Profitability and Asset Prices in European Stock Markets

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,0, University of Hannover (Institute for Financial Markets), course: Master Seminar Finance: Asset Pricing & Asset Management, language: English, abstract: In this paper, we examine profitability patterns for the German, France and Italian stock markets and compare it to previous research evidence of the European stock market. Most results of our examination are in line with previous investigations. Thus, we can confirm for all three countries, that more profitable firms earn higher risk-adjusted returns on average. Furthermore, Profitability Anomalies are present in the German and France stock market, but astonishingly not identifiable in the Italian stock markets. Five of seven profitability measures are suitable for identifying anomalies. Latest studies on asset pricing models reveal new evidence for anomalies in the stock markets. The investigations of anomalies can be splitted in different categories: Momentum, Value-versus-growth, Investment, Intangibles, Trading frictions and Profitability. Most of the investigations assess stock markets on a continental level, like Europe, North America, Japan and Asia Pacific for instance. Undoubtedly, these results are very useful for an overall statement, but leaves one question unanswered: Are there any frictions within different European stock markets? In this paper, we will examine the Profitability Anomalies of the German, France and Italian stock markets.