The high returns to low volatility stocks are actually a premium on high quality firms

Christian Walkshäusl

Review of Financial Economics, 2013, vol. 22, issue 4, 180-186

Abstract: Recent empirical research shows that low volatility stocks outperform high volatility stocks around the world. This study documents that the volatility effect is associated with the quality of the firm using a large sample of international stocks. First, adding a quality factor to the Fama–French model contributes to the explanation of the volatility effect. Furthermore, the negative volatility–return relation is shown to be stronger and significant only among high quality firms which are profitable and have stable cash flows. Second, a fundamental investment strategy that goes long high quality firms and short low quality firms performs like a volatility strategy and cannot be explained by common asset pricing models. However, a low–high volatility factor adds to the explanation of the return difference between high and low quality stocks as volatility and quality strategies have a common component.

Keywords: Volatility effect; Quality investing; Asset pricing; International markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G12 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:revfin:v:22:y:2013:i:4:p:180-186

DOI: 10.1016/j.rfe.2013.06.001

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