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Seasonality in Canadian Stock Prices: A Test of the “Tax-Loss-Selling” Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2009

Abstract

A popular hypothesis to explain the anomalous January returns of common stocks is based on the argument that there is considerable tax-loss selling by investors toward the end of the year. The purpose of this study is to test the tax-loss-selling hypothesis with data on Canadian stocks. Although the introduction of capital gains tax in Canada seems to have affected the behavior of stock returns, the findings do not support the proposition that taxinduced trading is the sole cause of the seasonality in stock returns in Canada.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © School of Business Administration, University of Washington 1987

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