[Recent winners have temporarily higher loadings than recent losers on the growth rate of industrial production. The loading spread derives mostly from the positive loadings of winners. The growth rate of industrial production is a priced risk factor in standard asset pricing tests. In many specifications, this macroeconomic risk factor explains more than half of momentum profits. We conclude that risk plays an important role in driving momentum profits.]

An empirical q-factor model consisting of the market factor, a size factor, an investment factor, and a profitability factor largely summarizes the cross section of average stock returns. A comprehensive examination of nearly 80 anomalies reveals that about one-half of the anomalies are insignificant in the broad cross section. More importantly, with a few exceptions, the q-factor model's performance is at least comparable to, and in many cases better than that of the Fama-French (1993) 3-factor model and the Carhart (1997) 4-factor model in capturing the remaining significant anomalies.

[A new methodology for equity valuation arises from the perspective of managers' supply of capital assets. Under q-theory, managers optimally adjust the supply of assets to changes in their market value. The first-order condition of investment then provides a valuation equation that infers asset prices from managers' costs of supplying the assets. This equation fits well the Tobin's q levels across many testing assets, including portfolios formed on q. With current investment-to-capital as the only input, the supply approach does not require cash flow forecasts or discount rate estimates, both of which are notoriously difficult to obtain in practice.]

[We construct firm-specific measures of expected equity returns using corporate bond yields, and replace standard ex post average returns with our expected-return measures in asset pricing tests. We find that the market beta is significantly priced in the cross section of expected returns. The expected size and value premiums are positive and countercyclical, but there is no evidence of positive expected momentum profits.]

[An investment factor, long in low-investment stocks and short in high-investment stocks, helps explain the new issues puzzle. Adding the investment factor into standard factor regressions reduces the SEO underperformance by about 75%, the IPO underperformance by 80%, the underperformance following convertible debt offerings by 50%, and Daniel and Titman's (2006) composite issuance effect by 40%. The reason is that issuers invest more than nonissuers, and the investment factor earns a significantly positive average return of 0.57% per month.]

We use a production-based asset pricing model to investigate whether financing constraints are quantitatively important for the cross-section of returns. Specifically, we use GMM to explore the stochastic Euler equation imposed on returns by optimal investment. Our methods can identify the impact of financial frictions on the stochastic discount factor with cyclical variations in cost of external funds. We find that financing frictions provide a common factor that improves the pricing of cross-sectional returns. Moreover, the shadow cost of external funds exhibits strong procyclical variation, so that financial frictions are more important in relatively good economic conditions.

[We take a simple q-theory model and ask how well it can explain external financing anomalies, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our central insight is that optimal investment is an important driving force of these anomalies. The model simultaneously reproduces procyclical equity issuance waves, the negative relation between investment and average returns, long-term underperformance following equity issues, positive long-term drift following cash distributions, the mean-reverting operating performance of issuing and cashdistributing firms, and the failure of the in explaining the long-term stock-price drifts. However, the model cannot fully capture the magnitude of the positive drift following cash distributions observed in the data.]

Recent winners have temporarily higher loadings than recent losers on the growth rate of industrial production. The loading spread derives mostly from the positive loadings of winners. The growth rate of industrial production is a priced risk factor in standard asset pricing tests. In many specifications, this macroeconomic risk factor explains more than half of momentum profits. We conclude that risk plays an important role in driving momentum profits. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

Most anomalies fail to hold up to currently acceptable standards for empirical finance. With microcaps mitigated via NYSE breakpoints and value-weighted returns, 65% of the 452 anomalies in our extensive data library, including 96% of the trading frictions category, cannot clear the single test hurdle of the absolute t-value of 1.96. Imposing the higher multiple test hurdle of 2.78 at the 5% significance level raises the failure rate to 82%. Even for replicated anomalies, their economic magnitudes are much smaller than originally reported. In all, capital markets are more efficient than previously recognized. Received June 12, 2017; editorial decision October 29, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

This paper is a new incarnation of the defunct work previously circulated under the titles "Neoclassical Factors," "An equilibrium three-factor model," "Production-based factors," "A better three-factor model that explains more anomalies," and "An alternative three-factor model." We are extremely grateful to Robert Novy-Marx