IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/10535.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Biased Shorts: Stock Market Implications of Short Sellers? Disposition Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Massa, Massimo
  • von Beschwitz, Bastian

Abstract

We investigate whether short sellers are subject to the disposition effect using a novel dataset that allows to identify the weekly closing of short positions. Consistent with the disposition effect, the closing of short sale positions is strongly related to a proxy of Shortsale Capital Gains Overhang (SCGO). Furthermore, while short sellers in general exhibit skill in closing their positions ? i.e. closing is followed by positive stock returns ? the closing explained by SCGO is followed by negative returns. This suggests that the trades are irrational and caused by the disposition effect. Next, we study the implications of short sellers? disposition effect on stock prices. We provide evidence that SCGO is negatively related to future stock returns. This effect exists after controlling for the standard effect of capital gains overhang of other market participants. A trading strategy based on SCGO achieves yearly three-factor alphas of up to 26%. Overall, our results suggest that short sellers, instead of arbitraging away the mispricing caused by the disposition effect of the other market participants, add to this mispricing due to their own behavioral biases.

Suggested Citation

  • Massa, Massimo & von Beschwitz, Bastian, 2015. "Biased Shorts: Stock Market Implications of Short Sellers? Disposition Effect," CEPR Discussion Papers 10535, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP10535
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Karl B. Diether & Kuan-Hui Lee & Ingrid M. Werner, 2009. "Short-Sale Strategies and Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 575-607, February.
    2. 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.
    3. David Genesove & Christopher Mayer, 2001. "Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1233-1260.
    4. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2002. "Breadth of ownership and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 171-205.
    5. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    6. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    7. Andrea Frazzini, 2006. "The Disposition Effect and Underreaction to News," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 2017-2046, August.
    8. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 589-616, April.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 8190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lauren Cohen & Karl B. Diether & Christopher J. Malloy, 2007. "Supply and Demand Shifts in the Shorting Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2061-2096, October.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:2205-2223 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Grinblatt, Mark & Han, Bing, 2005. "Prospect theory, mental accounting, and momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 311-339, November.
    15. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. 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.
    17. Senchack, A. J. & Starks, Laura T., 1993. "Short-Sale Restrictions and Market Reaction to Short-Interest Announcements," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 177-194, June.
    18. Weber, Martin & Camerer, Colin F., 1998. "The disposition effect in securities trading: an experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 167-184, January.
    19. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2000. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm146, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2001.
    20. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    21. Nicholas Barberis & Wei Xiong, 2009. "What Drives the Disposition Effect? An Analysis of a Long‐Standing Preference‐Based Explanation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 751-784, April.
    22. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    23. Locke, Peter R. & Mann, Steven C., 2005. "Professional trader discipline and trade disposition," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 401-444, May.
    24. Admati, Anat R & Pfleiderer, Paul, 1991. "Sunshine Trading and Financial Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(3), pages 443-481.
    25. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    26. Geczy, Christopher C. & Musto, David K. & Reed, Adam V., 2002. "Stocks are special too: an analysis of the equity lending market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 241-269.
    27. 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.
    28. 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.
    29. 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.
    30. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1247-1292, August.
    31. Francisco J. Gomes, 2005. "Portfolio Choice and Trading Volume with Loss-Averse Investors," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 675-706, March.
    32. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 1985. "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 777-790, July.
    33. Berkelaar, A.B. & Kouwenberg, R.R.P., 2000. "Dynamic asset allocation and downside-risk aversion," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2000-12/A, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    34. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang & Tano Santos, 2001. "Prospect Theory and Asset Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 1-53.
    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. Chague, Fernando Daniel & Bueno, Rodrigo de Losso da Silveira & Giovannetti, Bruno Cara, 2018. "The short-selling skill of institutions and individuals: a market-wide and out-of-sample analysis," Textos para discussão 469, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).

    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. Massimo Massa & Bastian von Beschwitz, 2015. "Biased Shorts: Short sellers’ Disposition Effect and Limits to Arbitrage," International Finance Discussion Papers 1147, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. von Beschwitz, Bastian & Massa, Massimo, 2020. "Biased short: Short sellers' disposition effect and limits to arbitrage," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Li, Yan & Yang, Liyan, 2013. "Prospect theory, the disposition effect, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 715-739.
    4. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    5. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, January.
    6. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    7. Barberis, Nicholas & Xiong, Wei, 2012. "Realization utility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 251-271.
    8. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    9. 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.
    10. Paul A. Griffin & Hyun A. Hong & Jeong-Bon Kim, 2016. "Price discovery in the CDS market: the informational role of equity short interest," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1116-1148, December.
    11. An, Li & Argyle, Bronson, 2021. "Overselling winners and losers: How mutual fund managers' trading behavior affects asset prices," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    12. Beneish, M.D. & Lee, C.M.C. & Nichols, D.C., 2015. "In short supply: Short-sellers and stock returns," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 33-57.
    13. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    14. Daniela Vesselinova Balkanska, 2018. "Disposition effect and analyst forecast dispersion," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 837-859, April.
    15. Chague, Fernando Daniel & Bueno, Rodrigo de Losso da Silveira & Giovannetti, Bruno Cara, 2018. "The short-selling skill of institutions and individuals: a market-wide and out-of-sample analysis," Textos para discussão 469, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    16. Oliver Chan & Alfred Ka Chun Ma, 2016. "Stochastic cost flow system for stock markets with an application in behavioral finance," International Journal of Financial Engineering (IJFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 1-32, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Li An & Huijun Wang & Jian Wang & Jianfeng Yu, 2015. "Lottery-related anomalies: the role of reference-dependent preferences," Globalization Institute Working Papers 259, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    19. 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.
    20. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behavioral finance; Disposition effect; Short selling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:10535. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.