The holiday effects in stock returns: a challenge for the textile and clothing industry of India

This research paper examines the holiday effects presence on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which is a major Indian stock exchange. Textile and clothing industry in India is one of the most important producers in the world, but also the second exporter of textile and apparels globally. The empirical analysis investigates the impact of holiday effect on the development of textile and clothing industry in India. The holiday effect is one of the most important calendar anomalies identified in the financial markets. The methodological approach includes the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test used to test the equality of means for different sub-sets. The findings revealed that the mean returns for pre-holiday and post holidays were greater compared to that of remaining days, but the empirical results showed that they were not statistically significant for selected stocks of BSE based on daily stock returns data for Ruby Mills and Mafatlal Industries.