Cash Flow Anomalies Associated with Business Conditions in Korean Stock Market

Purpose - Many studies report that returns on hedge portfolios that eliminate particular risk types are abnormal from traditional asset pricing models' perspectives. This study examines the pervasiveness of anomalous returns conditioned on business cycle and group size. Research design, data, and methodology - Using KOSPI and KOSDAQ market data from July 1991 to December 2013, we categorize stocks into appropriately sized groups, and dichotomize our sample periods into expansion and recession periods then, we construct hedge portfolios by sorting stocks by anomaly variables and calculate their returns. Results - Four anomalies, including earnings yield, net stock issue, total asset growth, and liquidity appear pervasive across all groups for the entire sample period. However, only the hedge returns of net stock issues are significant across all group sizes during both expansion and recession. Conclusions - A net stock issue can be an appropriate proxy for expected growth of book equity for all group sizes in recessions. This finding could provide insights to investment industry participants and to researchers interested in the relationship between expected growth of book equity and business cycle risk.