Profitability Premium Research Articles

Operating Hedge and Gross Profitability Premium

Operating Hedge and Gross Profitability Premium

Competition, profitability, and discount rates

We build an asset-pricing model with dynamic strategic competition to explain the strong joint fluctuations in aggregate discount rates, competition intensity, profitability, and asset prices. Product market competition endogenously intensifies as discount rates rise, because firms compete more aggressively for current cash flows by undercutting each other as the value of future cooperation decreases. In industries with a lower turnover rate of market leaders, firms’ profit margins tend to be higher yet more exposed to discount-rate fluctuations, thereby generating the gross profitability premium. We exploit large tariff cuts to identify exogenous variation in market structure to test the core mechanism directly.

Fama-French five-factor asset pricing model: empirical evidence from Indian stock market

The present study examines the applicability of five-factor model of Fama-French (2015). This model considers five factors namely market, size, value, profitability and investment in explaining the cross-sectional variations, i.e., variations across different stock or portfolios in the equity returns in Indian stock markets using the monthly closing price data of a sample of 486 companies which are a part of CNX 500 index over the period from July 2000 to June 2015. The paper investigates whether including any or all of the additional four factors can better explain the cross-sectional variations than the single factor capital assets pricing model. The investment strategies based on size, value and profitability provided abnormal returns over the study period. By making use of the Davis et al. (2000) methodology, we find that Fama-French five-factor model based on market premium, size premium, value premium, profitability premium and investment premium explains the variations in the equity returns better than single factor capital assets pricing model but it does not increase the adjusted R2 significantly. The results have implications for asset pricing, market efficiency and investment strategies in the Indian stock market.

Relative performances of asset pricing models for BIST 100 index

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to evaluate the asset pricing models for Borsa Istanbul. Within this scope, we apply Capital Asset Pricing Model, Fama-French Three Factor Model, and Fama-French Five Factor Model. This study covers the firms listed in BIST 100 index between 2005 and 2017 years. The findings show that Fama-French Five Factor Model is the best performing model when we compare Capital Asset Pricing Model and Fama-French Three Factor Model. The regression estimations findings provide evidence that there are still the size and value premiums, but these premiums are not strong and the market premium is an important factor for Borsa Istanbul. In addition, there are strong investment patterns in the average returns and there is a profitability premium but not unambiguously strong in explaining the stock returns. On the other hand, the factor spanning tests prove that profitability is a non-redundant factor. Moreover, through the factor spanning tests, we can say that the value premium is a redundant factor and it does not improve the description of average return.

Intangibles and Expected Stock Returns

Intangible assets have always been part of the economic landscape. In this study we examine the impact of intangibles, both internally developed and externally acquired, on our ability to identify differences in expected stock returns. Our research does not find compelling evidence that we should include estimates of internally developed intangibles in company fundamentals such as book equity. The estimation of internally developed intangibles contains a lot of noise. Perhaps due to this high level of noise, we find that estimated internally developed intangibles provide little additional information about future firm cash flows beyond what is contained in current cash flows. Moreover, capitalizing estimates of internally developed intangibles does not yield consistently higher value and profitability premiums. We also find no compelling performance benefit of excluding externally acquired intangibles from fundamentals. Therefore, we believe investors are better off continuing to incorporate externally acquired intangibles reported on the balance sheet and not adding noisy estimates of internally developed intangibles to value and profitability metrics.

Relative Performances of Asset Pricing Models for Bist 100 Index

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the asset pricing models for Borsa Istanbul. Within this scope, we apply Capital Asset Pricing Model, Fama-French Three Factor Model, and Fama-French Five Factor Model. This study covers the firms listed in BIST 100 index between 2005-2017 years. The findings show that Fama-French Five Factor Model is the best performing model when we compare Capital Asset Pricing Model and Fama-French Three Factor Model. The regression estimations findings provide evidence that there are still the size and value premiums, but these premiums are not strong and the market premium is an important factor for Borsa Istanbul. In addition, there are strong investment patterns in the average returns and there is a profitability premium but not unambiguously strong in explaining the stock returns. On the other hand, the factor spanning tests prove that profitability is a non-redundant factor. Moreover, through the factor spanning tests, we can say that the value premium is a redundant factor and it does not improve the description of average return.

Relevance of Leverage and Profitability in Risk-Return Paradox: A Study from Pakistan Stock Exchange

The purpose of this investigation has to investigate the degree of relevance of these components in the domain of asset pricing by augmenting the basic FF-5 factor model with leverage and profitability that whether leverage-profitability dumping portfolios capturing the return by this model. We performed the five-factor model of Fama-French to capture the joint effect of variables and augmented it with leverage and profitability for the Pakistani market utilizing current periodic month-to-month data from the year 1998 to the year 2019. Construction of factors (MKT, SMB, HML, HLMLL, and RMW) is done for the PSX market and scrutinize that how much this five-factor augmented model detentions the returns premium in the Pakistani equity market. To analyze the model experimentally that consolidate subgroups of its factors that explain the portfolio's normal returns are outlined to make tremendous spreads in size, B/M, leverage and profitability and to capture the pattern for observing their imperativeness, 2X2X2X2 sorted version is adopted to construct the factors. Investigation documents the significant evidence on the leverage and profitability premium. Taking a glimpse at the variables alone, the recently presented leverage and profitability factors show alluring, measurably critical returns for a long/short basis for the Pakistani equity market.

Challenges and opportunities to integrate the oldest and newest manufacturing processes: metal casting and additive manufacturing

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the current state, technological challenges, economic opportunities and future directions in the growing “indirect” hybrid manufacturing ecosystem, which integrates traditional metal casting with the production of tooling via additive manufacturing (AM) process including three-dimensional sand printing (3DSP) and printed wax patterns. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted among 100 participants from foundries and AM service providers across the USA to understand the current adoption of AM in metal casting as a function of engineering specifications, production demand, volume and cost metrics. In addition, current technological and logistical challenges that are encountered by the foundries are identified to gather insight into the future direction of this evolving supply chain. Findings One of the major findings from this study is that hard tooling costs (i.e. patterns/core boxes) are the greatest challenge in low volume production for foundries. Hence, AM and 3DSP offer the greatest cost-benefit for these low volume production runs as it does not require the need for hard tooling to produce much higher profit premium castings. It is evident that there are major opportunities for the casting supply chain to benefit from an advanced digital ecosystem that seamlessly integrates AM and 3DSP into foundry operations. The critical challenges for adoption of 3DSP in current foundry operations are categorized into as follows: capital cost of the equipment, which cannot be justified due to limited demand for 3DSP molds/cores by casting buyers, transportation of 3DSP molds and cores, access to 3DSP, limited knowledge of 3DSP, limitations in current design tools to integrate 3DSP design principles and long lead times to acquire 3DSP molds/cores. Practical implications Based on the findings of this study, indirect hybrid metal AM supply chains, i.e. 3DSP metal casting supply chains is proposed, as 3DSP replaces traditional mold-making in the sand casting process flow, no/limited additional costs and resources would be required for qualification and certification of the cast parts made from three-dimensional printed sand molds. Access to 3DSP resources can be addressed by establishing a robust 3DSP metal casting supply chain, which will also enable existing foundries to rapidly acquire new 3DSP-related knowledge. Originality/value This original survey from 100 small and medium enterprises including foundries and AM service providers suggests that establishing 3DSP hubs around original equipment manufacturers as a shared resource to produce molds and cores would be beneficial. This provides traditional foundries means to continue mass production of castings using existing hard tooling while integrating 3DSP for new complex low volume parts, replacement parts, legacy parts and prototyping.

Toward a Quantitative General Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Strategic Competition

This paper proposes a novel quantitative framework with endogenous strategic competition in heterogeneous concentrated industries. Oligopolies compete strategically for profit margins in repeated games, trading off the benefits of future cooperation against those of reaping higher short-run profits by undercutting their rivals. Cross-industry dispersions in market leadership persistence and cash flow loadings on expected growth, as primitive characteristics, simultaneously determine the relationships among profitability, book-to-market ratios, and systematic risk exposures, thereby quantitatively rationalizing the gross profitability and value premium across industries and, importantly, their interactions --- controlling for the book-to-market ratio (gross profitability) makes the gross profitability (value) premium more pronounced.

Revisiting the Profitability Premium in the Korean Stock Market

Prior studies provide mixed evidence as to whether the association between current profitability and future stock returns, namely profitability premium, exists in the Korean stock market. This study revisits this issue by employing various measures of profitability proposed by prior literature. Using twelve profitability measures including annual and quarterly measures, we find that the profitability premium consistently exists across all profitability measures in the Korean market, despite differences in its magnitude and significance depending on the definition of profitability. Notably, quarterly profitability measures show stronger relations with future returns than annual profitability measures, highlighting the importance of using more timely information to capture the predictive ability of current profitability. In addition, we find that the profitability premium is higher for firms with larger information asymmetry, consistent with a view that firms'' information environment is an important factor affecting market anomalies.

The Great Divorce Between Investment and Profitability

Using data over the last century, we show that the cross-sectional relation between investment and profitability among U.S. public firms is positive in the first half-century but negative in the recent four decades. The negative fundamental relation explains the high level and the positive correlation of investment and profitability premiums after 1980. In out-of-sample environments including the pre-1980 U.S. stock market where investment and profitability premiums are low and insignificant, the fundamental relation is positive. Given the time-varying investment-profitability correlation, both the in and out-of-sample behaviors of investment and profitability premiums are consistent with the neoclassical investment framework.

Aggregation, Capital Heterogeneity, and the Investment CAPM

Abstract A detailed treatment of aggregation and capital heterogeneity substantially improves the performance of the investment CAPM. Firm-level predicted returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables and aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. Working capital forms a separate productive input besides physical capital. The model simultaneously fits the value, momentum, investment, and profitability premiums and partially explains positive stock-fundamental return correlations, the procyclical and short-term dynamics of the momentum and profitability premiums, and the countercyclical and long-term dynamics of the value and investment premiums. However, the model falls short in explaining momentum crashes. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online..

Is there a profit premium for market-oriented firms? A panel data investigation

ABSTRACT This paper provides an empirical investigation of the impact of market orientation on firms' economic performance during the period 1998–2012 using a panel of Italian manufacturing firms. We introduce a dynamic concept of market orientation, in that we define a market-oriented firm as one that persistently undertakes product and marketing innovation, while at the same time introducing organizational changes and training efforts to manage and improve its knowledge assets over the long term. This notion of market orientation is therefore crucially related to the so-called dynamic capability approach. The related empirical model shows that being a market-oriented firm significantly affects profitability, in a framework in which this latter is simultaneously estimated with productivity, thus allowing for more precise estimates of the profit premium which is earned accordingly.

Aggregation, Capital Heterogeneity, and the Investment CAPM

A detailed treatment of aggregation and capital heterogeneity substantially improves the performance of the investment CAPM. Firm-level predicted returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables and aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. Working capital forms a separate productive input besides physical capital. The model fits well the value, momentum, investment, and profitability premiums simultaneously and partially explains the positive stock-fundamental return correlations, the procyclical and short-term dynamics of the momentum and profitability premiums, as well as the countercyclical and long-term dynamics of the value and investment premiums. However, the model falls short in explaining momentum crashes.

Aggregation, Capital Heterogeneity, and the Investment CAPM

This paper provides a careful treatment of aggregation, and to a lesser extent, capital heterogeneity in the investment CAPM. Firm-level investment returns are constructed from firm-level variables, and then aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. Current assets form a separate production input besides physical capital. The model fits well the value, momentum, investment, and profitability premiums simultaneously, and partially explains the positive stock-investment return correlations, the procyclical and short-term dynamics of the momentum and profitability premiums, as well as the countercyclical and long-term dynamics of the value and investment premiums. However, the model fails to explain momentum crashes.

Time-Varying Factor Risk and Price of Risk Premiums

This paper unifies macro-finance and multifactor asset pricing theories to show that, in sample and out of sample: (i) Larger cross-sectional book-to-market medians and spreads - price of risk proxies - predict larger market (in sample), size, value, and investment premiums; (ii) the investment and profitability spreads - risk (quantity) proxies - only forecast the investment and profitability premiums, respectively, especially when conditioned on the price of risk. This predictability generates factor timing strategies with substantial economic gains, supports the hypothesis of time-varying price of risk in macro-finance theories, and contradicts the hypothesis that the investment and profitability factors have constant risks.

Dissecting Profitability Premium in Korean Stock Markets

Dissecting Profitability Premium in Korean Stock Markets

The profitability and investment premium: Pre-1963 evidence

I investigate the profitability and investment premium in stock returns using hand-collected data from Moody's Manuals for 1940–1963. Controlling for value, the profitability premium emerges as important in this period. In contrast, there is no reliable relation between investment and returns, regardless of whether investment is measured using growth in total assets or book equity and even after extending the data back to 1926. In spanning regressions, factors constructed from profitability and book-to-market ratios (RMW and HML, respectively) improve the mean-variance efficient tangency portfolio but the investment factor (CMA) does not.

The nexus of anomalies-stock returns-asset pricing models: The international evidence

We study the international stock returns across Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, US, Japan, Global, and Global excluding US. We find there are value premiums in average stock returns across the regions. There is momentum return in all the regions except for Japan. With the exception of Japan, profitability and investment premiums in average stock returns exist across the regions. Further, the value, momentum, and profitability premiums vary with the firm size and premiums decrease from smaller to bigger stocks excluding Japan. We examine whether empirical asset pricing models capture the value, momentum, profitability, and investment pattern in international average returns, and the integration of the asset prices across the regions. We reject the global integrated pricing approach. The performance of local Carhart four-factor model is relatively better than the variant models in approximating the returns on Japanese size-B/M and size-momentum portfolios. Similarly, the FF five-factor model performs better than the variant models in approximating the returns on Asia Pacific, North American, and Japanese size-profitability portfolios. In addition, FF five-factor model performs relatively better in approximating the returns on European and Japanese size-investment portfolios.

Product Market Competition and the Profitability Premium

This paper studies the impact of product market competition on the well-documented positive relation between firms' current profitability and future stock returns. I find that this relation is robust only in competitive industries. A long-short portfolio sorted on profitability earns an average monthly return of 1.1% in competitive industries and only 0.14% in concentrated industries. Firms' differential exposure to investment-specific technology shocks explains this gap. To understand this result, I build a production-based model with imperfect competition. Market power reduces a firm's investment response to these shocks and thus lowers risk exposure. Empirical tests confirm the model's predictions.