Orginal Article

The Business Cycle and Profitability of Trading Strategies

  • Yuxing Yan , 1 ,
  • Shaojun Zhang , 2
Expand
  • 1. Department of Economics and Finance, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 14208, USA
  • 2. School of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Business, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

Published date: 15 Dec 2016

Copyright

2017 Higher Education Press and Brill

Abstract

Recent studies show that investor participation in the stock market rises during economic expansion and drops in economic recession. When investor participation is high, investors’ cognitive and behavioral biases are likely to have a strong influence on stock prices. We consider four trading strategies that are based on well-known market anomalies and examine their profitability under different economic conditions. For all four strategies, the portfolios that are formed in the months when the economy is expanding obtain significant profits, whereas the portfolios formed in economic recession months are not profitable. This finding is robust to different ways of classifying recession months.

Cite this article

Yuxing Yan , Shaojun Zhang . The Business Cycle and Profitability of Trading Strategies[J]. Frontiers of Business Research in China, 2016 , 10(4) : 525 -547 . DOI: 10.3868/s070-005-016-0019-5

Outlines

/