A Further Investigation of the Weekend Effect in Stock Returns

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study uses a longer time period and additional stocks to further investigate the weekend effect. We find consistently negative Monday returns (1) for the S & P Composite as early as 1928, (2) for Exchange‐traded stocks of firms of all sizes, and (3) for actively traded over‐the‐counter (OTC) stocks. The OTC results are based on bid prices and therefore appear to reject specialist‐related explanations. For the 30 individual stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Index, the average correlation between Friday and Monday returns is positive and the highest of all pairs of successive days. The latter finding is inconsistent with fairly general measurement‐error explanations.