IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v66y2020i6p2452-2473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distressed Stocks in Distressed Times

Author

Listed:
  • Assaf Eisdorfer

    (School of Business, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269)

  • Efdal Ulas Misirli

    (Quantitative Supervision and Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Baltimore, Maryland 21201)

Abstract

We partially explain the well-documented distress anomaly by studying the risk/return relation of distressed stocks across market states. We show that the anomaly does not hold in market downturns. The asset beta and financial leverage of distressed stocks rise significantly during bear markets, resulting in a dramatic increase in their equity beta. Hence, a long/short healthy-minus-distressed trading strategy leads to significant losses when the market rebounds. Managing this risk mitigates the severe losses of financial distress strategies and significantly improves their Sharpe ratios. Our results remain strongly significant controlling for the momentum effect and are robust to various estimation procedures.

Suggested Citation

  • Assaf Eisdorfer & Efdal Ulas Misirli, 2020. "Distressed Stocks in Distressed Times," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2452-2473, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:66:y:2020:i:6:p:2452-2473
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2019.3314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3314
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3314?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galai, Dan & Masulis, Ronald W., 1976. "The option pricing model and the risk factor of stock," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 53-81.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2013. "The other side of value: The gross profitability premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-28.
    5. John Y. Campbell & Jens Hilscher & Jan Szilagyi, 2008. "In Search of Distress Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2899-2939, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Robert Novy-Marx & Mihail Velikov, 2016. "A Taxonomy of Anomalies and Their Trading Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 104-147.
    8. Lorenzo Garlappi & Hong Yan, 2011. "Financial Distress and the Cross‐section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 789-822, June.
    9. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Lorenzo Garlappi & Tao Shu & Hong Yan, 2008. "Default Risk, Shareholder Advantage, and Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2743-2778, November.
    14. 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.
    15. Barroso, Pedro & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2015. "Momentum has its moments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 111-120.
    16. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Dissecting Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1653-1678, August.
    17. 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.
    18. Jaewon Choi, 2013. "What Drives the Value Premium?: The Role of Asset Risk and Leverage," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(11), pages 2845-2875.
    19. Johnson, T.C. & Chebonenko, T. & Cunha, I. & D'Almeida, F. & Spencer, X., 2011. "Endogenous leverage and expected stock returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 132-145, September.
    20. Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi & Runkle, David E, 1993. "On the Relation between the Expected Value and the Volatility of the Nominal Excess Return on Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1779-1801, December.
    21. Dirk Hackbarth & Rainer Haselmann & David Schoenherr, 2015. "Financial Distress, Stock Returns, and the 1978 Bankruptcy Reform Act," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(6), pages 1810-1847.
    22. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    23. Avramov, Doron & Chordia, Tarun & Jostova, Gergana & Philipov, Alexander, 2009. "Credit ratings and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 469-499, August.
    24. Ron Giammarino & Murray Carlson & Adlai Fisher, 2004. "Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for Post-SEO Performance," 2004 Meeting Papers 812, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    25. Nils Friewald & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2014. "The Cross-Section of Credit Risk Premia and Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2419-2469, December.
    26. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Michael J. Schill, 2008. "Asset Growth and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1609-1651, August.
    27. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    28. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:3:p:1131-1147 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1345-1365 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Doron Avramov & Tarun Chordia & Gergana Jostova & Alexander Philipov, 2007. "Momentum and Credit Rating," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2503-2520, October.
    31. Da, Zhi & Gao, Pengjie, 2010. "Clientele Change, Liquidity Shock, and the Return on Financially Distressed Stocks," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 27-48, February.
    32. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Tyler Shumway, 2008. "Forecasting Default with the Merton Distance to Default Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1339-1369, May.
    33. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:6:p:2577-2603 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Novy-Marx, Robert, 2012. "Is momentum really momentum?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 429-453.
    35. 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.
    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. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    2. Božović, Miloš, 2024. "VIX-managed portfolios," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    3. Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin Sterling, 2021. "Downside risk and the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Lykourgos Alexiou & Leonidas S. Rompolis, 2022. "Option‐implied moments and the cross‐section of stock returns," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 668-691, April.

    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, October.
    2. Jean Helwege & Jing-Zhi Huang & Yuan Wang, 2017. "Debt Covenants and Cross-Sectional Equity Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1835-1854, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Andreou, Christoforos K. & Lambertides, Neophytos & Panayides, Photis M., 2021. "Distress risk anomaly and misvaluation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
    5. Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin Sterling, 2021. "Downside risk and the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    6. Mateus, Irina B. & Mateus, Cesario & Todorovic, Natasa, 2019. "Review of new trends in the literature on factor models and mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 344-354.
    7. Pätäri, Eero & Karell, Ville & Luukka, Pasi & Yeomans, Julian S, 2018. "Comparison of the multicriteria decision-making methods for equity portfolio selection: The U.S. evidence," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(2), pages 655-672.
    8. Ferreira Filipe, Sara & Grammatikos, Theoharry & Michala, Dimitra, 2016. "Pricing default risk: The good, the bad, and the anomaly," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 190-213.
    9. Skočir, Matevž & Lončarski, Igor, 2018. "Multi-factor asset pricing models: Factor construction choices and the revisit of pricing factors," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 65-80.
    10. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2017. "Replicating Anomalies," NBER Working Papers 23394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Klaus Grobys & Jesper Haga, 2016. "The market price of credit risk and economic states," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1111-1134, May.
    12. Kevin Aretz & Chris Florackis & Alexandros Kostakis, 2018. "Do Stock Returns Really Decrease with Default Risk? New International Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3821-3842, August.
    13. Kaserer Christoph & Hanauer Matthias X., 2017. "25 Jahre Fama-French-Modell: Erklärungsgehalt, Anomalien und praktische Implikationen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 98-116, June.
    14. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    15. Clarke, Charles, 2022. "The level, slope, and curve factor model for stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 159-187.
    16. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Doron Avramov & Tarun Chordia & Gergana Jostova & Alexander Philipov, 2022. "The Distress Anomaly is Deeper than You Think: Evidence from Stocks and Bonds [The prediction of corporate bankruptcy: a discriminant analysis]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 355-405.
    19. Li, Keming & Lockwood, Jimmy & Miao, Hong, 2017. "Risk-shifting, equity risk, and the distress puzzle," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 275-288.
    20. Blitz, David & Hanauer, Matthias X. & Vidojevic, Milan, 2020. "The idiosyncratic momentum anomaly," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 932-957.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:66:y:2020:i:6:p:2452-2473. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.