Value investing in Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) : Financial signals vs growth in EPS

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is to examine value and growth stocks in Stock Exchange of Thailand, based on 1995 to 2007, in order to investigate the assertion that value stocks on average generate higher returns than growth stocks based on numerous considerable evidences suggested that on average value investing strategy outperforms growth investing strategy. This paper uses average returns, Jensen’s alpha and Sharpe ratio as a measurement for portfolio efficiency. The result shown that value portfolio could generate higher returns than growth portfolio by approximately 24% annually on portfolio sorted by B/M, E/P, and C/P in both big and small market capitalization. Further, the portfolio returns could be enhanced by approximately 4.3% annually when applied financial signals to discriminate a value firm with strong financial prospect and a value firm with poor financial prospect in order to construct a portfolio that generate a superior return than a conventional value investing strategy. Finally, this paper examines a style investing strategy through using growth in EPS characteristic incorporated with a value stocks in order to investigate whether a dual-characteristic investing strategy of high earnings yield together with high growth in EPS (HEHG) could outperform other investment strategies. However, the result indicates that although high earnings yield with high growth in EPS could generate higher returns other style investing strategies; high earnings yield with low growth (HELG), low earnings yield with high growth (LEHG), and low earnings yield with low growth (LELG), with the difference of 11% (10%), 17% (22%), and 22% (30%), respectively, in big (small) market capitalization; but when compared HEHG with financial analysis approach it seems that HEHG strategy could not outperform financial signals strategy in term of Jensen’s alpha and Sharpe ratio.