An Empirical Study of Liquidity and Return Autocorrelations in the Chinese Stock Market

We investigate how the Nontradable Share Reform (NTS Reform) affects cross-sectional relations between liquidity and stock return autocorrelations using a new illiquidity measure that measures more precisely the liquidity of the Chinese stock market. We find that winner and loser portfolios exhibit different return autocorrelations before and after the NTS Reform. All return autocorrelations are stronger for high-illiquidity portfolios after controlling for turnover ratio. We use market capitalization to determine the extent of speculative trading and assume that return reversal (continuation) accompanied by high illiquidity occurs in large (small) stocks. Our empirical results are remarkably consistent with our hypothesis after the NTS Reform. © 2015, Springer Japan.