Raw return of each firm in each year is
calculated as a buy-and-hold strategy. Buy-andhold
returns are calculated as the difference of
ending and beginning stock price plus dividend
per share (if any) and divided by the beginning
stock price. They capture both the capital gain
yield and dividend yield. We calculate returns for
one year and two consecutive years starting from
the beginning of fourth month after the fiscal year
end and ending at the end of third month after
the following one (two) fiscal year(s). For example,
for the fiscal year end of December 31, 2000, the
one-year and two-year future return period starts
on April 1, 2001 and ends on March 31, 2002 and
March 31, 2003, respectively. Moreover, this fourth
month may not necessarily be April, as it depends
on firm’s accounting period.
Return of each portfolio formed based on the
composite score is calculated by equally weighted
all raw returns in the portfolio. Market-adjusted
return (MAR) is also calculated by subtracting
market returns from portfolio returns over the
corresponding period. Market return is simply
computed using value-weighted approach. Guay
(2000) suggests that the use of value-weighted
approach to compute market-adjusted returns in
high BM stocks may contaminate the benefits of
empirical results. Given that high BM firms tend to
be relatively small, an equally-weighted marketadjusted
return, which receives equal weights from
every firm, may seem more appropriate. However,
we rely on market-adjusted return throughout our
paper as (1) our samples include both high and