Foreign and Local Institutional Ownership and the Speed of Price Adjustment

Abstract:  This paper examines the relation between the speed of price adjustment and stock ownership by foreign and local institutional investors using data from the Korean stock market. We show that returns of stocks with high foreign institutional ownership lead returns of stocks with low foreign institutional ownership, especially after foreign ownership restriction is lifted. Likewise, returns of stocks with high local institutional ownership lead returns of stocks with low local institutional ownership. These results support the idea that foreign institutional (local institutional) investors have faster access to or processing power of new information than local institutional (local individual) investors.     

Has the Reform of Nontradable Shares Raised Prices?: An Event-Study Analysis

This study examines the abnormal stock returns of pilot companies to determine if investors believed that reform of nontradable shares, which began on April 29, 2005, would lead to higher stock prices. Employing event-study analysis, we find that the pilot companies have positive significant abnormal returns. The average abnormal return of the first batch is higher than that of the second batch, the average abnormal return on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is higher than that of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the average abnormal return on the Small and medium Enterprise board is higher than that of the main board, and companies with high-compensation packages have higher average abnormal returns than do companies with low-compensation packages. Our results suggest that investors generally viewed nontradable share reform as positive news.     

Does the location of stock exchange matter? A within-country analysis

The current study documents an interesting phenomenon that retail investors prefer to invest in stocks listed at the stock exchange that is geographically close to them in China. This pattern is robust when we control for the well-documented local bias within a country. Among companies with similar distances to both stock exchanges and companies headquartered locally, investors still display a strong tendency to invest in locally-listed stocks. Among stocks with similar distances to both stock exchanges, those listed in Shanghai (Shenzhen) co-move more in returns and trading volumes, with the benchmark at the Shanghai (Shenzhen) stock exchange. Such a preference for local exchange seems not to be motivated by information advantage, because investors do not obtain abnormal returns from their trades on stocks listed nearby. Our findings provide additional evidence that non-information-based familiarity bias induces investment and that such investor bias and exchange-level sentiment influence asset price formation.     

Influential investors in online stock forums

This paper uses data from an online stock forum to examine the behavior of influential investors, posters who are popular among forum members. Unlike prior research, we find that influential investors post messages based on information and target actively traded large firms. Their predictions are more likely to indicate subsequent returns, as compared to other investors. Influential investors exhibit a preference for local investments and, furthermore, their predictions for local firms are more likely to be correct, suggesting a true information advantage. Thus, these investors contribute to the overall functioning of the market by providing insight into targeted companies.     

Shell games: On the value of shell companies

A reverse merger allows a private company to assume the current reporting status of another company that is public. This can be done quickly, without fundraising, road show, underwriter, substantial ownership dilution, or great expense. Private firms that go public via reverse merger are often motivated by the need to quickly secure financing through privately placed stock (PIPEs) and the desire to make acquisitions using stock as payment. In each of the last eight years reverse mergers have outnumbered traditional IPOs as a mechanism for going public, and reporting shell companies are providing fuel for much of this growth. We study 585 trading shell companies over the period 2006-2008. The purpose of most of these shell firms is to find a suitor for a reverse merger agreement. These companies have no systematic risk, operations, or assets, and their share price tends to decline over time. Yet, these firms have investors. When a takeover agreement is consummated, shell company three-month abnormal returns are 48.1%. We argue that this exceptional return is compensation to investors for shell stock illiquidity and the uncertainty of finding a reverse merger suitor. We show that shell company returns are much greater at the consummation of a merger than those of a similar entity that in dollar terms is more popular among investors — Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs).     

行为模型新解及其实证检验

在以信息逐步扩散和投资者有限理性为主要假设的行为模型中,特定信息交易者和市场信息交易者的比例对股价行为有着重要影响：当特定信息交易者占多数时,个股收益更容易呈现正自相关;当市场信息交易者占多数时,个股收益更容易呈现负自相关。该模型可以解释成熟股市中存在基于总收益的动量效应,而中国股市中不存在基于总收益的动量效应,仅存在基于公司特定收益的动量效应;并解释了市场平均收益呈现负自相关等。另外,实证分析支持了传统的CAPM和APT定价模型中的带越小,动量效应越显著的结论。     

Capital Deployment Roundtable: A Discussion of Corporate Investment and Payout Policy

U.S. companies are now reportedly earning record‐high operating returns on capital while at the same time continuing to set new records both for corporate cash holdings and distributions to investors in the form of dividends and stock repurchases. But are most of these companies really maximizing value? And what role, if any, do these large distributions play in creating value? These are the two main questions that are addressed by a small group that includes two senior corporate executives and two representatives of well‐known activist investors. A number of panelists suggest that many companies, in misguided efforts to maximize returns on capital, have been using hurdle rates that are too high and so sacrificing value‐adding investment opportunities. As evidence for this claim, they cite evidence that, in recent years, the companies that have achieved the highest stock market returns appear to have made conscious decisions to reduce their returns on capital to pursue higher growth. Another increasingly common charge against U.S. companies is their tendency to pay out excessive capital to investors, especially in the form of stock repurchases at prices that turn out to be too high. But this last practice, however widespread, may not be as troubling as it has been made out to be. Although it involves a wealth transfer from existing to selling shareholders, overall investor value is lost only if such buybacks lead to corporate underinvestment. But, as a number of panelists (including the activist investors) point out, such payouts of capital have generally functioned as a demonstration of corporate managers' commitment to investing and operating with the optimal, or value‐maximizing, level of capital—neither too much nor too little.     

股吧评论、分析师跟踪与股价崩溃风险——关于模糊信息的信息含量分析

东方财富股吧等股票论坛日渐活跃,反映了投资者对获得上市公司真实、完整、及时信息的强烈需求。尽管股吧有助于促进信息传播,但仍是非正式的信息发布平台,股吧评论本质上是一种模糊信息。为探明股吧评论的信息含量,本文以2012—2017年A股上市公司为研究样本,研究股吧评论对股价崩溃风险的影响,以及同样属于模糊信息的分析师跟踪在这一过程中可能产生的作用。实证结果表明,股吧评论分歧越小,股价崩溃风险越大,并且分析师跟踪人数和研报数量在上述影响过程中发挥中介作用。研究结果有助于厘清股吧评论影响股价崩溃风险的路径和机理,既丰富了股价崩溃风险成因的研究,也揭示了股吧评论、分析师跟踪等模糊信息的信息含量。     

线上销售与未来股票收益

本文通过分析相关上市公司在电商平台的线上销售数据,发现线上销售增长可以预测未来股票收益。根据线上销售增长率构建投资组合可以获得月均1.27%的超额收益,经三因子、五因子模型调整后收益率分别为1.40%和1.35%,并且该超额收益在较长时间内不会逆转。横截面回归结果显示,线上销售增长与未来股票收益显著正相关,并在控制其他市场异象因子后仍然显著。此外,本文还发现线上销售数据的预测能力主要集中在投资者关注有限、线上销售占比高以及套利成本高的公司,其投资价值来源于对公司未来基本面信息的预测能力。进一步研究表明,同时利用线上销售指标和营业收入指标进行投资可以获得更高的超额收益。在考虑业绩预告和业绩快报对线上销售指标预测能力的潜在影响后,结果依然稳健。     

Stock price reactions to earnings announcements: evidence from Chinese markets

We examine the stock price reactions to changes in earnings per share (EPS) in the Chinese stock markets. We find that domestic A-share investors do not correctly anticipate the changes in earnings and fail to adjust new earnngs information quickly, but international B-share investors can predict earnings changes better than A-share investors. As a result, abnormal returns (ARs) can be obtained by trading on the earnings information, but for A shares only. An explanation is that most A-share holders are individuals with short-term investment horizon while most B-share holders are large institutions that trade on more detailed and accurate financial information not immediately available to A-share holders.     

Momentum and Foreign Investors: Evidence from the Korean Stock Market

Abstract:

We examine whether the price impact of foreign investors on the Korean stock market from December 2000 to February 2007 generated a momentum phenomenon. In our empirical results, foreigners seem to have exerted a significantly positive impact on prices in “up” markets (periods of positive stock returns), but have had little impact on prices in “down” markets (periods of negative returns). We document that the impact of foreigners’ trades is concentrated in large companies. Most importantly, when the market is in the up state, the returns of stocks of large companies that were positively affected by foreign investors in the previous six-month period continue to increase in the subsequent six-month period. As a result, the subsequent six-month return on a past “winner” stock portfolio is significantly higher than that on a past “loser” stock portfolio. This brings to mind a momentum phenomenon that has been reported not to exist in the Korean stock market.     

重大突发公共卫生事件下的金融市场反应

本文旨在评估金融市场对重大突发公共卫生事件的反应,尤其是上市公司所在地的公共治理能力是否会影响上市公司股票收益率。其中,城市公共治理能力以基于实时数据计算的防疫能力和复工复产能力指标来刻画。主要发现如下:第一,防疫能力会影响投资者情绪,但不会直接影响股票收益率;第二,所在地复工复产能力对股票收益率存在正向影响;第三,机制分析表明,经营基本面更容易受疫情影响的企业,如小企业、成长型企业、所在地数字金融基础设施较差的企业,其股票收益率对当地复工复产能力的反应更敏感。本文结论表明,在全国一盘棋的抗疫努力下,投资者对于战胜疫情有信心,短期内复工复产能力对金融市场更重要。从应对措施来看,短期内可对比较脆弱的企业实施精准果断的帮扶,长期内可考虑加强地区防疫能力建设和数字基础设施建设。     

An Ex Post Assessment of Investor Response to Catastrophes

A large body of research has examined abnormal stock returns for insurance companies in the wake of major catastrophes. Most of these studies have investigated the ex ante factors that investors may consider when generating expectations of future profits, represented by postcatastrophe stock returns. We instead ask whether these expectations were ultimately correct by investigating the relationship between returns and the disaster’s effect on future earnings. We find that returns immediately following a disaster are not associated with future earnings. Approximately six days following a catastrophe, however, returns begin to show a significant positive relationship with future earnings. This relationship becomes stronger in subsequent days. We conclude that investors are unable to correctly predict a disaster’s net impact on profits immediately after a disaster because existing public information is insufficient or misunderstood. Only once insurers begin disclosing their estimated losses can investors make accurate predictions about a disaster’s effect on earnings. Our study shows that the investor expectations inferred in much of the existing literature are not predictive of future profits. Our findings are consistent with semistrong-form market efficiency in the wake of a major disaster.     

Which past returns affect trading volume?

Anecdotal evidence suggests and recent theoretical models argue that past stock returns affect subsequent stock trading volume. We study 3,000 individual investors over a 51 month period to test this apparent link between past returns and volume using several different panel regression models (linear panel regressions, negative binomial panel regressions, Tobit panel regressions). We find that both past market returns as well as past portfolio returns affect trading activity of individual investors (as measured by stock portfolio turnover, the number of stock transactions, and the propensity to trade stocks in a given month). After high portfolio returns, investors buy high risk stocks and reduce the number of stocks in their portfolio. High past market returns do not lead to higher risk taking or underdiversification. We argue that the only explanations for our findings are overconfidence theories based on biased self-attribution and differences of opinion explanations for high levels of trading activity.     

ALIGNMENT EXPOSED: HOW CEOS ARE PAID, AND WHAT THEIR SHAREHOLDERS GET FOR IT

This article begins by arguing that, for many companies, there is a significant "disconnect" between how managers are paid and what is actually achieved for shareholders. This paper answers two questions of prime importance to investors: Is there a way to know beforehand whether managers' incentives are well aligned with those of its shareholders? And does such alignment actually make a difference in the returns one is likely to see?
In answering the first question, the author argues that cash bonuses and performance-based equity grants (i.e., grants based on managers' meeting accounting-based operating targets) are likely to provide stronger, more cost-effective incentives than grants of stock or options because the former are generally based on measures over which managers have significantly more control than the stock price. Using this insight, the author develops a method for evaluating compensation structures based on the variability of compensation, the number and type of compensation metrics purportedly driving that variability (including the award of performance shares or options), the stability of those metrics over time, and the apparent level of discretion in the use of those metrics to either fund or distribute bonuses (including equity). All these elements are disclosed to varying degrees in the proxy statements or annual reports of companies.
Using his compensation scores for 140 companies and their return history over the last eight years, the author concludes that "high alignment" companies outperform their "low alignment" peers by more than 5% per year in total shareholder returns. Furthermore, increases in alignment scores by individual companies over time tend to lead to higher total shareholder returns, and degradation of scores lead to lower returns. In short, observable improvements in compensation structure appear to pay off in the form of significant abnormal returns.     

CROSS-AUTOCORRELATION BETWEEN A SHARES AND B SHARES IN THE CHINESE STOCK MARKET

Listed companies in China, upon meeting certain requirements, can issue two types of shares: A shares and B shares. Local investors in China can only buy and sell A shares, while foreign investors can only buy and sell B shares. We argue that foreign investors may receive news about China faster than domestic Chinese investors because of information barriers in China. Since foreigners participate in the B-share market, the price movements of B shares should reflect the common information that the foreigners have. Rational A-share investors can therefore condition their trading decisions on the previous price movements of B shares. As a result, returns on B shares should lead the returns on A shares. Using daily prices of A and B shares, we demonstrate that returns of B shares are correlated with those of A shares and that this correlation depends on the information transmission mechanism at work. The pattern of the asymmetric cross-autocorrelation is robust to the inclusion of lagged realized returns and trading volumes.     

The incremental information content of employee reports for stock market investment decisions

The practice of preparing and issuing Employee Reports to an organization's work force is now well established throughout many countries. A survey of companies listed on New Zealand's stock exchange (Firth and Smith 1984, p. 5) indicated that about 22% of responding companies produced Employee Reports. These Employee Reports often contain data that are not present in the firm's Annual Report and Accounts, and this has potential usefulness to stock market investors. If Employee Reports do have usefulness to stock market investors, then this raises policy issues about current disclosure requirements to shareholders. In particular, it heightens concerns about whether the shareholders are being given timely and adequate information. In order to test whether Employee Reports do have any incremental information content, an abnormal returns analysis on 88 reports was carried out. The results showed no evidence of abnormal returns, and so the incremental data contained in Employee Reports either have no usefulness for investors and/or the information has been discounted from other sources.     

When ESG talks: ESG tone of 10-K reports and its significance to stock markets

Since the ESG topic consistently gains on importance in the investment universe, companies provide investors with information regarding recent and future ESG activities through different reporting channels. The most recent research finds relevance of ESG-related corporate activities for formation of investors' opinion regarding companies' valuations and growth prospects. Based on a sample of more than seventeen thousand unique 10-K reports of US companies filed with SEC in period 2013 to 2019 and the word-power methodology proposed by Jegadeesh and Wu (2013), this study also shows evidence for significant relation of ESG textual tone of 10-K reports to stock market returns of filing companies around the report filing dates. Using the ESG linguistic dictionary recently proposed by Baier, Berninger, and Kiesel (2020), this study shows evidence for significant relation of social and governance-related topics disclosure to stock returns, while environmental narratives being ignored by the markets. When looking at individual words from the ESG lexicon, such words as “community”, “health”, “control” imply positive reaction of markets, while “discrimination”, “embezzlement”, and “crime” are related to negative returns. The robustness analysis based on the inverse document frequency word weightings and actual ESG performance scores confirms the significance of ESG information disclosure of 10-K reports for investors. Thus, this study sheds light on the mechanics of ESG information perception and its influence on capital markets.     

Uncertainty triggers overreaction: evidence from corporate takeovers

Behavioural finance models suggest that under uncertainty, investors overweight their private information and overreact to it. We test this theoretical prediction in an M&A framework. We find that under high information uncertainty, when investors are more likely to possess firm-specific information, acquiring firms generate highly positive and significant gains following the announcement of private stock and private cash acquisitions (positive news) while the market heavily punishes public stock (negative news) deals. On the other hand, under conditions of low information uncertainty, when investors do not possess private information, the market reaction is complete (i.e. zero abnormal returns) irrespective of the type of acquisition. Overall, we provide empirical evidence that shows that information uncertainty plays a significant role in explaining short-run acquirer abnormal returns.     

Do foreigners facilitate information transmission in emerging markets?

Using the degree of accessibility of foreign investors to emerging stock markets, or investibility, as a proxy for the extent of foreign investments, we assess whether investibility has a significant influence on the diffusion of global market information across stocks in emerging markets. We show that greater investibility reduces price delay to global market information. We also find that returns of highly investible stocks lead those of noninvestible stocks because they incorporate global information more quickly. These results are consistent with the idea that financial liberalization in the form of greater investibility yields informationally more efficient stock prices in emerging markets.