Day-of-the-week effect and volatility in stock returns: evidence from the Indian stock market

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the existence of the day-of-the-week effect in the Indian stock market. Design/methodology/approach Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) (1, 1), Exponential GARCH (EGARCH) (1, 1) and Threshold GARCH (TGARCH) (1, 1) models are employed to examine the day-of-the-week effect in the Indian stock market for the period of 28 years from 3rd July, 1990 to 31st March, 2022. Findings The empirical results derived from the GARCH models indicate the existence of day-of-the-week effects on stock returns and volatility of the Indian stock market. The study reveals that all the days of the week are positive and significant in National Stock Exchange (NSE)-Nifty market returns. The findings confirm the persistence of ARCH and GARCH effects in the daily return series. Moreover, the asymmetric GARCH models show that the daily stock returns exhibit significant asymmetric (leverage) effects. Practical implications The results of this study established that the Indian stock market is not efficient and there exists an opportunity to the traders for predicting the future prices and earning abnormal profits in the Indian stock market. The findings of the study are important for traders, investors and portfolio managers to earn abnormal returns by cross-border diversification. Originality/value First, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first to study the day-of-the-week effect in Indian stock market considering the most recent and longer time period (1990–2022). Second, unlike previous research, this study used GARCH models (GARCH, EGARCH and TGARCH) to capture the volatility clustering in the data.