Share Issuance and Factor Timing

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:52

Abstract

We show that characteristics of stock issuers can be used to forecast important common factors in stocks returns such as those associated with book-to-market, size, and industry. Specifically, we use differences between the attributes of stock issuers and repurchasers to forecast characteristic-related factor returns. For example, we show that large firms underperform following years when issuing firms are large relative to repurchasing firms. While our strongest results are for portfolios based on book-to-market, size (i.e., we forecast the HML and SMB factors), and industry, our approach is also useful for forecasting factor returns associated with distress, payout policy, and profitability.

Keywords

Forecasting and Prediction; Equity; Stocks; Stock Shares; Investment Return; Investment Portfolio; Price; Performance Evaluation

Citation

Greenwood, Robin, and Samuel Hanson. "Share Issuance and Factor Timing." December 2010. (Appendix. Previously titled "Characteristic Timing," NBER Working Paper Series, No. 15948.)