IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v85y2024ics0927538x24000702.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The change in salience and the cross-section of stock returns: Empirical evidence from China A-shares

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Manqing
  • Ma, Yao
  • Yang, Baochen
  • Fan, Ying

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between stocks' change in salience (CS) and the cross-section of stock returns. We find that the change in salience can negatively predict future stock returns. Investors, attracted by salient attributes of choices, overestimate prominent rising trends in stock historical return performance and extrapolate, leading stocks with prominent rising trends to be overpriced and earning lower subsequent returns. In terms of potential mechanisms, we find that costly arbitrage and lottery preference are two underlying mechanisms behind the mispricing of CS. The CS effect is more pronounced among stocks with greater costly arbitrage and greater lottery preference. Moreover, both institutional and individual investors are shown to generate distortions of expectations induced by salient thinking. Our findings are robust after considering common risk factors, shell contamination, short-term reversals, the prospect theory, and investor attention.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Manqing & Ma, Yao & Yang, Baochen & Fan, Ying, 2024. "The change in salience and the cross-section of stock returns: Empirical evidence from China A-shares," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:85:y:2024:i:c:s0927538x24000702
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X24000702
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102319?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Salience theory; Change in salience; Return predictability; Costly arbitrage; Lottery preference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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:85:y:2024:i:c:s0927538x24000702. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.