IdioVol

Idiosyncratic Volatility Proxy — Ang Hodrick Xing and Zhang 2006

Risk

Quick facts

Factor ID IdioVol
Display name Idiosyncratic Volatility Proxy
Family Predictor
Category Risk
Direction lower_expected_return
Status supported
Paper Ang Hodrick Xing and Zhang 2006
Source tables daily;index_daily
Required fields ret;mkt_ret
PIT required no
Coverage 2010-04-07 – 2026-05-15 · 668,688 rows · 97.6% of panel

Formula

std(ret - mkt_ret over t-60 through t-1)

Rolling standard deviation of market-adjusted daily returns over the prior sixty trading days.

China adaptation

Uses broad-index adjusted returns as a bootstrap proxy for China A-shares.

Direction-adjusted cumulative return

0.89 1.85 2.80 3.76 4.71 2010-04 2014-04 2018-04 2022-04 2026-04

Return metrics

Metric Value
Months in sample 193
Monthly mean 0.8163%
Monthly std 5.1981%
Annualized Sharpe 0.54
t-stat (simple) 2.18
Hit rate (months > 0) 59.6%
Last 12M compounded -14.21%
Cumulative wealth (start = 1) 3.711

Recent 12 months

Month L/S return Cumulative Names
2025-05 -3.12% 4.190 5107
2025-06 +1.61% 4.258 5125
2025-07 -3.58% 4.105 5131
2025-08 +0.67% 4.133 5136
2025-09 +3.68% 4.285 5142
2025-10 +1.52% 4.350 5146
2025-11 -2.17% 4.256 5148
2025-12 -1.84% 4.177 5155
2026-01 -2.54% 4.071 5159
2026-02 +5.94% 4.313 5163
2026-03 -8.30% 3.955 5174
2026-04 -6.18% 3.711 5162

Known data issues

Current implementation is market-adjusted not FF3 residual and should be upgraded.

Notes

China IVOL literature links this effect to limits of arbitrage and retail lottery demand.

See also: Risk family, Factor library, Factor returns.