Profitability, Product Market Competition, and Stock Returns
Abstract
This paper finds that product market competition level (measured by Herfindahl Hirschman Index using Fama French 48 industries) affects the performance of zero-cost investment strategies based on gross probability. From 1973 to 2017, the positive returns from such strategy mainly comes from the most competitive industry quintile while a strong reversal exists the second most competitive quintile. The same strategy does not generate any statistically significant returns in concentrated industry quintiles. Out of 25 dependently sorted portfolios on product market competition level and gross profitability, the top performing portfolio comes from the least profitable firms in the second most competitive industry quintile, where 65% of firms are from pharmaceutical and oil industries.
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2019 Scott Li
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher against any breach of such warranty. By publishing in Applied Finance Letters, the author(s) retain copyright but agree to the dissemination of their work through Applied Finance Letters.
By publishing in Applied Finance Letters, the authors grant the Journal a Creative Commons nonexclusive worldwide license (CC-BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License) for electronic dissemination of the article via the Internet, and, a nonexclusive right to license others to reproduce, republish, transmit, and distribute the content of the journal. The authors grant the Journal the right to transfer content (without changing it), to any medium or format necessary for the purpose of preservation.
Authors agree that the Journal will not be liable for any damages, costs, or losses whatsoever arising in any circumstances from its services, including damages arising from the breakdown of technology and difficulties with access.
