Political sentiment and MAX effect

Shuyang Huang and Ming Zeng

The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 2022, vol. 62, issue C

Abstract: The well-known “MAX effect” documents that stocks with high maximum daily returns in the past month underperform those with low maximum daily returns. We show that such an effect varies with firm-level political sentiment. Among firms with low political sentiment, the usual MAX strategy gives a monthly risk-adjusted return of 1.52% and is statistically significant. However, the MAX effect weakens substantially or even reverses for firms with high political sentiment. Our findings provide novel guidance for trading on the MAX effect. Moreover, the results challenge the usual sentiment-based explanation for the MAX effect. Further evidence suggests that the prospect theory or investors’ underreaction to news may be consistent with our findings, although these channels cannot empirically explain the impact of political sentiment.

Keywords: MAX; Sentiment; Underreaction; Prospect theory; Cross-section of stock returns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:62:y:2022:i:c:s1062940822001061

DOI: 10.1016/j.najef.2022.101760

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