Exploitability of Stock Anomalies Worldwide

Are published stock return anomalies exploitable worldwide? In their January 2018 paper entitled “Does it Pay to Follow Anomalies Research? International Evidence”, Ondrej Tobek and Martin Hronec investigate out-of-sample and post-publication performances of 153 cross-sectional stock return anomalies documented in the academic literature, mostly in the top three finance and top three accounting journals. Of the 153 anomalies, 93 involve firm fundamentals, 11 involve firm earnings estimates and 49 involve market frictions. They calculate returns for each anomaly via a hedge portfolio that is long (short) the value-weighted fifth, or quintile, of stocks with the highest (lowest) expected returns for that anomaly. To ensure capacity, they focus on the universe of stocks in the top 90% of NYSE capitalizations. They first examine out-of-sample (after the sample used for discovery but before publication) and post-publication performances of anomalies among U.S. stocks for evidence of performance decay. They then look at anomaly performance outside the U.S. They further test whether strategies that work most widely should be of greatest interest to investors. Finally, they consider a multi-anomaly strategy that each year invests equally in all anomalies that are significant in the U.S. through June, starting in July 1990 for developed country markets and July 2000 for emerging country markets. Using required firm/stock data since July 1963 for the U.S., since January 1987 for Europe, Japan and developed Asia-Pacific and since January 2000 for China and emerging Asia-Pacific, all through December 2016, they find that: (more…)