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We examine the incremental cross-sectional role of several common risk factors related to size, book-to-market, and momentum in size-and-momentum-sorted portfolios. Unlike the existing literature, which focuses on the conditional mean specification only, we evaluate the common risk factors’ incremental explanatory power in the cross-sectional characterization of both average return and conditional volatility. We also investigate the role of ex-ante market risk in the cross-section. The empirical results demonstrate that the size-and-momentum-based risk factors explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional average returns and cross-sectional conditional volatility of the benchmark equity portfolios. We find that the Fama–French (1993) factors and the ex-ante market risk are priced in the cross-sectional conditional volatility. We conclude that the size-and-momentum-based factors provide a source of risk that is independent of the Fama–French factors as well as ex-post and ex-ante market risk. Our results bolster the risk-based explanation of the size and momentum effects.

Lai, Li, Conover, and Wu (2010) propose a four-factor financial distress model to explain stock returns in the U.S. and Japanese markets. We examine this model in the stock markets of Australia, and six Asian markets (Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand). We find broad empirical support for the four-factor financial distress risk asset-pricing model in those markets. The four-factor financial distress asset pricing model improves explanatory power beyond the Fama–French (1993) three-factor asset pricing model in six of the seven Asian-Pacific markets (12 of 14 portfolio groupings), while the Carhart (1997) momentum-based asset pricing model only improves explanatory power beyond the Fama–French model in three of the seven markets (4 of 14 portfolio groupings).

This study develops an environment, social, and governance (ESG) momentum strategy by combining information about ESG scores and the momentum effect. This study, subsequently, applies the ESG momentum strategy to Taiwanese and Japanese stock markets and investigates the performance of the ESG momentum strategy in each market. Detailed comparisons of the ESG scores and ESG momentum performance between the two markets are conducted. The empirical results show that the ESG momentum strategy can obtain enhanced profits in the Taiwanese market, while the ESG momentum strategy cannot lead to substantial profits in the Japanese market. In addition, the ESG momentum effect in the Taiwanese market can last for three years after portfolio formation. In the Japanese market, the ESG contrarian strategy may deliver better profits than the ESG momentum strategy.

We form portfolios based on return and liquidity and examine the effects of liquidity and other risk factors on asset pricing in the Chinese stock market. Our results show that the past loser-and-illiquid stock portfolios tend to outperform the past winner-and-liquid stock portfolios in the 1–12 months holding period. The excess return is significantly associated with the market-wide liquidity factor even when we control the three Fama-French and momentum factors. Cross-sectionally, the liquidity beta significantly affects the excess return even with control of other risk betas and other traditional liquidity proxies.

This chapter examines momentum in the corporate bond market using a comprehensive data set that includes bonds with different characteristics and provisions. We find that momentum exists in a wide range of corporate bonds. The momentum effect is more significant for callable bonds and lower-rated bonds. This effect cannot be explained by standard risk factors and liquidity in the bond market. Bond momentum prevails over time and remains strong even after the corporate bond market becomes more transparent and liquid with establishment of TRACE. The high magnitude of momentum profits casts doubt that they can be explained by risk-based theories.

Previous studies have shown that stock returns bear a premium for downside risk versus upside potential. We develop a new risk measure which scales the traditional CAPM beta by the ratio of the upside beta to the downside beta, thereby incorporating the effects of both upside potential and downside risk. This “modified” beta has substantial explanatory power in standard asset pricing tests, outperforming existing measures, and it is robust to various alternative modeling and estimation techniques.

Stock selection models often use momentum and analysts’ expectation data. We find that earnings forecast revisions and direction of forecast revisions are more important than analysts’ forecasts in identifying mispriced securities. Investing with expectations data and momentum variables is consistent with maximizing the geometric mean and Sharpe ratio over the long run. Additional evidence is revealed that supports the use of multifactor models for portfolio construction and risk control. The anomalies literature can be applied in real-world portfolio construction in the U.S., international, and global equity markets during the 1998–2009 time period. Support exists for the use of tracking error at risk estimation procedures.

While perfection cannot be achieved in portfolio creation and modeling, the estimated model returns pass the Markowitz and Xu data mining corrections test and are statistically different from an average financial model that could have been used to select stocks and form portfolios. We found additional evidence to support the use of Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) and statistically-based and fundamentally-based multifactor models for portfolio construction and risk control. Markets are neither efficient nor grossly inefficient; statistically significant excess returns can be earned.

Following the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Basic, securities class plaintiffs can invoke the “rebuttable presumption of reliance on public, material misrepresentations regarding securities traded in an efficient market” [the “fraud-on-the-market” doctrine] to prove classwide reliance. Although this requires plaintiffs to prove that the security traded in an informationally efficient market throughout the class period, Basic did not identify what constituted adequate proof of efficiency for reliance purposes.

Market efficiency cannot be presumed without proof because even large publicly traded stocks do not always trade in efficient markets, as documented in the economic literature that has grown significantly since Basic. For instance, during the recent global financial crisis, lack of liquidity limited arbitrage (the mechanism that renders markets efficient) and led to significant price distortions in many asset markets. Yet, lower courts following Basic have frequently granted class certification based on a mechanical review of some factors that are considered intuitive “proxies” of market efficiency (albeit incorrectly, according to recent studies and our own analysis). Such factors have little probative value and their review does not constitute the rigorous analysis demanded by the Supreme Court.

Instead, to invoke fraud-on-the-market, plaintiffs must first establish that the security traded in a weak-form efficient market (absent which a security cannot, as a logical matter, trade in a “semi-strong form” efficient market, the standard required for reliance purposes) using well-accepted tests. Only then do event study results, which are commonly used to demonstrate “cause and effect” (i.e., prove that the security’s price reacted quickly to news – a hallmark of a semi-strong form efficient market), have any merit. Even then, to claim classwide reliance, plaintiffs must prove such cause-and-effect relationship throughout the class period, not simply on selected disclosure dates identified in the complaint as plaintiffs often do.

These issues have policy implications because, once a class is certified, defendants frequently settle to avoid the magnified costs and risks associated with a trial, and the merits of the case (including the proper application of legal presumptions) are rarely examined at a trial.