Using hundreds of significant anomalies as testing portfolios, this paper compares the performance of major empirical asset pricing models. The q-factor model and a closely related five-factor model are the two best performing models among a long array of models. The q-factor model outperforms...

We propose a simple methodology to evaluate a large number of potential explanations for the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent stock returns (the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle). We find that surprisingly many existing explanations explain less than 10% of the...

Using theories from the behavioral finance literature to predict that investors are attracted to industries with more salient outcomes and that therefore firms in such industries have higher valuations, we find that firms in industries that have high industry-level dispersion of profitability...