The Death of the Overreaction Anomaly? A Multifactor Explanation of Contrarian Returns

Adam Clements, Michael E. Drew () and Evan M. Reedman

No 219, School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series from School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology

Abstract: Are the returns accruing to De Bondt and Thaler’s (1985) (DT) much celebrated overreaction anomaly pervasive? Using the CRSP data set used by for the period 1926 through 1982, and, for the first time, an additional two decades of data (1983 through 2003), we provide preliminary support for the original work of DT, reporting that the overreaction anomaly has not only persisted over the past twenty years but has increased, on a risk-unadjusted basis. However, using the three factor model of Fama and French (1993) (FF), we find no statistically significant alpha can be garnered via the overreaction anomaly, with contrarian returns driven by the factors of size and value, not the behavioral biases of investors. It is our conjecture that the anomaly is not robust under the FF framework, with ‘contrarian’ investors following such a scheme simply compensated for the inherent portfolio risk held.

Keywords: Overreaction; anomaly; multifactor asset pricing model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G12 G14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-rmg
Date: 2007-06-01
Note: # Corresponding author: Corresponding author: Tel: 07 3138 1481; Fax 07 3138 1500; Email: m.drew@qut.edu.au; Mail: School of Economics and Finance, QUT, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4001. *Queensland University of Technology (Clements, Drew & Reedman) and ^Monash University (Veeraraghavan). Reedman acknowledges support provided by the School of Economics and Finance, QUT and the Brian Gray Scholarship (jointly funded by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Reserve Bank of Australia). The authors thank participants at the FIRN Doctoral Tutorial 2005, the 18th Australasian Finance & Banking Conference, the 5th Global Conference on Business & Economics and the 2006 Business & Economics Society International Conference for helpful comments. All errors remain the sole responsibility of the authors.

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