IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/spa/wpaper/2017wpecon01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncovering Skilled Short-sellers

Author

Listed:
  • Fernando Chague
  • Rodrigo De Losso, Bruno Giovannetti

Abstract

Studies on how skilled short-sellers trade typically employ aggregate shorting volume. Unfortunately, aggregate shorting volume is polluted by shorting for hedging, long-short strategies, and liquidity supplying. Using a unique data set that tracks all short-sellers in Brazil at the deal-level, we are able to uncover the skilled short-sellers and study them in isolation. This is revealing. Skilled short-sellers are actually short-term momentum investors (as opposed to contrarian as suggested by aggregate shorting volume), a significant part of their skill comes from market-timing, they are proficient at choosing when to cover their positions and, unlike unskilled short-sellers, display no disposition effect

Suggested Citation

  • Fernando Chague & Rodrigo De Losso, Bruno Giovannetti, 2017. "Uncovering Skilled Short-sellers," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2017_01, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    • Handle: RePEc:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/Chague_DeLosso_Giovannetti_01WPa.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:2:p:685-706 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Chague, Fernando & De-Losso, Rodrigo & De Genaro, Alan & Giovannetti, Bruno, 2014. "Short-sellers: Informed but restricted," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 56-70.
    4. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    5. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Jones, Charles M. & Putniņš, Tālis J., 2016. "Shorting at close range: A tale of two types," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 546-568.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1845-1876 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Chague, Fernando & De-Losso, Rodrigo & De Genaro, Alan & Giovannetti, Bruno, 2017. "Well-connected short-sellers pay lower loan fees: A market-wide analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 646-670.
    8. Alessandro Beber & Marco Pagano, 2013. "Short-Selling Bans Around the World: Evidence from the 2007–09 Crisis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 343-381, February.
    9. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Jonathan B. Berk & Richard C. Green, 2004. "Mutual Fund Flows and Performance in Rational Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1269-1295, December.
    11. Christophe, Stephen E. & Ferri, Michael G. & Hsieh, Jim, 2010. "Informed trading before analyst downgrades: Evidence from short sellers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 85-106, January.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Berk, Jonathan B. & van Binsbergen, Jules H., 2015. "Measuring skill in the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 1-20.
    15. 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.
    16. Robert Kosowski & Allan Timmermann & Russ Wermers & Hal White, 2006. "Can Mutual Fund “Stars” Really Pick Stocks? New Evidence from a Bootstrap Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2551-2595, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2010. "Luck versus Skill in the Cross‐Section of Mutual Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1915-1947, October.
    19. Honghui Chen & Vijay Singal, 2003. "Role of Speculative Short Sales in Price Formation: The Case of the Weekend Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 685-705, April.
    20. Jank, Stephan & Smajlbegovic, Esad, 2015. "Dissecting short-sale performance: Evidence from large position disclosures," CFR Working Papers 15-15, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    21. 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.
    22. Joseph E. Engelberg & Adam V. Reed & Matthew C. Ringgenberg, 2018. "Short‐Selling Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(2), pages 755-786, April.
    23. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    24. Lira Mota & Joao De Mello & Marco Bonomo, 2015. "Short-Selling Restrictions and Returns: a Natural Experiment," 2015 Meeting Papers 1353, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    25. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2013. "Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008 Shorting Ban," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1363-1400.
    26. 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.
    27. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A, 2001. "The Risk in Hedge Fund Strategies: Theory and Evidence from Trend Followers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 313-341.
    28. Rapach, David E. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C. & Zhou, Guofu, 2016. "Short interest and aggregate stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 46-65.
    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.
    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. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. 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.).
    4. 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.
    5. Hackney, John & Henry, Tyler R. & Koski, Jennifer L., 2020. "Arbitrage vs. informed short selling: Evidence from convertible bond issuers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    6. Antonio Gargano & Juan Sotes-Paladino & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2022. "Short of Capital: Stock Market Implications of Short Sellers’ Losses," Working Papers 116, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    7. Oleg Chuprinin & Massimo Massa & Bastian von Beschwitz, 2015. "Why Do Short Sellers Like Qualitative News?," International Finance Discussion Papers 1149, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Do, Binh Huu & Gray, Philip & Manton, Tom, 2016. "Assessing the information content of short-selling metrics using daily disclosures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 188-204.
    9. von Beschwitz, Bastian & Massa, Massimo, 2020. "Biased short: Short sellers' disposition effect and limits to arbitrage," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    10. Xu Guo & Chunchi Wu, 2022. "Short Selling Activity and Effects on Financial Markets and Corporate Decisions," Springer Books, in: Cheng-Few Lee & Alice C. Lee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Finance, edition 0, chapter 98, pages 2313-2340, Springer.
    11. von Beschwitz, Bastian & Chuprinin, Oleg & Massa, Massimo, 2017. "Why Do Short Sellers Like Qualitative News?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 645-675, April.
    12. Huszár, Zsuzsa R. & Prado, Melissa Porras, 2019. "An analysis of over-the-counter and centralized stock lending markets," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 31-53.
    13. Larry Su & Elmina Homapour & Francisco Chiclana, 2022. "Short-Sale Constraints and Stock Prices: Evidence from Implementation of Securities Refinancing Mechanism in Chinese Stock Markets," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(17), pages 1-21, September.
    14. Hou, Yang & Meng, Jiayin, 2018. "The momentum effect in the Chinese market and its relationship with the simultaneous and the lagged investor sentiment," MPRA Paper 94838, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Dixon, Peter N. & Fox, Corbin A. & Kelley, Eric K., 2021. "To own or not to own: Stock loans around dividend payments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 539-559.
    16. Cai, Biqing & Cheng, Tingting & Yan, Cheng, 2018. "Time-varying skills (versus luck) in U.S. active mutual funds and hedge funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 81-106.
    17. Bae, Kwangil & Kang, Jangkoo & Lee, Soonhee, 2016. "Bullish/bearish/neutral strategies under short sale restrictions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 227-239.
    18. Haiyan Jiang & Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2022. "Short Selling: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Future Research," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-31, January.
    19. Antonio Gargano & Juan Sotes-Paladino & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2022. "Out of Sync: Dispersed Short Selling and the Correction of Mispricing," Working Papers 108, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    short-selling; skill; stock-picking; market-timing; disposition effect;
    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

    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:spa:wpaper:2017wpecon01. 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: Pedro Garcia Duarte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuspbr.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.