Anthony W. Lynch & Pierluigi Balduzzi, 2000. "Predictability and Transaction Costs: The Impact on Rebalancing Rules and Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2285-2309, October.
    24. Newey, Whitney K & West, Kenneth D, 1987. "Hypothesis Testing with Efficient Method of Moments Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(3), pages 777-787, October.
    25. Li, Yan & Yang, Liyan, 2013. "Prospect theory, the disposition effect, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 715-739.
    26. Kaplanski, Guy & Levy, Haim, 2010. "Sentiment and stock prices: The case of aviation disasters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 174-201, February.
    27. Turan G. Bali & Armen Hovakimian, 2009. "Volatility Spreads and Expected Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1797-1812, November.
    28. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie, 2014. "The VIX, the variance premium and stock market volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 181-192.
    29. Han, Xing & Li, Youwei, 2017. "Can investor sentiment be a momentum time-series predictor? Evidence from China," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 212-239.
    30. Kuang, P. & Schröder, M. & Wang, Q., 2014. "Illusory profitability of technical analysis in emerging foreign exchange markets," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 192-205.
    31. GIOT, Pierre, 2005. "Relationships between implied volatility indexes and stock index return. Are implied volatility indexes leading indicators?," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1848, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    32. Jeff Fleming & Chris Kirby & Barbara Ostdiek, 2001. "The Economic Value of Volatility Timing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 329-352, February.
    33. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia, 2003. "Delta-Hedged Gains and the Negative Market Volatility Risk Premium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 527-566.
    34. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1247-1292, August.
    35. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2007. "Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 129-152, Spring.
    36. Wei Xiong & Jialin Yu, 2011. "The Chinese Warrants Bubble," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2723-2753, October.
    37. Stambaugh, Robert F. & Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2012. "The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 288-302.
    38. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    39. 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.
    40. Banerjee, Prithviraj S. & Doran, James S. & Peterson, David R., 2007. "Implied volatility and future portfolio returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3183-3199, October.
    41. Lee, Charles M C & Shleifer, Andrei & Thaler, Richard H, 1991. "Investor Sentiment and the Closed-End Fund Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 75-109, March.
    42. Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2007. "Equilibrium Underdiversification and the Preference for Skewness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1255-1288.
    43. Tu, Anthony H. & Hsieh, Wen-Liang G. & Wu, Wei-Shao, 2016. "Market uncertainty, expected volatility and the mispricing of S&P 500 index futures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 78-98.
    44. Han, Yufeng & Yang, Ke & Zhou, Guofu, 2013. "A New Anomaly: The Cross-Sectional Profitability of Technical Analysis," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(5), pages 1433-1461, October.
    45. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 8190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    46. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten & Rubinstein, Mark, 1996. "Recovering Probability Distributions from Option Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1611-1632, December.
    47. John M. Griffin & Jeffrey H. Harris & Tao Shu & Selim Topaloglu, 2011. "Who Drove and Burst the Tech Bubble?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1251-1290, August.
    48. Chung, San-Lin & Hung, Chi-Hsiou & Yeh, Chung-Ying, 2012. "When does investor sentiment predict stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 217-240.
    49. Yu, Jianfeng & Yuan, Yu, 2011. "Investor sentiment and the mean-variance relation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 367-381, May.
    50. Thanh D. Huynh & Daniel R. Smith, 2017. "Stock Price Reaction to News: The Joint Effect of Tone and Attention on Momentum," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 304-328, July.
    51. Yu, Jialin, 2011. "Disagreement and return predictability of stock portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 162-183, January.
    52. Merton, Robert C., 1980. "On estimating the expected return on the market : An exploratory investigation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 323-361, December.
    53. Dominik M. Rösch & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam & Mathijs A. van Dijk, 2017. "The Dynamics of Market Efficiency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(4), pages 1151-1187.
    54. Cremers, Martijn & Weinbaum, David, 2010. "Deviations from Put-Call Parity and Stock Return Predictability," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 335-367, April.
    55. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2001. "Expected Option Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 983-1009, June.
    56. Guo, Hui & Qiu, Buhui, 2014. "Options-implied variance and future stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 93-113.
    57. LUKE DeVAULT & RICHARD SIAS & LAURA STARKS, 2019. "Sentiment Metrics and Investor Demand," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 985-1024, April.
    58. Fleming, Jeff & Kirby, Chris & Ostdiek, Barbara, 2003. "The economic value of volatility timing using "realized" volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 473-509, March.
    59. Michael Lemmon & Evgenia Portniaguina, 2006. "Consumer Confidence and Asset Prices: Some Empirical Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(4), pages 1499-1529.
    60. Clements, A. & Silvennoinen, A., 2013. "Volatility timing: How best to forecast portfolio exposures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 108-115.
    61. Thorben Manfred Lubnau & Neda Todorova, 2015. "The calm after the storm: implied volatility and future stock index returns," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(15), pages 1282-1296, December.
    62. Yigit Atilgan & Turan G. Bali & K. Ozgur Demirtas, 2015. "Implied Volatility Spreads and Expected Market Returns," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 87-101, January.
    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. Qadan, Mahmoud & David, Or & Snunu, Iyad & Shuval, Kerem, 2024. "The VIX's term structure of individual active stocks," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    2. Tang, Zhenpeng & Lin, Qiaofeng & Cai, Yi & Chen, Kaijie & Liu, Dinggao, 2024. "Harnessing the power of real-time forum opinion: Unveiling its impact on stock market dynamics using intraday high-frequency data in China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. Pyun, Chaehyun, 2024. "The Wikipedia effect: Analyzing investor attention for strategic investment decisions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    4. Wang, Yu-Min & Lin, Che-Chun & Tsai, I-Chun, 2023. "State transformation of information spillover in asset markets and effective dynamic hedging strategies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Božović, Miloš, 2024. "VIX-managed portfolios," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    6. Immo Stadtmüller & Benjamin R. Auer & Frank Schuhmacher, 2024. "Core-satellite investing with commodity futures momentum," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(3), pages 261-287, May.
    7. Arbab Khalid Cheema & Wenjie Ding & Qingwei Wang, 2023. "The cross-section of January effect," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(6), pages 513-530, October.
    8. Hasan, Md. Tanvir, 2022. "The sum of all SCARES COVID-19 sentiment and asset return," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 332-346.
    9. Tzomakas, Christos & Anastasiou, Dimitrios & Katsafados, Apostolos & Krokida, Styliani Iris, 2023. "Crisis sentiment and banks’ stock price crash risk: A missing piece of the puzzle?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 87(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. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    2. Szymon Lis, 2022. "Investor Sentiment in Asset Pricing Models: A Review," Working Papers 2022-14, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    3. Seo, Sung Won & Kim, Jun Sik, 2015. "The information content of option-implied information for volatility forecasting with investor sentiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 106-120.
    4. Guofu Zhou, 2018. "Measuring Investor Sentiment," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 239-259, November.
    5. Wang, Wenzhao & Duxbury, Darren, 2021. "Institutional investor sentiment and the mean-variance relationship: Global evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 415-441.
    6. Zhu, Zhaobo & Ding, Wenjie & Jin, Yi & Shen, Dehua, 2023. "Dissecting the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: A fundamental analysis approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    7. Seok, Sang Ik & Cho, Hoon & Ryu, Doojin, 2019. "Firm-specific investor sentiment and daily stock returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    8. Wang, Wenzhao & Su, Chen & Duxbury, Darren, 2022. "The conditional impact of investor sentiment in global stock markets: A two-channel examination," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Kagkadis, Anastasios & Philip, Dennis & Tuneshev, Ruslan, 2018. "Differences in options investors’ expectations and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 315-336.
    10. Shen, Junyan & Yu, Jianfeng & Zhao, Shen, 2017. "Investor sentiment and economic forces," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-21.
    11. Ung, Sze Nie & Gebka, Bartosz & Anderson, Robert D.J., 2023. "Is sentiment the solution to the risk–return puzzle? A (cautionary) note," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    12. Wang, Wenzhao, 2018. "Investor sentiment and the mean-variance relationship: European evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 227-239.
    13. Stephen A. Gorman & Frank J. Fabozzi, 2021. "The ABC’s of the alternative risk premium: academic roots," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(6), pages 405-436, October.
    14. Byun, Suk-Joon & Kim, Da-Hea, 2016. "Gambling preference and individual equity option returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 155-174.
    15. Aissia, Dorsaf Ben, 2016. "Home and foreign investor sentiment and the stock returns," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 71-77.
    16. Barroso, Pedro & Detzel, Andrew, 2021. "Do limits to arbitrage explain the benefits of volatility-managed portfolios?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 744-767.
    17. Zhou, Xuemei & Liu, Qiang & Guo, Shuxin, 2021. "Do overnight returns explain firm-specific investor sentiment in China?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 451-477.
    18. Yong Chen & Bing Han & Jing Pan, 2021. "Sentiment Trading and Hedge Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 2001-2033, August.
    19. Liang, Woan-lih, 2016. "Sensitivity to investor sentiment and stock performance of open market share repurchases," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 75-94.
    20. Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Abakah, Emmanuel Joel Aikins & Bonsu, Christiana Osei & Karikari, Nana Kwasi & Hammoudeh, Shawkat, 2022. "The effects of public sentiments and feelings on stock market behavior: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 443-472.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Implied volatility; Trading strategies; Cross-sectional return; Investor sentiment; Delayed arbitrage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G4 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance
    • 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:empfin:v:63:y:2021:i:c:p:42-56. 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    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.