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Lottery-type stocks in Brazil: Evidence from a survivorship-bias-corrected universe

Published: Aug 14, 2026
Volume: 24
Keywords: Lottery stocks LSCORE Behavioral finance Brazil B3 Emerging markets Return anomaly idiosyncratic volatility Probability weighting Retail investors

Authors

Thiago de Sousa Barros
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto

Abstract

I examine the pricing implications of lottery-type stock characteristics in Brazil's equity market (B3) over the period 2002–2024, a setting that differs markedly from the United States in institutional development, retail investor participation, and macroeconomic volatility. Following the lottery-stock identification framework of Kumar (2009) — classifying stocks as “lottery” if they simultaneously fall below the median in price, above the median in idiosyncratic volatility, and above the median in return skewness (LSCORE = 3) — I document a notable contrast with prior U.S. evidence: lottery stocks in Brazil underperform non-lottery stocks by −1.165% per month (−13.12% annually) on a Carhart four-factor risk-adjusted basis (t = −5.16, p < 0.001), with t-statistics exceeding the Harvey, Liu, and Zhu (2016) t ≥ 3.0 threshold. This discount strengthens under a NEFIN five-factor model (t = −5.75), is consistent across all subperiods (2002–2008, 2009–2015, 2016–2019, 2020–2024), and is concentrated among illiquid stocks where arbitrage is costliest. A key methodological contribution is a quantification of survivorship bias: restricting to currently-listed firms only inflates the lottery alpha by approximately +1.90 percentage points per month, reversing its sign from a true discount to a spurious premium. These findings are consistent with cumulative prospect theory (Barberis and Huang, 2008) and limits-to-arbitrage theory.


How to cite

Thiago de Sousa Barros. Lottery-type stocks in Brazil: Evidence from a survivorship-bias-corrected universe. Brazilian Review of Finance, v. 24, n. 1, 2026. p. e202613. DOI: 10.12660/rbfin.v24n1.2026.98265.


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