Investor Sentiment and Market-Wide Liquidity Pricing

The recent asset pricing evidence on the return-liquidity risk relationship is mixed and somewhat ambiguous. We reevaluate the importance of market-wide liquidity and liquidity risk for equity pricing by taking the role of investor sentiment into account. Regarding the market-wide liquidity level as a systematic factor, we find that high market sentiment tends to weaken the effect of market-wide illiquidity - both expected and unexpected - on stocks returns. With respect to systematic liquidity exposure as a priced risk factor, the results show that the effect of exposure to shocks in aggregate liquidity on expected returns is significantly positive when sentiment is low, while it is significantly negative when sentiment is high suggesting that "rational" asset pricing is only valid in the low sentiment regime without too much turbulence caused by sentiment traders.