This study explores the role of investor sentiment in a broad set of anomalies in cross-sectional stock returns. We consider a setting in which the presence of market-wide sentiment is combined with the argument that overpricing should be more prevalent than underpricing, due to short-sale impediments. Long-short strategies that exploit the anomalies exhibit profits consistent with this setting. First, each anomaly is stronger (its long-short strategy is more profitable) following high levels of sentiment. Second, the short leg of each strategy is more profitable following high sentiment. Finally, sentiment exhibits no relation to returns on the long legs of the strategies.

Buying is easier than shorting for many equity investors. Combining this arbitrage asymmetry with the arbitrage risk represented by idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) explains the negative relation between IVOL and average return. The IVOL-return relation is negative among overpriced stocks but positive among underpriced stocks, with mispricing determined by combining 11 return anomalies. Consistent with arbitrage asymmetry, the negative relation among overpriced stocks is stronger, especially for stocks less easily shorted, so the overall IVOL-return relation is negative. Further supporting our explanation, high investor sentiment weakens the positive relation among underpriced stocks and, especially, strengthens the negative relation among overpriced stocks. Disciplines Finance and Financial Management

This study shows the influence of investor sentiment on the market's mean-variance tradeoff. We find that the stock market's expected excess return is positively related to the market's conditional variance in lowsentiment periods but unrelated to variance in high-sentiment periods. These findings are consistent with sentiment traders who, during the high-sentiment periods, undermine an otherwise positive mean-variance tradeoff. We also find that the negative correlation between returns and contemporaneous volatility innovations is much stronger in the low-sentiment periods. The latter result is consistent with the stronger positive ex ante relation during such periods.

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Buying is easier than shorting for many equity investors. Combining this arbitrage asymmetry with the arbitrage risk represented by idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) explains the negative relation between IVOL and average return. The IVOL-return relation is negative among overpriced stocks but positive among underpriced stocks, with mispricing determined by combining 11 return anomalies. Consistent with arbitrage asymmetry, the negative relation among overpriced stocks is stronger, especially for stocks less easily shorted, so the overall IVOL-return relation is negative. Further supporting our explanation, high investor sentiment weakens the positive relation among underpriced stocks and, especially, strengthens the negative relation among overpriced stocks. Disciplines Finance and Financial Management