Using end-of-month bid-ask spreads for 540 NYSE stocks over the period 1982-87, the authors document a seasonal pattern in which both relative and absolute spreads decline from the end of December to the end of the following January. Cross-sectional regressions do not, however, provide evidence of a significant correlation between changes in spreads at the turn of the year and January stock returns. Either there is no cause and effect relation between the coincidental seasonals in bid-ask spreads and January returns for NYSE stocks or the data are too "noisy" to reveal any relation.

Using end‐of‐month bid‐ask spreads for 540 NYSE stocks over the period 1982–1987, we document a seasonal pattern in which both relative and absolute spreads decline from the end of December to the end of the following January. Cross‐sectional regressions do not, however, provide evidence of a significant correlation between changes in spreads at the turn of the year and January stock returns. Either there is no cause and effect relation between the coincidental seasonals in bid‐ask spreads and January returns for NYSE stocks or the data are too “noisy” to reveal any relation.

Using end-of-month bid-ask spreads for 540 NYSE stocks over the period 1982–1987, we document a seasonal pattern in which both relative and absolute spreads decline from the end of December to the end of the following January. Cross-sectional regressions do not, however, provide evidence of a significant correlation between changes in spreads at the turn of the year and January stock returns. Either there is no cause and effect relation between the coincidental seasonals in bid-ask spreads and January returns for NYSE stocks or the data are too “noisy” to reveal any relation.