• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.53-78
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• 2008

Foreign investors who invest in the Korean stock markets are exposed to two kinds of foreign exchange rate risk, the economic exposure and the translation exposure. The former is the foreign exchange rate exposure in return generating process of the assets invested and the latter is the foreign exchange rate exposure in the translation of domestic return into foreign investors' currency. Domestic investors, however, are exposed only to foreign exchange rate exposure in the asset invested. This different situation on foreign exchange rate exposure between foreign investors and domestic investors can induce different response to exchange rate change by investor groups. Previous studies on foreign exchange rate exposure of Korean firms reported that quite a few Korean firms are exposed to foreign exchange risks and suggested to manage the foreign exchange risks. Also, many studies on the market segmentation showed that a market can be practically segmented according to the characteristics of investor groups. These studies support the hypothesis that the Korean stock market can be practically segmented by the foreign investors' attitude to the foreign exchange rate exposure. This study examines the response of both foreign investors and domestic investors to the foreign exchange rate exposures in Korean stock markets. Test results show that foreign investors increase their sell transactions when the foreign exchange rate exposure of the previous day is negative. This result can be possible when foreign investors attempt to actively manage the decrease in value of their assets due to rising of exchange rate. Analysis on the sell order data is also supportive to this interpretation. Foreign investors also increase their buy transactions when the foreign exchange rate exposure of the previous day is negative. This result can be possible when foreign investors use actively the relation between the increase in asset value and the translation gain due to declining of exchange rate. Analyses on buy order data, however, do not show the same result as the analyses on transaction data. This difference may come from the difference of information contained in transaction data and order data. In summary, the result of the paper supports the hypothesis that foreign investors response differently to foreign exchange rate exposure compared with domestic, Korean investors. Two groups do not show different response when exchange rate exposure is positive, i.e., as foreign exchange rate is increase (decrease), the asset value is increase (decrease). However, foreign investors' response is different from that of domestic investors when exchange rate exposure is negative, i.e., as foreign exchange rate is increase (decrease), the asset value is decrease (increase). These results mean that foreign investors and domestic investors are placed in different situations related to foreign exchange rate exposure, and these differences are reflected in the Korean stock markets. And domestic investors need to consider foreign investors' different attitude to the foreign exchange rate exposure when they analysis foreign investors' trading behavior.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.37-45
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• 2015

Purpose - This paper's aim is to investigate whether or not gross profitability explains the cross-sectional variation of the stock returns in the Korean stock market. Gross profitability is an alternative profitability measure proposed by Novy-Marx in 2013 to predict cross-sectional variation of stock returns in the US. He shows that the gross profitability adds explanatory power to the Fama-French 3 factor model. Interestingly, gross profitability is negatively correlated with the book-to-market ratio. By confirming the gross profitability premium in the Korean stock market, we may provide some implications regarding the well-known value premium. In addition, our empirical results may provide opportunities for the fund distribution industry to promote brand new styles of funds. Research design, data, and methodology - For our empirical analysis, we collect monthly market prices of all the companies listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) of the Korea Exchanges (KRX). Our sample period covers July1994 to December2014. The data from the company financial statementsare provided by the financial information company WISEfn. First, using Fama-Macbeth cross-sectional regression, we investigate the relation between gross profitability and stock return performance. For robustness in analyzing the performance of the gross profitability strategy, we consider value weighted portfolio returns as well as equally weighted portfolio returns. Next, using Fama-French 3 factor models, we examine whether or not the gross profitability strategy generates excess returns when firmsize and the book-to-market ratio are controlled. Finally, we analyze the effect of firm size and the book-to-market ratio on the gross profitability strategy. Results - First, through the Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regression, we show that gross profitability has almost the same explanatory power as the book-to-market ratio in explaining the cross-sectional variation of the Korean stock market. Second, we find evidence that gross profitability is a statistically significant variable for explaining cross-sectional stock returns when the size and the value effect are controlled. Third, we show that gross profitability, which is positively correlated with stock returns and firm size, is negatively correlated with the book-to-market ratio. From the perspective of portfolio management, our results imply that since the gross profitability strategy is a distinctive growth strategy, value strategies can be improved by hedging with the gross profitability strategy. Conclusions - Our empirical results confirm the existence of a gross profitability premium in the Korean stock market. From the perspective of the fund distribution industry, the gross profitability portfolio is worthy of attention. Since the value strategy portfolio returns are negatively correlated with the gross profitability strategy portfolio returns, by mixing both portfolios, investors could be better off without additional risk. However, the profitable firms are dissimilar from the value firms (high book-to-market ratio firms); therefore, an alternative factor model including gross profitability may help us understand the economic implications of the well-known anomalies such as value premium, momentum, and low volatility. We reserve these topics for future research.