Turnover: Liquidity or Uncertainty?

Abstract

I show that turnover is unrelated to several alternative measures of liquidity and liquidity risk and that liquidity risk factors cannot explain why higher turnover predicts lower future returns. I find that the aggregate volatility risk factor explains why higher turnover predicts lower future returns. I also find that the negative relation between turnover and future returns is stronger for firms with high market-to-book or bad credit rating and these regularities are also explained by the aggregate volatility risk factor.

Keywords: liquidity, idiosyncratic volatility, uncertainty, turnover, aggregate volatility risk, real options

JEL Classification: G12, G13, G32, E44