The Bid-Ask Bounce Effect and the Pricing of Cross-Sectional Idiosyncratic Volatility: An Australian Study

Abstract

Han and Lesmond (2011) find that stock liquidity, namely bid-ask bounce, affects the pricing of idiosyncratic volatility. Following Ang et al. (2009) and Han and Lesmond (2011), we investigate the pricing of idiosyncratic volatility and liquidity-adjusted idiosyncratic volatility over the period January 2004 to December 2013 using a comprehensive Australian dataset. Our results indicate that (1) both lagged idiosyncratic volatility and lagged liquidity-adjusted idiosyncratic volatility are strongly and positively related to stock returns over the sample period; (2) consistent with Han and Lesmond (2011), the pricing of idiosyncratic volatility is largely captured by stock liquidity; (3) our liquidity adjusted idiosyncratic volatility estimates work well in explaining the variations of the stocks of small firms but do not explain much variations in stocks of large firms when size and BE/ME are controlled; (4) high idiosyncratic volatility stocks tend to be of small, volatile and illiquid.