Title: Calendar effects of the Chinese stock markets

Authors: Jaw-Kai Wang; Udechukwu Ojiako; Ling Wang

Addresses: School of Management, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. ' Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa. ' School of Management, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

Abstract: Drawing upon extant literature on the impact of calendar effects (daily effect and monthly effect) on the stock markets, the authors employ regression analysis to test the relationship between mean daily returns of trading days and mean returns of the remaining trading days of the week (in effect, calendar effects), on the Chinese stock markets. The study employs observations drawn from the Shanghai and Shenzhen composite stock indices between January 2000 and December 2010. Based on the analysis of the regression results, we find the following. For the tests and results of the day of the week effect, in the Shanghai stock market, there is significantly positive Monday effect and significantly negative Thursday effect. On the other hand, we find a weak Monday effect and Thursday effect in the Shenzhen stock market. For monthly effect, summary statistics of monthly equity returns for both stock markets show the findings of the February effect in China are similar to the January effect in countries where year-end is in December.

Keywords: China; calendar effects; stock returns; stock markets; daily effect; monthly effect; calendars; regression analysis; mean daily returns; trading days; Shanghai Stock Exchange; Shenzhen Stock Exchange; composite stock indices; Monday effect; Thursday effect; negative effects; positive effects; equity returns; February effect; January effect; year-ends; December effect; business; emerging markets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEM.2013.050742

International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets, 2013 Vol.5 No.1, pp.67 - 82

Received: 23 Feb 2012
Accepted: 08 May 2012
Published online: 13 Nov 2013 *

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