IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v25y2012i5p1630-1673.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skewness in Stock Returns: Reconciling the Evidence on Firm Versus Aggregate Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Rui Albuquerque

Abstract

Aggregate stock market returns display negative skewness. Firm stock returns display positive skewness. The large literature that tries to explain the first stylized fact ignores the second. This article provides a unified theory that reconciles the two facts by explicitly modeling firm-level heterogeneity. I build a stationary asset pricing model of firm announcement events where firm returns display positive skewness. I then show that cross-sectional heterogeneity in firm announcement events can lead to conditional asymmetric stock return correlations and negative skewness in aggregate returns. I provide evidence consistent with the model predictions. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Rui Albuquerque, 2012. "Skewness in Stock Returns: Reconciling the Evidence on Firm Versus Aggregate Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(5), pages 1630-1673.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:25:y:2012:i:5:p:1630-1673
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhr144
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kon, Stanley J, 1984. "Models of Stock Returns-A Comparison," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(1), pages 147-165, March.
    2. Veronesi, Pietro, 2004. "The Peso problem hypothesis and stock market returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 707-725, January.
    3. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein & Jialin Yu, 2007. "Simple Forecasts and Paradigm Shifts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1207-1242, June.
    4. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    5. Brian Boyer & Todd Mitton & Keith Vorkink, 2010. "Expected Idiosyncratic Skewness," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 169-202, January.
    6. Tucker, Alan L, 1992. "A Reexamination of Finite- and Infinite-Variance Distributions as Models of Daily Stock Returns," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(1), pages 73-81, January.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    8. Cohen, Daniel A. & Dey, Aiyesha & Lys, Thomas Z. & Sunder, Shyam V., 2007. "Earnings announcement premia and the limits to arbitrage," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 153-180, July.
    9. Arturo Bris & William N. Goetzmann & Ning Zhu, 2007. "Efficiency and the Bear: Short Sales and Markets Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1029-1079, June.
    10. Gurdip Bakshi & Nikunj Kapadia & Dilip Madan, 2003. "Stock Return Characteristics, Skew Laws, and the Differential Pricing of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 101-143.
    11. 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.
    12. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    13. Wu, Guojun, 2001. "The Determinants of Asymmetric Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 837-859.
    14. Olivier J. Blanchard & Mark W. Watson, 1982. "Bubbles, Rational Expectations and Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 0945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Fred D. Arditti, 1967. "Risk And The Required Return On Equity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 19-36, March.
    16. He, Hua & Wang, Jiang, 1995. "Differential Information and Dynamic Behavior of Stock Trading Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(4), pages 919-972.
    17. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    18. Rietz, Thomas A., 1988. "The equity risk premium a solution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 117-131, July.
    19. Bekaert, Geert & Wu, Guojun, 2000. "Asymmetric Volatility and Risk in Equity Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-42.
    20. Veronesi, Pietro, 1999. "Stock Market Overreaction to Bad News in Good Times: A Rational Expectations Equilibrium Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 975-1007.
    21. Christie, Andrew A., 1982. "The stochastic behavior of common stock variances : Value, leverage and interest rate effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 407-432, December.
    22. Markus Haas, 2004. "Mixed Normal Conditional Heteroskedasticity," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 211-250.
    23. Hong, Harrison & Wang, Jiang & Yu, Jialin, 2008. "Firms as buyers of last resort," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 119-145, April.
    24. Jianguo Xu, 2007. "Price Convexity and Skewness," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2521-2552, October.
    25. Duffee, Gregory R., 1995. "Stock returns and volatility A firm-level analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 399-420, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Albuquerque, Rui, 2009. "Skewness in Stock Returns, Periodic Cash Payouts, and Investor Heterogeneity," CEPR Discussion Papers 7573, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Engle, Robert & Mistry, Abhishek, 2014. "Priced risk and asymmetric volatility in the cross section of skewness," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 135-144.
    3. Jondeau, Eric & Zhang, Qunzi & Zhu, Xiaoneng, 2019. "Average skewness matters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 29-47.
    4. Chen, Steven Shu-Hsiu, 2024. "International crash risk premium," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    5. Henri Bertholon & Alain Monfort & Fulvio Pegoraro, 2006. "Pricing and Inference with Mixtures of Conditionally Normal Processes," Working Papers 2006-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    6. Harris, Richard D.F. & Nguyen, Linh H. & Stoja, Evarist, 2019. "Systematic extreme downside risk," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 128-142.
    7. Choi, Jaewon & Richardson, Matthew, 2016. "The volatility of a firm's assets and the leverage effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 254-277.
    8. Bressan, Silvia & Weissensteiner, Alex, 2021. "The financial conglomerate discount: Insights from stock return skewness," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Lai, Jing-yi, 2012. "Shock-dependent conditional skewness in international aggregate stock markets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 72-83.
    10. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    11. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 1999. "Differences of Opinion, Rational Arbitrage and Market Crashes," NBER Working Papers 7376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Anders Ekholm & Daniel Pasternack, 2005. "The negative news threshold—An explanation for negative skewness in stock returns," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(6), pages 511-529.
    13. Daouk, Hazem & Ng, David, 2011. "Is unlevered firm volatility asymmetric?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 634-651, September.
    14. Byun, Suk-Joon & Kim, Da-Hea, 2016. "Gambling preference and individual equity option returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 155-174.
    15. Hutson, Elaine & Kearney, Colm & Lynch, Margaret, 2008. "Volume and skewness in international equity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1255-1268, July.
    16. Ender Su & John Bilson, 2011. "Trading asymmetric trend and volatility by leverage trend GARCH in Taiwan stock index," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(26), pages 3891-3905.
    17. Agbeyegbe, Terence D., 2015. "An inverted U-shaped crude oil price return-implied volatility relationship," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 28-45.
    18. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, April.
    19. Langlois, Hugues, 2020. "Measuring skewness premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 399-424.
    20. Geert Bekaert & Eric Engstrom, 2009. "Asset Return Dynamics under Bad Environment Good Environment Fundamentals," NBER Working Papers 15222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • 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:oup:rfinst:v:25:y:2012:i:5:p:1630-1673. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.