Sin stock returns during financial crisis and in the long term

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Volume Title

School of Business | Bachelor's thesis

Date

2020

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Rahoitus

Language

en

Pages

20 + 5

Series

Abstract

In this thesis, I have studied sin stocks’ ability to generate abnormal returns both during financial crisis and in the long term. The universe of sin stocks studied in this thesis consists of firms involved in alcohol, gambling or tobacco industries. I found evidence that sin stocks have been able to outperform the stock market in the long term. Sin stocks’ capability of generating abnormal returns after being discovered is against the efficient market hypothesis. Sin stocks’ ability of generating abnormal returns after being discovered has been explained by social norms causing some investors to shun away from sin stocks and that there is not enough arbitrage capital to cover the deficit in demand. I did not find evidence that sin stocks would have outperformed stocks from comparable industries. Therefore, it seems likely that some other factors are causing the continuance of sin stocks’ abnormal returns. The equal weighted sin stock portfolio underperformed and generated substantial negative excess returns during the financial crisis. However, other sin stock portfolios did not underperform. This indicates that the main reason for negative excess returns was gambling stocks’ bad performance instead of all sin industries performing badly.

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Thesis advisor

Joenväärä, Juha

Keywords

sin, stock, financial, crisis, abnormal, excess, return, alcohol

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