Factoring Information Into Returns

Abstract:     
We examine the potential profits of trading on a measure of private information (PIN) in a stock. A zero-investment portfolio which is size neutral, but long in high PIN stocks and short in low PIN stocks earns a significant abnormal return. The Fama-French and momentum factors do not explain this return. However, significant covariation in returns exists among high PIN stocks and among low PIN stocks, suggesting that PIN might proxy for an underlying factor. We create a PIN factor as the monthly return on the zero-investment portfolio above and show that it has some success in explaining returns to independent PIN-size portfolios.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 27

JEL Classification: G12, M41

working papers series