Gamesmanship and seasonality in U.S. stock returns

We re-examined the seasonal pattern in the excess returns of highly visible American firms. In contrast to the seasonality for risky, less visible firms, we found that highly visible stocks display return seasonality that shows the opposite trend. Fund managers are prone to gamesmanship, putting downward pressure on prices for highly visible firms at the beginning of the year, which is reversed later with buying pressure. Due to the bonus culture, fund managers start the year by buying small, risky stocks in order to beat benchmarks. Once targets are met, they adjust toward visible, less risky stocks to lock in returns, providing them with a seasonal returns pattern opposite to that of small firms. A re-examination is warranted because the world has become increasingly globalized, and some argue that managers’ incentives are aligned with investors due to increased scrutiny. We used analyst following as a proxy for visibility and examined the seasonal pattern for 1997-2018. Though the anomaly was first reported twenty years ago, it persists in recent data. Rational investors may be limited in their ability to arbitrage mispricing because institutional investors who drive the market are self-interested. Future research may examine the seasonal pattern in countries with more stringent regulation of financial professionals or with high-frequency data.