(A) study on size anomalies in UK financial stock returns

Abstract

Since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, global efforts have been collected together to prevent such catastrophe from negatively influencing the entire economy such as designating and regulating the Systemically Important Financial Institutions. Following the methodologies by Gandhi and Lustig (2015), this paper attempts to uncover firstly whether there is a new size anomaly in UK financial stocks and construct a new size factor that can explain the size anomaly found. By way of construction, the new size factor uncovers the common variation and the industry specific risks found in financial companies. Lastly, the results show industry-specific government guarantees that protect the largest financial institutions.