The profitability effect: Insight from a dynamic perspective

Abstract

This study dynamically captures the trend changes in a firm's profitability over a period and explores the impact of the firm's profitability growth and acceleration on the cross-section of stock returns. The empirical evidence reveals a significantly positive dynamic profitability growth and an acceleration premium in the Chinese stock market, which are still robust in the out-of-sample test. The significantly positive predictive information contained in the dynamic profitability (DP) is not subsumed under the profitability level at a certain point in time. Moreover, the first-order DP growth has the strongest pricing power among the profitability strategies. We can obtain a higher excess return while simultaneously combining the dynamic and static profitability factors. In addition, this study provides ample evidence for the source of profitability anomalies, based on the behavioral finance framework. The findings under this framework indicate the substantial contribution of irrational mispricing, rather than rational pricing based on risk compensation or Q-theory, to the premium. This paper comprehensively explores the DP anomalies (fundamental characteristics of a firm), thus providing a novel perspective to better understand the pricing mechanisms of the emerging stock market and cultivate investors' philosophy on rational trading.