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Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Vol. 58 No. 1 2023

Mining the Short Side: Institutional Investors and Stock Market Anomalies

Xin Gao1,2; Ying Wang

1 Sacred Heart University · 2 University of the Sacred Heart

Abstract

This article investigates the short-side anomaly trading behavior of alternative mutual funds (AMFs) based on their short positions in U.S. domestic equities. In aggregate, AMFs demonstrate the ability to exploit well-documented stock market anomalies on the short side, and the overpriced stocks sold short by AMFs generate significant negative alpha. Further, AMFs’ short-side trades exhibit significant return predictability, which can at least partially derive from their ability to process public information on firm and anomaly characteristics. Finally, AMFs’ short-side anomaly-based trading activity and profitability appear to be more pronounced among the stocks with higher credit risk or dynamic short-selling risk.

DOI
10.1017/s0022109022000527
Volume
58
Issue
1
Pages
392-418
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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