Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency
Abstract
This paper documents that strategies which buy stocks that have performed well in the past and sell stocks that have performed poorly in the past generate significant positive returns over 3‐to 12‐month holding periods. We find that the profitability of these strategies are not due to their systematic risk or to delayed stock price reactions to common factors. However, part of the abnormal returns generated in the first year after portfolio formation dissipates in the following two years. A similar pattern of returns around the earnings announcements of past winners and losers is also documented.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
RANDOM WALKS AND TECHNICAL THEORIES: SOME ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
Jensen, M. C., & Benington, G. A. (1970) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/j.1540-6261.1970.tb00671.x · Cited by 369 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance
Carhart, M. M. (1997) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb03808.x · Cited by 17,283 · see citing works
Corporate Governance and Equity Prices
Gompers, P., Ishii, J., & Metrick, A. (2003) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/00335530360535162 · Cited by 6,120 · see citing works
Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors
Barber, B. M., & Odean, T. (2000) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/0022-1082.00226 · Cited by 3,955 · see citing works
Odean, T. (1999) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.89.5.1279 · Cited by 2,247 · see citing works
… and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns
Harvey, C. R., Liu, Y., & Zhu, H. (2016) · Review of Financial Studies · doi:10.1093/rfs/hhv059 · Cited by 2,119 · see citing works
From efficient markets theory to behavioral finance
Shiller, R. J. (2003) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/089533003321164967 · Cited by 1,835 · see citing works
An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets
MacKenzie, D. (2006) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262134606.001.0001 · Cited by 1,766 · see citing works
Does Academic Research Destroy Stock Return Predictability?
MCLEAN, R. D., & PONTIFF, J. (2016) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/jofi.12365 · Cited by 1,566 · see citing works
FAMA, E. F., & FRENCH, K. R. (2008) · The Journal of Finance · doi:10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01371.x · Cited by 1,578 · see citing works
Does Fund Size Erode Mutual Fund Performance? The Role of Liquidity and Organization
Chen, J., Hong, H., Huang, M., & Kubik, J. D. (2004) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/0002828043052277 · Cited by 1,430 · see citing works
Climate risks and market efficiency
Hong, H., Li, F. W., & Xu, J. (2019) · Journal of Econometrics · doi:10.1016/j.jeconom.2018.09.015 · Cited by 967 · see citing works
Do retail trades move markets?
Barber, B. M., Odean, T., & Zhu, N. (2009) · Review of Financial Studies · doi:10.1093/rfs/hhn035 · Cited by 903 · see citing works
A Taxonomy of Anomalies and Their Trading Costs
Novy-Marx, R., & Velikov, M. (2016) · Review of Financial Studies · doi:10.1093/rfs/hhv063 · Cited by 658 · see citing works
The illusory nature of momentum profits
Lesmond, D. A., Schill, M. J., & Zhou, C. (2004) · Journal of Financial Economics · doi:10.1016/s0304-405x(03)00206-x · Cited by 657 · see citing works
Dissecting Characteristics Nonparametrically
Freyberger, J., Neuhierl, A., & Weber, M. (2020) · The Review of Financial Studies · doi:10.1093/rfs/hhz123 · Cited by 619 · see citing works
What actually happened to the inventories of American companies between 1981 and 2000?
Chen, H., Frank, M. Z., & Wu, O. Q. (2005) · Management Science · doi:10.1287/mnsc.1050.0368 · Cited by 396 · see citing works
The Cross-section of Expected Stock Returns
Lewellen, J. (2015) · Critical Finance Review · doi:10.1561/104.00000024 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
A new anomaly: the cross-sectional profitability of technical analysis
Han, Y., Yang, K., & Zhou, G. (2013) · Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · doi:10.1017/s0022109013000586 · Cited by 231 · see citing works
The supraview of return predictive signals
Green, J., Hand, J. R. M., & Zhang, X. F. (2013) · Review of Accounting Studies · doi:10.1007/s11142-013-9231-1 · Cited by 219 · see citing works
A trend factor: any economic gains from using information over investment horizons?
Han, Y., Zhou, G., & Zhu, Y. (2016) · Journal of Financial Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jfineco.2016.01.029 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
Do Portfolio Distortions Reflect Superior Information or Psychological Biases?
Korniotis, G. M., & Kumar, A. (2013) · Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · doi:10.1017/s0022109012000610 · Cited by 166 · see citing works
Can commodity futures be profitably traded with quantitative market timing strategies?
Marshall, B. R., Cahan, R. H., & Cahan, J. M. (2008) · Journal of Banking & Finance · doi:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2007.12.011 · Cited by 118 · see citing works
Stock selection with random forest: An exploitation of excess return in the Chinese stock market
Tan, Z., Yan, Z., & Zhu, G. (2019) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02310 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
Monnier, L., Benichou, M., Charra-Ebrard, S., Boegner, C., & Colette, C. (2005) · Diabetes & Metabolism · doi:10.1016/s1262-3636(07)70174-x · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Empirical asset pricing via machine learning: evidence from the European stock market
Drobetz, W., & Otto, T. (2021) · Journal of Asset Management · doi:10.1057/s41260-021-00237-x · Cited by 61 · see citing works
“explain differences in expected returns across stocks as a function of stock-level characteristics, such as size, value, and momentum (Fama and French, 1993; Jegadeesh and Titman, 1993; Lewellen, 2015).”
BackgroundGerritsen, D. F. (2016) · International Review of Financial Analysis · doi:10.1016/j.irfa.2016.06.008 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Quantitative Trading: Challenges and Opportunities
An, B., Sun, S., & Wang, R. (2022) · IEEE Intelligent Systems · doi:10.1109/mis.2022.3165994 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Predictability and the cross section of expected returns: evidence from the European stock market
Drobetz, W., Haller, R., Jasperneite, C., & Otto, T. (2019) · Journal of Asset Management · doi:10.1057/s41260-019-00138-0 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Unpacking leverage and lagged effects: do digitally mature and complex firms outpace their rivals?
Daruwala, Z., Khan, F., & Ullah Jan, S. (2025) · Cogent Economics & Finance · doi:10.1080/23322039.2025.2577909 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- JEGADEESH, N., & TITMAN, S.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Venue
- The Journal of Finance
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1993-03
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 65-91
- ISSN
- 0022-1082 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-6261
- OpenAlex
- W2125520394
- Cited by
- 11,584
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 475 · 2025: 487 · 2024: 512 · 2023: 549 · 2022: 528 · 2021: 560 · 2020: 579 · 2019: 606 · 2018: 587 · 2017: 558 · 2016: 524 · 2015: 574 · 2014: 582 · 2013: 497 · 2012: 545
- FWCI
- 23.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Journal of Finance (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Financial Markets and Investment Strategies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Financial Analysis and Corporate Governance
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Corporate Finance and Governance
- Keywords
- winners and losers, stock returns, stock market efficiency, momentum strategies, abnormal returns, earnings announcements, systematic risk, return persistence
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review