This study investigates whether the fundamental-to-market (FM) ratio of Gonçalves and Leonard (2023) provides superior information relative to the conventional book-to-market (BM) ratio in explaining the cross-sectional variation of stock returns in ...
This study investigates whether the fundamental-to-market (FM) ratio of Gonçalves and Leonard (2023) provides superior information relative to the conventional book-to-market (BM) ratio in explaining the cross-sectional variation of stock returns in the Korean equity market. Following the methodology of the paper, firm data of KOSPI and KOSDAQ from 1995 to 2024 are used to construct fundamental equity (FE) by using vector autoregression (VAR) of state variables and forecasting long-run fundamentals. In contrast to the U.S. evidence, the Korean data reveal that BM remains highly correlated with FM, especially in the later period (2015–2024), and that FM-sorted and BM-sorted decile portfolios exhibit strikingly similar characteristics. To determine which ratio more effectively captures the value premium, a comparison between the FM-based and BM-based value factors is made. The results show that FM delivers slightly higher Sharpe ratios, produces smaller pricing errors, and dominates BM in joint regressions. Despite the strong similarities between FM and BM in the Korean market, FM emerges as a refined and more informative value measure with superior asset-pricing performance.