Institutional Investments in Pure Play Stocks and Implications for Hedging Decisions
Journal of Corporate Finance, Forthcoming
Charles A. Dice Working Paper No. 2016-3
52 Pages Posted: 4 Feb 2016
Date Written: February 1, 2016
Abstract
We show that institutions invest in stocks within an industry that maintain exposure to their underlying industry risk factor. These "pure play" stocks have greater numbers of institutional investors and institutions systematically overweight them in their portfolios while underweighting low industry-exposure stocks of firms in the same nominal industry. Pure play stocks also have greater liquidity measured by stock turnover and price impact. An implication of these results is that catering to these preferences could be an important variable in firms' risk management decisions, potentially offsetting incentives to reduce volatility via hedging. We further characterize institutions' investments for pure play stocks across institution type, industries, and over time.
Keywords: Pure play stocks, institutional investors’ preferences, industry exposure, hedging
JEL Classification: G11, G23, G32
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation