Abstract
This paper develops a broad-based sentiment indicator for Germany and investigates whether investor sentiment can explain stock returns on the German stock market. Based on a principal component analysis, we construct a sentiment indicator that condenses information of several well-known sentiment proxies. We show that this indicator explains the return spread between sentiment sensitive stocks and stocks that are not sensitive to sentiment fluctuations. Specifically, stocks that are difficult to arbitrage and hard to value are sensitive to the indicator. However, we do not find much predictive power of sentiment for future stock returns.
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Notes
We use six-months expectations instead of one-month expectations because Sentix one-month horizon answers are very noisy (Schmeling2007).
As an alternative test of the usability of the Sentix and the G-Mind as sentiment indicators, we also conducted the same analysis as we did to validate our sentiment indicator GSI: We relate both alternative sentiment indicators, G-Mind and Sentix, to the differences between contemporaneous returns of stocks that are sensitive to sentiment fluctuations and those that are not. Our results (not reported) show that G-Mind(Stocks) as well as Sentix generally have no significant impact on the contemporaneous return spread between sentiment sensitive and sentiment insensitive stocks.
Data on trading volume is provided by Deutsche Bundesbank, the total number of listed firms are collected from DeutschesAktieninstitut’s (DAI) Factbooks. The DAI Factbook is updated once a year and contains a comprehensive collection of statistics on the German stock market.We trend adjust trading volume as in Andersen (1996) and compute
$${\text {TradVol}}_{\text {m}}^{\text{ta}} = {\text{LN}}\left( {\frac{{{\text {TradVol}}_{\text{m}}}}{{{\text {TotalFirms}}_{\text{m}}}}} \right) - \frac{1}{{24}}\sum\nolimits_{{\text{m}} = - 24}^{{\text{m}} = - 1} {\text{LN}} \left( {\frac{{{\text {TradVol}}_{\text{m}}}}{{{\text {TotalFirms}}_{\text{m}}}}} \right)$$whereTradVol m is trading volume in million EUR in monthm, andTotalFirms m is the total number of listed firms in monthm.
Another proxy regularly used in U.S. studies is the closed end fund discount (see, e.g., Lee et al. (1991) and Neal and Wheatley (1998)). Since listed closed end equity funds do not exist in Germany, we cannot use this proxy in our study. However, net flows are the mutual fund equivalent of the closed end fund discount. Thus, we think that we do not miss an important aspect of sentiment by not being able to include the closed end fund discount.
Using value-weighted IPO returns instead does not affect our results (not reported).
The Hoppenstedt Aktienführer is updated annually and contains information about all listed German firms including balance sheet and profit and loss items.
The resulting first principal component is also normalized and has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.
The only exception is the impact of trading volume, which does not play a large role in the sub-period 2000–2006 anymore. However, this does not affect our results: The correlation between our GSI and the first component of a PCA estimated based on the same proxies as above but excluding trading volume is 99.98% in the 2000–2006 period.
The time series data for the GSI is provided for the use of other researchers under http://sites.google.com/site/ruenzi/data.
We follow Baker and Wurgler (2006) and use equal weighted portfolios, because large firms will probably be less affected by sentiment. Thus, using value weighting will “tend to obscure the relevant patterns”. (p. 1646)
For the sake of brevity, we use GSI as an abbreviation for the German Sentiment indicator in the main text. It comprises both, the macro-adjusted indicator\(\left( {\textit{GSI}}_{m}^{A} \right)\) and the unadjusted indicator\(\left( {\textit{GSI}}_{m} \right)\).
The list of sorting criteria to define sentiment sensitive stocks is long. We mainly follow the article by Baker and Wurgler (2006) as a benchmark for the choice of sorting criteria. However, they also include additional proxies like expenditures for R&D or sales growth for which we could not get data for all of the firms in our sample.
Another proxy for limits of arbitrage is stock illiquidity (Kumar and Lee (2006)). Thus, illiquid stocks might be particularly prone to sentiment fluctuations, too. However, at the same time Baker and Stein (2004) argue that high liquidity is a proxy for investor sentiment because it signals that the market is currently dominated by irrational investors. Thus, overall it is not clear how liquidity is related to sentiment. In unreported tests using the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio as a liquidity proxy we find no clear relationship between liquidity levels and sentiment fluctuations.
DAFOX and CDAX have very similar return characteristics. In the overlapping period from January 1993 to December 2004 the monthly returns of DAFOX and CDAX are almostperfectly correlated (correlation coefficient of 0.978). The correlation coefficient between the monthly returns of the combined DAFOX/CDAX and a value-weighted index based on all stocks considered in our study is 0.979. Thus, the DAFOX/CDAX serves as an appropriate market proxy for our stock universe.
Interestingly, the non-sentiment sensitive stock portfolio Q(5) delivers a positive abnormal return, as indicated by the significantly positive intercept presented in the second to last column ofTable 6, while the sentiment sensitive stock portfolio does not. This suggests that sentiment sensitivity is not a positively priced risk factor on the German stock market. This result is also consistent with recent findings in Koch (2010), who finds that German stocks with high idiosyncratic risk earn negative abnormal returns.
Results for a not macro-adjusted sentiment indicator (not reported) are very similar.
Alternatively, we compute idiosyncratic volatility relative to a one-factor model. Results (not reported) are virtually unchanged.
Alternatively, we conduct this analysis for the first ten years of our sample period (1993–2003) only to make sure that our results are not biased by gradual trading of institutional investors that might have already slowly started in the last years of our sample. Results (not reported) are stable.
Data on firm foundation dates are hand-collected from Hoppenstedt Aktienführer. The results do not change, if we measure firm age in number of month since the firm’s first appearance in our sample.
Market value of equity is computed as stock price times shares outstanding. Data on shares outstanding are from Hoppenstedt Aktienführer.
Alternatively, we sort firms into profitability quintiles. Our results (not reported) remain stable.
In unreported tests, we find no strong effects if we relate contemporaneous sentiment to future aggregate returns.
In unreported tests, we also examine longer periods like months 13 to 24. We generally find no significant results for these longer horizons.
As sentiment is standardized, this means that\({\textit{GSIDUM}}\left( {\textit{Lo}} \right)_m^A.{\textit{GSIDUM}}\left( {\textit{Hi}} \right)_m^A\left( {{\textit{GSIDUM}}\left( {\textit{Lo}} \right)_m^A} \right)\) is one if sentiment in monthm is more than one standard deviation above (below) its mean.
Unfortunately, Baker et al. (2009) do not provide country-level results.
Note, that the sentiment indicator analyzed so far is calculated ex post. In unreported analysis, we also examine an alternative indicator which is again based on PCA. However, in contrast to the proxy used above, it is calculated at each point in time only using a rolling window of past data. This indicator is highly correlated with the aggregate sentiment measure used before and we find very similar results: Again, there is no strong predictive power of sentiment for future aggregate returns or return spreads.
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Appendix: List of Variables
Appendix: List of Variables
Abbreviation | Variable | Source | Frequency | Measurement | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Panel A: Sentiment Proxies | |||||
GFKm | GFK Consumer Confidence Survey | Bloomberg | monthly | Index | |
IPCRm | Inverted Put-Call Ratio | Deutsche Börse AG | monthly | Percent, number of calls traded divided by number of puts traded. | |
TradVolta m | Trading Volume | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | Million EUR divided by number of firms; trend adjusted as in Andersen (1996). | |
Flowsm | Net Fund Flows | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | Level | |
IPO-Numm | Number of IPOs | Deutsche Börse AG, DAI Factbooks, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Level | |
IPO-Retm | IPO Returns | Deutsche Börse AG, DAI Factbooks, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Percent | |
E/D-Ratiom | Equity/Debt Ratio | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | Level | |
Panel B: Macroeconomic Variables | |||||
IndProdm+x1 | Industrial Production | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | All macroeconomic variables are computed as month-over-month changes based on 12-month-moving-averages of the underlying index variables. | |
InvOrdm+x2 | Inventory Orders | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | ||
FacOrdm+x3 | Factory Orders | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | ||
RetSalm+x4 | Retail Sales | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | ||
Emplm+x5 | Employment | Deutsche Bundesbank | monthly | ||
Panel C: Risk Factors | |||||
RMRFm | Excess Market Return | Karlsruher Kapitalmarktdatenbank, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Excess market return over risk free rate. | |
SMBm | Small Minus Big | Karlsruher Kapitalmarktdatenbank, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Return difference between portfolios of small and large firms. | |
HMLm | High Minus Low | Karlsruher Kapitalmarktdatenbank, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Return difference between portfolios of high and low book-to-market equity firms. | |
WMLm | Winner Minus Loser | Karlsruher Kapitalmarktdatenbank, Hoppenstedt Aktienführer | monthly | Return difference between portfolios of high and low return momentum firms. | |
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Finter, P., Niessen-Ruenzi, A. & Ruenzi, S. The impact of investor sentiment on the German stock market. Z Betriebswirtsch 82, 133–163 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-011-0536-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-011-0536-x