Stock price synchronicity and tails of return distribution

This paper uses stock price synchronicity to explain the cross-sectional variation in return asymmetries for firms listed in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark during the period between 2000 and 2012. Our results show that firms with high synchronicity have higher probability of generating heavier positive tails than firms with low synchronicity. We consider better information environment associated with these firms as the main reason behind this result. We argue that investors in these firms react less severely to negative news than investors in firms with low synchronicity. As a result of this asymmetric reaction to negative news, firms with high stock price synchronicity have higher probability of generating heavier positive tails than firms with low synchronicity. Our results are robust across sub-samples of large and small firms and across sub-samples based on geographic boundaries. Crown Copyright (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.