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Speculative trading and stock returns: A stochastic dominance analysis of the Chinese A-share market

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  • Fong, Wai Mun

Abstract

The pricing of A-shares in China has long puzzled financial economists. This paper applies recent tests of stochastic dominance (SD) to examine whether differences in the return distributions of A- and B-shares in China are consistent with market efficiency. As SD is nonparametric, market efficiency can be examined without the joint test problem arising from misspecifications in the asset pricing benchmark. Our results show A-shares have second-order dominated B-shares from 1996 to 2005. This dominance was most significant during the market segmentation period, but has continued, albeit to a lesser extent even after the B-share market was opened to local investors in 2001. Our results are robust to using residual returns from an international asset pricing model instead of raw returns. We conclude that the superior performance of A-shares cannot be attributed to risk. The results are more likely due to a return bias caused by intense speculation among retail individuals under limited arbitrage.

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  • Fong, Wai Mun, 2009. "Speculative trading and stock returns: A stochastic dominance analysis of the Chinese A-share market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 712-727, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:19:y:2009:i:4:p:712-727
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    2. Hu, Yingyi & Zhao, Tiao & Zhang, Lin, 2020. "Noise trading, institutional trading, and opinion divergence: Evidence on intraday data in the Chinese stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 74-89.
    3. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Zheng, Xinwei, 2011. "The relationship between liquidity and returns on the Chinese stock market," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 259-266, June.
    4. Duxbury, Darren & Hudson, Robert & Keasey, Kevin & Yang, Zhishu & Yao, Songyao, 2015. "Do the disposition and house money effects coexist? A reconciliation of two behavioral biases using individual investor-level data," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 55-68.
    5. Schuppli, Michael & Bohl, Martin T., 2010. "Do foreign institutional investors destabilize China's A-share markets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 36-50, February.

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