Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
addClaim

The Nominal Price Premium

Authors: Justin Birru; Baolian Wang;

The Nominal Price Premium

Abstract

Motivated by the evidence that investors tend to be overly optimistic about low-priced stocks, we examine how nominal price affects the cross section of stock returns. To circumvent the mechanical inverse relationship between price and expected return, we construct a novel way of examining the effect of nominal price on the cross section of stock returns. In the cross-section, a portfolio exploiting this strategy generates a value-weighted (equal-weighted) four-factor alpha of 85 (88) basis points per month, while raw price does not predict return robustly. Consistent with a mispricing-based explanation, the results are stronger for hard-to-arbitrage stocks and following high sentiment periods, and strategy returns are highly correlated with contemporaneous changes in sentiment. Using stock splits as an exogenous change in price level, we find that the post-split return dynamics mimic those predicted by our hypothesis. Evidence from earnings surprises and analyst price target forecasts confirms that beliefs are overly optimistic for low-priced stocks. Providing further evidence that the results reflect a belief-based rather than purely a preference-based channel, we find that the effect is distinct from other gambling related proxies that have been used in the past such as extreme returns, idiosyncratic volatility, and skewness.

Related Organizations
  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    5
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
5
Average
Average
Average
Upload OA version
Are you the author of this publication? Upload your Open Access version to Zenodo!
It’s fast and easy, just two clicks!