Day of the Week Effect of Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence from Colombo Stock Exchange

Abstract

Many empirical studies have been carried out both in the developed and developing economies to test the presence of anomalies in stock returns and volatility. The most commonly tested seasonal anomalies are day of the week effect, month of the year effect, holiday effect, Monday effect and Friday effect. Previous studies strongly support the existence of seasonal anomalies. Existence of seasonal anomalies let the investors to earn abnormal returns by trading on past information. This study attempts to test whether the day of the week effect is present in the stock returns of the Colombo Stock Exchange. For this purpose, stock returns based on ASPI for the period of 2002 to 2011 with 2390 observation are taken into account. The day of the week effect hypothesis is tested using both OLS model and GARCH (1,1) model. The research provides strong evidence to support the day of the week effect. Furthermore, there is a Thursday, Wednesday and Friday effect in the stock returns. Thus, investors can earn abnormal returns by trading on a strategy based on past information. It is recommended to buy stock on Mondays and Tuesdays and sell them on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to earn abnormal returns.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/kjm.v1i2.6451 Kelaniya Journal of Management Vol.1(2) 2012:16-27

Keywords

• Day of the Week Effect
• Stock Returns
• GARCH
• Colombo Stock Exchange
• Stock Market Anomalies