Economic Fundamentals, Risk, and Momentum Profits

We study empirically the changes in economic fundamentals for firms with recent stock price momentum. We find that: (i) winners have temporarily higher dividend, investment, and sales growth rates, and losers have temporarily lower dividend, investment, and sales growth rates; (ii) the duration of the growth rate dispersion matches approximately that of the momentum profits; (iii) past returns are strong, positive predictors of future growth rates; and (iv) factor-mimicking portfolios on expected growth rates earn significantly positive returns on average. This evidence is consistent with the theoretical predictions of Johnson (2002), in which momentum returns reflect compensation for temporary shifts in risk associated with expected growth. Additional tests do not provide much support for a risk-based explanation, however.