THE INTRA-INDUSTRY EFFECTS OF OPEN MARKET SHARE REPURCHASES: CONTAGION OR COMPETITIVE?

We examine the extent to which announcements of open market share repurchase programs affect the valuation of competing firms in the same industry. On average, although firms announcing open market share repurchase programs experience a significantly positive stock price reaction at announcement, portfolios of rival firms in the same industry experience a significant and contemporaneous negative stock price reaction. This suggests that perceived changes in the competitive positions of the repurchasing firms occur at the expense of rival firms and dominate any signals of favorable industry conditions. Thus, the competitive intra-industry effects of open market repurchases outweigh any contagion effects. In addition, cross-sectional tests indicate that these competitive effects are more pronounced in industries characterized by a lower degree of competition and less correlation between the stock returns of the repurchasing firm and its rivals.     

Oil and stock market activity when prices go up and down: the case of the oil and gas industry

We examine the asymmetric effects of daily oil price changes on equity returns, market betas, oil betas, return variances, and trading volumes for the US oil and gas industry. The responses of stock returns associated with negative changes in oil prices are higher than that associated with positive changes in oil prices. Stock risk measured by market beta is influenced more due to oil price decreases than due to oil price increases. On the other hand, oil risk exposures (oil betas) and return variances are more influenced by oil price increases than oil price decreases. The results of our study indicate that oil and gas firm returns, market betas, oil betas, return variances respond asymmetrically to oil price changes. We also find that relative changes in oil prices along with firm-specific factors such as firm size, ROA, leverage, market-to-book ratio (MBR) are important in determining the effects of oil price changes on oil and gas firms’ returns, risks, and trading volumes.     

INDUSTRY EFFECTS OF ANALYST STOCK REVISIONS

We examine the industry valuation effects of analyst stock revisions and identify the variables that influence these effects. Our results show that industry rivals experience significant abnormal returns in response to revision announcements. Although the mean stock price response suggests contagion effects, there is also evidence of significant competitive effects. The valuation effects are influenced by the magnitude of the rated firm's announcement return, along with analyst‐specific and industry‐specific characteristics. However, the sensitivity of the valuation effects to these characteristics is conditioned on whether the industry effects are contagious or competitive.     

Mimicking repurchases

We study the tendency of firms to mimic the repurchase announcements of their industry counterparts. We argue that a firm, by repurchasing its shares, sends a positive signal about itself and a negative one about its competitors. This induces the competing firms to mimic the behavior of the repurchasing firm by repurchasing themselves. Using a broad sample of US firms from the period 1984–2002, we show that, in concentrated industries, a repurchase announcement lowers the stock price of the other firms in the same industry. The other firms react by repurchasing themselves to undo these negative effects. Repurchases are chosen as a strategic reaction to other firms’ repurchase decisions and are not motivated by the desire to time the market, i.e., to take advantage of a significantly undervalued stock price. Therefore, repurchasing firms in more concentrated industries experience a lower increase in value in comparison with their counterparts in less concentrated industries in the post-announcement era. Alternative methodologies used to estimate long-term performance confirm that it is only the repurchasing firms in low concentration industries that outperform the market, their non-repurchasing peers, and their counterparts in more concentrated industries by amounts that are economically and statistically significant.     

A Fundamental Analysis Approach to Oil and Gas Firm Valuation

Most fundamental analysis studies have focused on fundamentals selected by a data-driven approach on large samples of firms from numerous industries. This paper reports the results of a fundamental analysis of a single industry, the US oil and gas exploration and production industry, using variables identified by industry financial analysts. The results demonstrate a significant relationship between a number of the fundamentals with both the market value of equity and cumulative stock return. The results also suggest that the fundamentals provide incremental information beyond earnings, change in earnings, and book value of equity when explaining equity values and stock returns.     

BANK FAILURE AND CONTAGION EFFECTS: EVIDENCE FROM HONG KONG

In this paper the influence of three Hong Kong bank failures on stock prices of the colony's banking industry is examined. As deposit insurance is nonexistent in Hong Kong, the world's fourth-largest financial center, an interesting environment is provided for testing contagion effects of bank failure on other healthy financial institutions. By examining contagion effects in an environment void of explicit deposit insurance, this study should provide interesting insights into the resiliency of modern-day financial markets. In turn, insights should also be provided into debates concerning the role and reform of deposit insurance and the rationale for regulation of the financial services industry in general. The results indicate that unexpected bank failure causes significant negative stock price reactions within the banking industry; yet, some banks are less affected than others.     

Stock Price Dynamics and Firm Size: An Empirical investigation

We show that after controlling for the effects of bid-ask spreads and trading volume the conditional future volatility of equity returns is negatively related to the level of stock price. This “leverage effect” is stronger for small, as compared to large, firms. We also document that while the essential characteristics of the relations between stock price dynamics and firm size are stable, the strengths of the relationships appear to change over time.     

Oil price uncertainty and stock price informativeness: Evidence from investment-price sensitivity in China

We study the effects of oil price uncertainty (OPU) on stock price informativeness based on investment-price sensitivity. Using Chinese stocks from 2008 to 2021, we find a negative relationship between OPU and the strength of Tobin's q (a standardized measure of prices) for predicting investment opportunities. This finding is likely due to the crowding out of informed investors rather than the financial constraints brought by a higher cost of capital. Investment-price sensitivity also decreases more among firms in less-competition, high sales volatility, and lower analysts' attention. What is more, the reduction in investment-price sensitivity is more concentrated in public utilities, agriculture & livestock, and industry instead of in real estate or commerce industries. These findings indicate that OPU decreases the acquisition of information related to firms, and consequently, price informativeness for future investment decisions.     

Inter-firm linkages and the wealth effects of financial distress along the supply chain

Extant research examines the extent to which bankruptcy has intra-industry valuation consequences. This study broadens the investigation by examining the wealth effects of distress and bankruptcy filing for suppliers and customers of filing firms. On average, important wealth effects occur prior to and at bankruptcy filings and extend beyond industry competitors along the supply chain. Specifically, distress related to bankruptcy filings is associated with negative and significant stock price effects for suppliers. Supplier wealth effects are more negative when intra-industry contagion is more severe. We also investigate the importance of industry structure, specialized product nature, and leverage on supply chain effects.     

投资者理性预期、流动性约束与股价崩盘传染研究

“传染性”是股价崩盘三大基本特征之一,会加剧股价崩盘负面影响,甚至引发系统性金融风险,因此,本文重点关注股价崩盘传染机制研究。首先,本文基于两阶段理性预期均衡模型,提出股价崩盘传染两大假设,即投资者理性预期与流动性约束导致传染;其次,基于2000-2016年全球28个国家或地区资本市场数据,实证检验股价崩盘传染机制和传染渠道。研究显示:(1)投资者理性预期、流动性约束会导致股价崩盘发生传染;(2)股价崩盘事件会在资本市场关联国家或地区传染;(3)提高资本市场信息透明度、加强金融管制有助于降低受关联国家或地区股价崩盘传染。     

The response of competitors to announcements of bankruptcy: An empirical examination of contagion and competitive effects

We find, like [Lang, L.H.P., Stulz, R.M., 1992. Contagion and competitive intra-industry effects of bankruptcy announcements: An empirical analysis, Journal of Financial Economics, 32(1), 45–60], that large firm bankruptcies generate a dominant contagion effect. A value-weighted portfolio of competitors' stocks experiences a significant loss of 0.56% in the three days centered around the Chapter 11 announcement. This represents an average loss of $3.32 for all the competitors combined for every dollar lost by the bankrupt firm. In addition, we find that small firm bankruptcies also generate a dominant contagion effect among smaller sized competitors; an equally-weighted portfolio of all competitors has a significant 0.12% drop. In a new approach to separate the contagion and competitive effects, we compare the stock price reactions of competitors who themselves subsequently file for bankruptcy in the next three years (candidates for contagion effect) with those who do not do so (candidates for competitive effect). As expected, candidates for contagion effect experience a significant, negative three-day stock price reaction of −4.68%. However, contrary to expectations, candidates for competitive effect also have a significant, negative return (−0.49%), suggesting that the competitive effect is weak at best since it is dominated by the contagion effect even in this sample. Other procedures to identify candidates for competitive effect generally yield similar findings. Finally, we analyze competitors' stock price reactions based on selected characteristics (e.g., industry concentration, and leverage), with similar results as before. One explanation for the failure to detect a competitive effect is that the impact may already have been incorporated in stock prices prior to the filing for Chapter 11. Consistent with this explanation, we find significant positive stock price reactions by competitor stocks for the hundred days prior to the bankruptcy announcement.     

Contagion or Competition: Going Concern Audit Opinions for Real Estate Firms

We examine whether intra–industry information transfers from going–concern audit opinion announcements create contagion or competitive stock price reactions for other real estate firms operating in the same line of business. Using returns from publicly-traded land subdivision/development firms and Real Estate Investment Trusts, we find modest evidence supporting a competitive effect among rival firms as a result of another real estate firm announcing the receipt of a Going Concern Opinion (GCO) from its independent auditors.     

The linkage between the US and Korean stock markets: the case of NASDAQ, KOSDAQ, and the semiconductor stocks

This paper examines the interrelationship between stock prices in the US and Korea by applying the vector autoregression (VAR) model to the daily stock prices at three different level of aggregation – the national aggregate index level, the high-tech industry level and the semiconductor firm level – for the period of July 1996 through February 2001. The major findings of this study are as follows. First, the US stock market plays a leading role over the Korean market at every level of aggregation. The reverse direction of influence, from Korea to the US, was found to be minimal. Second, the evidence also suggests that the speed of transmission of innovation from the US to Korea is swift and finished for the most part within a 24-h period, although it takes three or four days to complete the whole process. Third, the influence of the US stock prices on Korean stock prices, which is measured by the innovation transmission using the impulse–response function (IRF) analysis, seems to be somewhat stronger in the composite national stock price indices and the tech-laden indices than high-tech firms. Fourth, at the firm level, the influence of Micron Technology on the leading semiconductor manufacturers in Korea is shown to be strong and persistent by passing about 34 percent of its innovations to the Korean firms within the three-day period. The impact of IBM and Intel on the Korean chip makers seems to be relatively smaller. Finally, stock prices in Korea, national stock price indices and individual high-tech stocks alike, have become much more responsive to innovations in the US stock prices after the 1997 financial crisis. The implications of the main findings in this paper are also discussed.     

Investment frictions and leverage dynamics

The paper examines the effect of investment frictions on leverage dynamics, using a model of a firm whose investment projects are (1) indivisible and lumpy, and (2) subject to time-to-build. Regressions on the model-simulated data demonstrate that investment frictions can provide alternative interpretations of the observed leverages shown in the empirical literature. Cross-sectional analysis of firms in the oil and gas extraction industries, as well as analysis across all industries, reveals the evidence that small firms have more volatile investments and longer time-to-build, which may explain the observed differences in leverage dynamics across small and large firms.     

Industry Structure and Ripple Effects of Bankruptcy Announcements

The market structure of an industry plays an important role in determining the stock market performance of surviving firms during intra-industry bankruptcy announcements. On evaluating the announcement effects of a survivor sample from each of two industries with very different market structures, namely the airline industry and the railroad industry, we find that the airline sample received significant abnormal returns (positive ripple) while the railroad sample experienced significant abnormal losses (negative ripple). Furthermore, the differences of the abnormal returns from the two samples also are statistically significant. These findings demonstrate support for the market structure hypothesis (MSH), but cast doubt on the contagion effect hypothesis (CEH).     

Oil and the Stock Market: An Industry Level Analysis

I investigate the impact of daily oil price changes on the stock returns of a wide array of industries. I find that in addition to the stock returns of industries that depend heavily on oil, stock returns of some industries that use little oil also are sensitive to oil prices perhaps because their main customers are impacted by oil price changes. In addition, I present robust estimates of industries’ cost‐side and demand‐side dependence on oil. These measures can serve as reliable benchmarks when classifying industries into oil‐intensive and non–oil‐intensive groups, a distinction widely used in studies and media without any quantitative justification so far. Further, I find that the sensitivity of industries’ returns to oil price changes depends on both the cost‐side and demand‐side dependence on oil and that the relative effects of these factors vary across industries.     

Does corporate governance matter in competitive industries?

By reducing the threat of a hostile takeover, business combination (BC) laws weaken corporate governance and increase the opportunity for managerial slack. Consistent with the notion that competition mitigates managerial slack, we find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a significant drop in operating performance after the laws’ passage, firms in competitive industries experience no significant effect. When we examine which agency problem competition mitigates, we find evidence in support of a “quiet-life” hypothesis. Input costs, wages, and overhead costs all increase after the laws’ passage, and only so in non-competitive industries. Similarly, when we conduct event studies around the dates of the first newspaper reports about the BC laws, we find that while firms in non-competitive industries experience a significant stock price decline, firms in competitive industries experience a small and insignificant stock price impact.     

THE RELATION AMONG DIVIDEND POLICY,FIRM SIZE,AND THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS

In this paper we investigate the role of dividends in explaining the size effect. The previous literature concludes that before the firm's earnings announcement, small firm stock prices impound less information than large firm stock prices. This size effect is evidenced by the greater market reaction to small firm earnings announcements than to large firm earnings announcements. We find that if the dividend announcement precedes the earnings announcement, no size effect exists. The implication is that the information conveyed by dividend announcements includes the information conveyed to investors in large firms by other information sources. However, if the firm does not pay dividends or if the firm's earnings announcement precedes its dividend announcement, the size effect exists. The implication is that dividends do not completely explain the size effect. That is, there are information sources other than dividends that are exclusively available to investors in large firms, and the information provided by these sources is reflected in the stock price of large firms before the earnings announcement.     

What drives the market value of firms in the defense industry?

This article assesses the relative importance of different types of news in driving significant stock price changes in the defense industry. We implement a systematic event study with the 58 largest publicly listed companies in the defense industry, over the time period 1995-2005. We first identify, for each firm, the statistically significant abnormal returns over the time period. Then, we look for information releases likely to cause such stock price movements. Most of the key drivers in the defense industry are the same as in other industries (key role of formal earnings announcements and analysts’ recommendations) but we also identify some specific features, in particular the influence of geopolitical events and the relevance and frequency of bids and contracts on stock prices. Finally, we examine the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks on defense firms.     

Investor sentiment,SEO market timing,and stock price performance

This article details an investigation of the impact of investor sentiment on the probability of firms conducting seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) and on stock price performance around and subsequent to SEOs. The results show that investor sentiment has a positive impact on SEO probability and that this impact is stronger for small and young firms. Furthermore, firms conducting SEOs during high sentiment periods experience less severe short-run price drops around the issuance yet more severe post-issue long-run underperformance, compared with firms conducting SEOs during low sentiment periods. These effects of investor sentiment on stock price performance are stronger for small, young, and high market-to-book ratio firms.