{"title":"What matters in a characteristic?","authors":"Hugues Langlois","doi":"10.1016/j.jfineco.2023.04.010","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>We investigate how different components in firm characteristics affect expected returns and comovements in international stock markets. We decompose characteristics into country, industry, and country- and industry-adjusted (i.e., orthogonal) components. Then, we use these components to capture time-series and cross-sectional variations in stock-level alphas and factor exposures. Decomposing characteristics is crucial to explain jointly expected returns and comovements: </span><em>(i)</em> adjusted (country) components are the most important determinant of alphas (comovements), <em>(ii)</em> component-based models outperform benchmark models, and <em>(iii)</em> alphas are statistically significant. However, alphas have been trending down over time, and alpha-chasing strategies are not profitable once we account for estimation risk and trading costs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51346,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Financial Economics","volume":"149 1","pages":"Pages 52-72"},"PeriodicalIF":10.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Financial Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X23000703","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We investigate how different components in firm characteristics affect expected returns and comovements in international stock markets. We decompose characteristics into country, industry, and country- and industry-adjusted (i.e., orthogonal) components. Then, we use these components to capture time-series and cross-sectional variations in stock-level alphas and factor exposures. Decomposing characteristics is crucial to explain jointly expected returns and comovements: (i) adjusted (country) components are the most important determinant of alphas (comovements), (ii) component-based models outperform benchmark models, and (iii) alphas are statistically significant. However, alphas have been trending down over time, and alpha-chasing strategies are not profitable once we account for estimation risk and trading costs.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Financial Economics provides a specialized forum for the publication of research in the area of financial economics and the theory of the firm, placing primary emphasis on the highest quality analytical, empirical, and clinical contributions in the following major areas: capital markets, financial institutions, corporate finance, corporate governance, and the economics of organizations.
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