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Excess Volatility and UK Investment Trusts
Author(s) -
AgyeiAmpomah Samuel,
Davies J. R.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of business finance and accounting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.282
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1468-5957
pISSN - 0306-686X
DOI - 10.1111/j.0306-686x.2005.00621.x
Subject(s) - volatility (finance) , economics , financial economics , monetary economics , closed end fund , excess return , market capitalization , investment strategy , index fund , institutional investor , business , finance , market liquidity , open end fund , stock market , corporate governance , paleontology , context (archaeology) , horse , biology
The issue of whether or not asset prices are more volatile than the underlying fundamentals is an empirical question with implications for market efficiency. Recent research suggests that the volatility of closed end fund returns in the USA is significantly higher than the returns on assets held by the funds. This has been attributed to noise trading as closed‐end fund shares are predominantly held by individual investors. This study demonstrates that UK investment trust returns exhibit similar excess volatility in spite of the prevalence of institutional investors. However, big investment trusts in terms of market capitalisation show greater excess volatility than small trusts. Although most of the excess volatility appears to be idiosyncratic, investor sentiment index is the most important variable associated with residual returns.