Composite equity issuance and the cross-section of country and industry returns

Behavioural finance literature argues that stock issuance contains information on equity valuation. If so, does it predict the cross-section of both country and industry stock returns? To answer this question, we investigate data from 68 markets from 1976 to 2022. We find that composite equity issuance negatively correlates with future aggregate stock returns. An equal-weighted quintile of countries (industries) with the highest issuance underperforms those with the lowest by 0.34% (0.58%) per month. Established risk factors and other anomalies cannot subsume this cross-sectional pattern. Furthermore, the effect remains robust to many considerations. This documented issuance anomaly paves the way for an exploitable international investment strategy

Trade competitiveness and the aggregate returns in global stock markets

Using the change in the real effective exchange rate (REER) to reflect trade competitiveness, we examine its role in the cross-section of global equity returns. The changes in REER negatively affect stock market returns. The REER effect is robust after controlling for known risk factors and market characteristics. Furthermore, it remains pervasive across different periods and subsamples. Our findings support the conventional wisdom that appreciating currency harms trade values, consequently dampening a firm\u27s stock market performance

Betting against bank profitability

There is an ongoing debate about the economic implications of excessive bank risk-taking and profitability. We examine this issue from the perspective of bank shareholders. Contrary to evidence for non-financial stocks, we find that operating profitability is negatively related to risk-adjusted bank stock returns. This negative relationship can be attributed to the nature of the banking business, where profit and systematic risk are intrinsically linked, and the previously documented ‘betting against beta’ anomaly. We further demonstrate that more profitable banks are riskier and therefore have greater demand from leverage-constrained investors, resulting in higher valuations and lower than expected subsequent returns. The negative relationship between profitability and risk-adjusted returns is increasing in bank scale, as moral hazard problems and the use of market-based activities accentuate the link between profit and systematic risk in large banks

Mardy Chiah (Innovation and Ideas Series)

Share market trading has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecturer in Finance and Department Research Seminar Coordinator, Dr Mardy Chiah investigates the trend and shares his findings

A Better Model? An Empirical Investigation of the Fama-French Five-factor Model in Australia

Recently, Fama and French (2015a) propose a five-factor model by adding profitability and investment factors to their three-factor model. This model outperforms the three-factor model previously proposed by Fama and French (1993). Using an extensive sample over the 1982–2013 period, we investigate the performance of the five-factor model in pricing Australian equities. We find that the five-factor model is able to explain more asset pricing anomalies than a range of competing asset pricing models, which supports the superiority of the five-factor model. We also find that despite the results documented by Fama and French (2015a), the book-to-market factor retains its explanatory power in the presence of the investment and profitability factors. Our results are robust to alternative factor definitions and the formation of test assets. The study provides a strong out-of-sample test of the model, adding to the comparative evidence across international equity markets

Changes in Shares Outstanding and Country Stock Returns Around the World

Motivated by stock-level evidence of the issuance anomalies, we examine whether a similar effect drives the cross-section of country stock returns. To this end, we investigate six decades of data from 67 markets. The changes in aggregate shares outstanding negatively predict future country equity returns. The quintile of markets with the highest share increase underperforms their low-issuance counterparts by 0.85% per month. The effect is distinctly robust and cannot be subsumed by known risk factors. The observed pattern complies with the mispricing interpretation, and high arbitrage constraints augment its magnitude. Finally, the issuance premium may be harvested with exchange-traded funds, paving the way for a viable country selection strategy

COVID–19 and oil price risk exposure

This study investigates oil price risk exposure of financial and non-financial industries around the world during the COVID–19 pandemic. The empirical results show that oil supply industries benefit from positive shocks to oil price risk in general, whereas oil user industries and financial industries react negatively to positive oil price shocks. The COVID–19 outbreak appears to moderate the oil price risk exposure of both financial and non-financial industries. This brings important implications in risk management of energy risk during the pandemic