IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v68y2021ics0927538x21001189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lottery preferences and retail short selling

Author

Listed:
  • Tsai, Chia-Fen
  • Chang, Jung-Hsien
  • Tsai, Feng-Tse

Abstract

Unlike developed countries, the prominent participants in the Taiwanese stock market are individual investors. This study found that retail short-sellers in Taiwan can predict stock prices and perform better with stocks held primarily by retail investors with a preference for lottery-like payoffs. Moreover, short-sellers make lower profits with stocks with lottery features in the absence of the uptick rule. The findings are robust when considering the effect of institutional short selling, alternative lottery-like measures such as retail trading activity, arbitrage risk, and distinct macroeconomic conditions. Overall, the results suggest that retail investors are not necessarily noise traders. Based on divergence-of-opinion theory (Miller, 1977), heterogeneous retail investors make trades due to their differences in sentiments. Meanwhile, retail short-sellers include professionals in profitmaking through short-selling by gauging the gambling propensity of general retail investors. Consequently, removing short-selling restrictions can increase the spillover effect of short-sellers' trading signals and help other retail investors move and adjust their investments in lottery-like stocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsai, Chia-Fen & Chang, Jung-Hsien & Tsai, Feng-Tse, 2021. "Lottery preferences and retail short selling," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:68:y:2021:i:c:s0927538x21001189
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2021.101611
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X21001189
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2021.101611?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. Jonathan M. Karpoff & Xiaoxia Lou, 2010. "Short Sellers and Financial Misconduct," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1879-1913, October.
    2. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    3. Chang, Eric C. & Luo, Yan & Ren, Jinjuan, 2014. "Short-selling, margin-trading, and price efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 411-424.
    4. Hung, Weifeng & Yang, J. Jimmy, 2018. "The MAX effect: Lottery stocks with price limits and limits to arbitrage," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 77-91.
    5. Yan, Zhipeng & Cheng, Lee-Young & Zhao, Yan & Huang, Chung-Yuan, 2016. "Daily short covering activity and the weekend effect: Evidence from Taiwan," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 166-184.
    6. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    7. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Kong, Dongmin & Wu, Ji, 2017. "Do extreme returns matter in emerging markets? Evidence from the Chinese stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 189-197.
    8. Han, Bing & Kumar, Alok, 2013. "Speculative Retail Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 377-404, April.
    9. Li, Mingyi & Onishchenko, Olena & Zhao, Jing, 2020. "Does average skewness matter? Evidence from the Taiwanese stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. 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.
    11. Takahashi, Hidetomo, 2010. "Short-sale inflow and stock returns: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2403-2412, October.
    12. Kelley Bergsma & Jitendra Tayal, 2019. "Short Interest and Lottery Stocks," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 187-227, March.
    13. Yu Liang & Weiqiang Zhang, 2016. "Do Investors Buy Lotteries in China’s Stock Market?," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-5.
    14. Jones, Charles M. & Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Short-sale constraints and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 207-239.
    15. Eric K. Kelley & Paul C. Tetlock, 2017. "Retail Short Selling and Stock Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 801-834.
    16. Chague, Fernando & De-Losso, Rodrigo & Giovannetti, Bruno, 2019. "The short-selling skill of institutions and individuals," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 77-91.
    17. Asquith, Paul & Pathak, Parag A. & Ritter, Jay R., 2005. "Short interest, institutional ownership, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 243-276, November.
    18. Engelberg, Joseph E. & Reed, Adam V. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C., 2012. "How are shorts informed?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 260-278.
    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. 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.
    21. Pedro A. C. Saffi & Kari Sigurdsson, 2011. "Price Efficiency and Short Selling," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 821-852.
    22. Pontiff, Jeffrey, 2006. "Costly arbitrage and the myth of idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 35-52, October.
    23. Cao, Jie & Han, Bing, 2016. "Idiosyncratic risk, costly arbitrage, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-15.
    24. Joseph J. Seneca, 1967. "Short Interest: Bearish Or Bullish?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 67-70, March.
    25. 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.
    26. Mohamad, Azhar & Jaafar, Aziz & Hodgkinson, Lynn & Wells, Jo, 2013. "Short selling and stock returns: Evidence from the UK," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 125-137.
    27. Zhaodan Huang & Ou Hu & Bih-Shuang Liao, 2010. "Short Sale, Stock Liquidity, and the Day-of-the-Week Effect: Evidence from the Taiwan Stock Market," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(01), pages 71-90.
    28. Doina C. Chichernea & Haimanot Kassa & Steve L. Slezak, 2019. "Lottery preferences and the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(3), pages 655-683, June.
    29. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2008. "Stocks as Lotteries: The Implications of Probability Weighting for Security Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2066-2100, December.
    30. Bali, Turan G. & Cakici, Nusret, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Volatility and the Cross Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 29-58, March.
    31. Duan, Ying & Hu, Gang & McLean, R. David, 2010. "Costly arbitrage and idiosyncratic risk: Evidence from short sellers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 564-579, October.
    32. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1845-1876 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Eli Ofek & Matthew Richardson, 2003. "DotCom Mania: The Rise and Fall of Internet Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1113-1137, June.
    34. Dechow, Patricia M. & Hutton, Amy P. & Meulbroek, Lisa & Sloan, Richard G., 2001. "Short-sellers, fundamental analysis, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 77-106, July.
    35. 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.
    36. 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.
    37. Asher Curtis & Neil L. Fargher, 2014. "Does Short Selling Amplify Price Declines or Align Stocks with Their Fundamental Values?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2324-2340, September.
    38. Eric K. Kelley & Paul C. Tetlock, 2013. "How Wise Are Crowds? Insights from Retail Orders and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 1229-1265, June.
    39. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    40. Alok Kumar, 2009. "Who Gambles in the Stock Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1889-1933, August.
    41. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2008. "Which Shorts Are Informed?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 491-527, April.
    42. 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.
    43. Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2004. "Aggregate Short Interest and Market Valuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 29-32, May.
    44. Hemang Desai & K. Ramesh & S. Ramu Thiagarajan & Bala V. Balachandran, 2002. "An Investigation of the Informational Role of Short Interest in the Nasdaq Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2263-2287, October.
    45. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1987. "Constraints on short-selling and asset price adjustment to private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 277-311, June.
    46. Chih-Hsiang Chang & Wen-Shan Chiang, 2014. "Conditioned Responses towards Measures Relating to the Capital Cost of Short Sellers: Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(03), pages 1-27.
    47. Xiaohui Gao & Tse-Chun Lin, 2015. "Do Individual Investors Treat Trading as a Fun and Exciting Gambling Activity? Evidence from Repeated Natural Experiments," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(7), pages 2128-2166.
    48. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1345-1365 is not listed on IDEAS
    49. Hailiang Chen & Prabuddha De & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, 2014. "Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1367-1403.
    50. Chan, Yue-Cheong & Chui, Andy C.W., 2016. "Gambling in the Hong Kong stock market," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 204-218.
    51. Huang, Shiyang & Huang, Yulin & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2019. "Attention allocation and return co-movement: Evidence from repeated natural experiments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 369-383.
    52. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    53. Boehme, Rodney D. & Danielsen, Bartley R. & Sorescu, Sorin M., 2006. "Short-Sale Constraints, Differences of Opinion, and Overvaluation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 455-487, June.
    54. Wang, Shu-Feng & Lee, Kuan-Hui & Woo, Min-Cheol, 2017. "Do individual short-sellers make money? Evidence from Korea," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 159-172.
    55. Ekkehart Boehmer & Juan (Julie) Wu, 2013. "Short Selling and the Price Discovery Process," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 287-322.
    56. 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.
    57. Benjamin M Blau & Ryan J Whitby, 2018. "Skewness, short interest and the efficiency of stock prices," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(20), pages 2229-2242, April.
    58. Hu, Ou & Huang, Zhaodan & Liao, Bih-shuang, 2009. "Short sale and stock returns: Evidence from the Taiwan Stock Exchange," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 1146-1158, August.
    59. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:1113-1138 is not listed on IDEAS
    60. 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.
    61. Brad M. Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean, 2009. "Just How Much Do Individual Investors Lose by Trading?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 609-632, February.
    62. Shyu, Yih-Wen & Chan, Kam C. & Liang, Hsin-Yu, 2018. "Spillovers of price efficiency and informed trading from short sales to margin purchases in absence of uptick rule," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 163-183.
    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. Outlaw, Dominique, 2023. "Frenzied buyers and sophisticated sellers: How short sellers trade individual investors’ most purchased stocks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(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. Kelley Bergsma & Jitendra Tayal, 2019. "Short Interest and Lottery Stocks," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 187-227, March.
    2. Hsin, Chin-Wen & Peng, Shu-Cing, 2023. "Investor propensity to speculate and price delay in emerging markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Antonio Gargano & Juan Sotes-Paladino & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2022. "Out of Sync: Dispersed Short Selling and the Correction of Mispricing," Working Papers 108, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    4. Lin, Mei-Chen & Lin, Yu-Ling, 2021. "Idiosyncratic skewness and cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from Taiwan," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Andreas Oehler & Julian Schneider, 2022. "Gambling with lottery stocks?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(6), pages 477-503, October.
    6. Jank, Stephan & Roling, Christoph & Smajlbegovic, Esad, 2021. "Flying under the radar: The effects of short-sale disclosure rules on investor behavior and stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 209-233.
    7. Shyu, Yih-Wen & Chan, Kam C. & Liang, Hsin-Yu, 2018. "Spillovers of price efficiency and informed trading from short sales to margin purchases in absence of uptick rule," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 163-183.
    8. Yao, Shouyu & Wang, Chunfeng & Cui, Xin & Fang, Zhenming, 2019. "Idiosyncratic skewness, gambling preference, and cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 464-483.
    9. Turan G. Bali & Andriy Bodnaruk & Anna Scherbina & Yi Tang, 2018. "Unusual News Flow and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4137-4155, September.
    10. Lin, Mei-Chen, 2023. "Analyst coverage and the idiosyncratic skewness effect in the Taiwan stock market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    11. Wang, Yuchen & Wang, Xiaoming, 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty and information intermediary: The case of short seller," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    12. Atilgan, Yigit & Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Gunaydin, A. Doruk, 2020. "Left-tail momentum: Underreaction to bad news, costly arbitrage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 725-753.
    13. Melisa Ozdamar & Levent Akdeniz & Ahmet Sensoy, 2021. "Lottery-like preferences and the MAX effect in the cryptocurrency market," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, December.
    14. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, October.
    15. Baars, Maren & Mohrschladt, Hannes, 2021. "An alternative behavioral explanation for the MAX effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 868-886.
    16. Duan, Ying & Hu, Gang & McLean, R. David, 2010. "Costly arbitrage and idiosyncratic risk: Evidence from short sellers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 564-579, October.
    17. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Do, Binh Huu & Gray, Philip & Manton, Tom, 2016. "Assessing the information content of short-selling metrics using daily disclosures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 188-204.
    18. Charles M. Jones & Adam V. Reed & William Waller, 2016. "Revealing Shorts An Examination of Large Short Position Disclosures," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(12), pages 3278-3320.
    19. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Jones, Charles M. & Putniņš, Tālis J., 2016. "Shorting at close range: A tale of two types," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 546-568.
    20. Lin, Mei-Chen, 2023. "Time-varying MAX preference: Evidence from revenue announcements," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Retail short-selling; Lottery-like stocks; Retail ownership; Short sale restrictions;
    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
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:pacfin:v:68:y:2021:i:c:s0927538x21001189. 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/pacfin .

    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.