IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v46y2018icp1-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial distress and equity returns: A leverage-augmented three-factor model

Author

Listed:
  • Boubaker, Sabri
  • Hamza, Taher
  • Vidal-García, Javier

Abstract

Our study examines whether financial distress risk is systematic risk using twelve portfolios sorted by size, book-to-market, and leverage and a portfolio of distressed firms covering an 18-year period. It also tests the explanatory power of the risk factors that best capture default risk. The empirical findings show that: (i) equity portfolio investment requires systematically both size and value premiums and that SMB and HML capture additional risk missed by the market portfolio; (ii) the leverage risk premium is positive for highly leveraged firms; and (iii) the risk premium for the relative distress factor is significant only for the distressed firm portfolio. Overall, our results have practical implications for portfolio managers since they advocate a leverage-augmented three-factor model to accurately price assets and to implement efficient portfolio strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Boubaker, Sabri & Hamza, Taher & Vidal-García, Javier, 2018. "Financial distress and equity returns: A leverage-augmented three-factor model," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:46:y:2018:i:c:p:1-15
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2016.09.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027553191630263X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2016.09.003?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. Mirela Malin & Madhu Veeraraghavan, 2004. "On the Robustness of the Fama and French Multifactor Model: Evidence from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 3(2), pages 155-176, August.
    2. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1994. "Contrarian Investment, Extrapolation, and Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1541-1578, December.
    3. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    4. Yao, Tong, 2008. "Dynamic Factors and the Source of Momentum Profits," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 211-226, April.
    5. John M. Griffin & Michael L. Lemmon, 2002. "Book‐to‐Market Equity, Distress Risk, and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2317-2336, October.
    6. Stephen A. Ross, 2013. "The Arbitrage Theory of Capital Asset Pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 1, pages 11-30, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. 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.
    8. Iulian Obreja, 2013. "Book-to-Market Equity, Financial Leverage, and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(5), pages 1146-1189.
    9. Michael A. O’Brien & Tim Brailsford & Clive Gaunt, 2010. "Interaction of size, book‐to‐market and momentum effects in Australia," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 50(1), pages 197-219, March.
    10. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    11. Hahn, Jaehoon & Lee, Hangyong, 2006. "Yield Spreads as Alternative Risk Factors for Size and Book-to-Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 245-269, June.
    12. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    13. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    14. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Mark Grinblatt, 1999. "Do Industries Explain Momentum?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1249-1290, August.
    15. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    16. Ohlson, Ja, 1980. "Financial Ratios And The Probabilistic Prediction Of Bankruptcy," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 109-131.
    17. John M. Griffin & Xiuqing Ji & J. Spencer Martin, 2003. "Momentum Investing and Business Cycle Risk: Evidence from Pole to Pole," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2515-2547, December.
    18. 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.
    19. Kothari, S P & Shanken, Jay & Sloan, Richard G, 1995. "Another Look at the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 185-224, March.
    20. Michael F. Ferguson & Richard L. Shockley, 2003. "Equilibrium “Anomalies”," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2549-2580, December.
    21. Roll, Richard, 1986. "The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Takeovers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 197-216, April.
    22. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    23. Wruck, Karen Hopper, 1990. "Financial distress, reorganization, and organizational efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 419-444, October.
    24. Chou, Pin-Huang & Ko, Kuan-Cheng & Lin, Shinn-Juh, 2010. "Do relative leverage and relative distress really explain size and book-to-market anomalies?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, February.
    25. Mossman, Charles E, et al, 1998. "An Empirical Comparison of Bankruptcy Models," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 33(2), pages 35-53, May.
    26. Grundy, Bruce D & Martin, J Spencer, 2001. "Understanding the Nature of the Risks and the," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 29-78.
    27. George, Thomas J. & Hwang, Chuan-Yang, 2010. "A resolution of the distress risk and leverage puzzles in the cross section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 56-79, April.
    28. Daniel, Kent & Titman, Sheridan, 1997. "Evidence on the Characteristics of Cross Sectional Variation in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 1-33, March.
    29. 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.
    30. Philip Gharghori & Howard Chan & Robert Faff, 2007. "Are the Fama-French Factors Proxying Default Risk?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 32(2), pages 223-249, December.
    31. 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.
    32. Soosung Hwang & Alexandre Rubesam, 2015. "The disappearance of momentum," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(7), pages 584-607, May.
    33. Chan, Louis K. C. & Karceski, Jason & Lakonishok, Josef, 1998. "The Risk and Return from Factors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 159-188, June.
    34. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:831-868 is not listed on IDEAS
    35. Opler, Tim C & Titman, Sheridan, 1994. "Financial Distress and Corporate Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 1015-1040, July.
    36. Liu, Weimin, 2006. "A liquidity-augmented capital asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 631-671, December.
    37. Vineet Agarwal & Richard Taffler, 2008. "Does Financial Distress Risk Drive the Momentum Anomaly?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 461-484, September.
    38. Chan, K C & Chen, Nai-Fu, 1991. "Structural and Return Characteristics of Small and Large Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1467-1484, September.
    39. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    40. Long Chen & Xinlei Zhao, 2009. "Return Decomposition," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 5213-5249, December.
    41. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:3:p:1131-1147 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. 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.
    43. Stephen H. Penman & Scott A. Richardson & İrem Tuna, 2007. "The Book‐to‐Price Effect in Stock Returns: Accounting for Leverage," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 427-467, May.
    44. L'Her, Jean-Francois & Masmoudi, Tarek & Suret, Jean-Marc, 2004. "Evidence to support the four-factor pricing model from the Canadian stock market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 313-328, October.
    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. Mimoun Benali & Karima Lahboub & Abdelhamid El Bouhadi, 2023. "Pricing Ability of Carhart Four-Factor and Fama–French Three-Factor Models: Empirical Evidence from Morocco," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, January.
    2. Philip Sinnadurai & Norashikin Ismail & Noor Marini Haji-Abdullah, 2022. "Prediction of corporate recovery in Malaysia," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1303-1334, November.
    3. Bravo-Urquiza, Francisco & Moreno-Ureba, Elena, 2021. "Does compliance with corporate governance codes help to mitigate financial distress?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    4. Asmâa Alaoui Taib & Safae Benfeddoul, 2023. "The Empirical Explanatory Power of CAPM and the Fama and French Three-Five Factor Models in the Moroccan Stock Exchange," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-19, March.

    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. Eero Pätäri & Timo Leivo, 2017. "A Closer Look At Value Premium: Literature Review And Synthesis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 79-168, February.
    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. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Eficiencia De Mercado, Administracion De Carteras De Fondos Y Behavioural Finance," Finance 0503028, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jul 2005.
    5. Richardson, Scott & Tuna, Irem & Wysocki, Peter, 2010. "Accounting anomalies and fundamental analysis: A review of recent research advances," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 410-454, December.
    6. Idrees, Sahar & Qayyum, Abdul, 2018. "The Impact of Financial Distress Risk on Equity Returns: A Case Study of Non-Financial Firms of Pakistan Stock Exchange," MPRA Paper 85346, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Kim, Dongcheol & Lee, Inro & Na, Haejung, 2019. "Financial distress, short sale constraints, and mispricing," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 94-111.
    8. Deniz Anginer & Çelim Yıldızhan, 2018. "Is There a Distress Risk Anomaly? Pricing of Systematic Default Risk in the Cross-section of Equity Returns [The risk-adjusted cost of financial distress]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 633-660.
    9. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2010. "The Cross†Section of Expected Stock Returns: What Have We Learnt from the Past Twenty†Five Years of Research?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(1), pages 27-42, January.
    10. Yinxia G. Nielsen , Caren, 2013. "Is Default Risk Priced in Equity Returns?," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2013/2, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.
    11. Merkle, Christoph & Sextroh, Christoph J., 2021. "Value and momentum from investors’ perspective: Evidence from professionals’ risk-ratings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 159-178.
    12. 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.
    13. Chou, Pin-Huang & Ko, Kuan-Cheng & Lin, Shinn-Juh, 2010. "Do relative leverage and relative distress really explain size and book-to-market anomalies?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, February.
    14. Sabine Artmann & Philipp Finter & Alexander Kempf & Stefan Koch & Erik Theissen, 2012. "The Cross-Section of German Stock Returns: New Data and New Evidence," Schmalenbach Business Review (sbr), LMU Munich School of Management, vol. 64(1), pages 20-43, January.
    15. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    16. de Groot, Wilma & Huij, Joop, 2018. "Are the Fama-French factors really compensation for distress risk?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 50-69.
    17. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    18. Kevin Aretz & Marc Aretz, 2016. "Which stocks drive the size, value, and momentum anomalies and for how long? Evidence from a statistical leverage analysis," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(1), pages 19-61, February.
    19. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    20. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Girma, Sourafel & Shah, M. Eskandar & Williams, Jonathan, 2014. "Rationalizing the value premium in emerging markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 51-70.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial distress; Equity returns; Fama-French three-factor model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:riibaf:v:46:y:2018:i:c:p:1-15. 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/ribaf .

    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.