The Real Options Component and Market Value of Taiwan Technological Companies

Real options valuation has been applied in real investment extensively. However the empirical researches of real options components’ value are seldom studied. This study uses the panel data model to test whether the stock prices of Taiwan listed companies reflect investor’s expectations regarding the value of real options. This article demonstrates that investors cannot ignore the real options components when evaluating stock market value. The results also confirm that the proportion of a firm’s market value not due to assets-in-place is significantly and positively related to the variables of stock beta, skewness of stock returns, size, capital stock, and research and development. In addition, firms with lower firm life cycle have a higher real options value.     

Idiosyncratic volatility,fundamentals, and institutional herding: Evidence from the Japanese stock market

Using Japanese data from 1975 to 2003, we show that both institutional herding and firm earnings are positively related to idiosyncratic volatility. We reject the hypothesis that institutional investors herd toward stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility and systematic risk. Our results suggest that a behavior story may explain the negative premium earned by high idiosyncratic volatility stocks found by Ang et al. [Ang, Andrew, Hodrick, Robert J., Yuhang Xing, Xiaoyan Zhang, 2004. The cross-section of volatility and expected returns, Forthcoming Journal of Finance]. We also find that the dispersions of change in institutional ownership and return-on-asset move together with the market aggregate idiosyncratic volatility over time. Our results suggest that investor behavior and stock fundamentals may both help explain the time-series pattern of market aggregate idiosyncratic volatility.     

Were Modern Capital Structure Theories Valid in Belgium Before World War I?

Abstract:  This study investigates whether modern theories can explain capital structure in a historical environment which was characterized by poor investor protection, booming stock markets and strong banks, and in which taxes did not affect leverage. Our results, based on a unique, hand-collected sample of 556 firm-year observations for 129 listed companies in Belgium before World War I, are remarkably similar to findings for present-day samples. Leverage was positively related to asset tangibility, firm size and firm age, and it was negatively related to profitability and prior stock returns. Bank relationships were associated with lower leverage.     

Firm fundamentals and stock prices in emerging Asian stock markets: some panel data evidence

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct link between firm fundamentals and stock prices in a set of emerging Asian stock markets using firm-level panel data. In doing so, we explore the relationship between firm-specific variations in stock returns and firm fundamentals in the context of a simple present value framework. We find that alternative proxies of variation in firm fundamentals—albeit at differing degrees—explain a significant part of firm-specific return variation in a majority of emerging markets in Asia. Findings are robust to the influence of other factors known to affect stock return volatility (e.g. firm size, stock turnover, and leverage). Overall results suggest that stock prices in a majority of the Asian emerging markets contain a significant amount of firm-specific fundamental information and are, therefore, not as murky as commonly thought.     

Predicting firm level stock returns: Implications for asset pricing and economic links

We examine the predictive ability of stock price ratios, stock return dispersion and distribution measures for firm level returns. Analysis typically focusses on market level returns, however, for the underlying asset pricing model to hold, firm-level predictability should be present. Additionally, we examine the economic content of predictability by considering whether the predictive coefficient has the theoretically correct sign and whether it is related to future output growth. While stock returns reflect investor expectations regarding future economic conditions, they are often too noisy to act as predictor. We use the time-varying predictive coefficient as it reflects investor confidence in the predictive relation. Results suggest that a subset of stock price ratios have predictive power for individual firm stock returns, exhibit the correct coefficient sign and has predictive power for output growth. Each of these ratios has a measure of fundamentals divided by the stock price and has a positive relation with stock returns and output growth. This implies that as investors expect future economic conditions to improve and earnings and dividends to rise, so expected stock returns will increase. This supports the cash flow channel as the avenue through which stock return predictability arises.     

Currency Returns, Intrinsic Value, and Institutional-Investor Flows

We decompose currency returns into (permanent) intrinsic‐value shocks and (transitory) expected‐return shocks. We explore interactions between these shocks, currency returns, and institutional‐investor currency flows. Intrinsic‐value shocks are: dwarfed by expected‐return shocks (yet currency returns overreact to them); unrelated to flows (although expected‐return shocks correlate with flows); and related positively to forecasted cumulated‐interest differentials. These results suggest flows are related to short‐term currency returns, while fundamentals better explain long‐term returns and values. They also rationalize the long‐observed poor performance of exchange‐rate models: by ignoring the distinction between permanent and transitory exchange‐rate changes, prior tests obscure the connection between currencies and fundamentals.     

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。     

The second moment matters! Cross-sectional dispersion of firm valuations and expected returns

Behavioral theories predict that firm valuation dispersion in the cross-section (“dispersion”) measures aggregate overpricing caused by investor overconfidence and should be negatively related to expected aggregate returns. This paper develops and tests these hypotheses. Consistent with the model predictions, I find that measures of dispersion are positively related to aggregate valuations, trading volume, idiosyncratic volatility, past market returns, and current and future investor sentiment indexes. Dispersion is a strong negative predictor of subsequent short- and long-term market excess returns. Market beta is positively related to stock returns when the beginning-of-period dispersion is low and this relationship reverses when initial dispersion is high. A simple forecast model based on dispersion significantly outperforms a naive model based on historical equity premium in out-of-sample tests and the predictability is stronger in economic downturns.     

The roles of past returns and firm fundamentals in driving US stock price movements

This paper provides new empirical evidence that incorporating past stock returns from different time horizons can enhance the ability of firm fundamentals to better explain stock price movements but this benefit dissipates under uncertainty. We apply both OLS and state-space modeling to US firms' stock price movements over the period from 1999 to 2012 to compare the roles of the two main types of information typically used by equity investors. Empirical results reveal the importance of firm fundamentals over longer term horizons for particularly, small-cap stocks with greater information uncertainty. Furthermore, when market uncertainty is high, fundamentals unambiguously dominate in driving stock price movements of smaller sized firms indicating that uncertainty at the firm and market level both create attention bias on firm fundamentals.     

Investor recognition and seasoned equity offers

We find that seasoned equity issuers who pay more in underwriting costs are associated with larger improvements in investor recognition, greater contemporaneous increases in firm value, and larger declines in illiquidity risk. We identify increased analyst following as an important channel through which these effects occur. The results are consistent with the prediction of Merton (1987) and imply that an equity issuing firm can actively manage its degree of investor recognition and thereby influence its valuation. Furthermore, equity issuers associated with greater improvements in investor recognition exhibit significantly more negative multi-factor alphas during the three years after issuance, suggesting that improved investor recognition can partially explain the appearance of post-issue stock underperformance.     

Price-based return comovement

Similarly priced stocks move together. Stocks that undergo splits experience an increase in comovement with low-priced stocks and a decrease in their comovement with high-priced stocks. Price-based comovement is not explained by economic fundamentals, firm size, or changes in liquidity or information diffusion. The shift in comovement following splits is greater for large stocks, high-priced stocks, and when investor sentiment is high. In the full cross-section, price-based portfolios explain variation in stock-level returns after controlling for movements in the market and industry portfolios as well as portfolios based on size, book-to-market, transaction costs, and return momentum. The results suggest that investors categorize stocks based on price.     

Abnormal investment and firm performance

We find a negative relation between abnormal investment and future stock performance. Such a negative relation is mainly driven by under-investment, not over-investment. Our results are robust to various estimation methods and investment models. Both delayed market reaction and agency issues may lead to the apparently anomalous return predictability of under-investment. First, market investors may not react promptly to the fundamental information contained in under-investment about a firm’s future profitability, asset growth, and financial distress probability. Second, the negative relation between under-investment and future stock returns is more pronounced for firms with lower investor monitoring and higher agency costs.     

Social media effect,investor recognition and the cross-section of stock returns

Investor recognition affects cross-sectional stock returns. In informationally incomplete markets, investors have limited recognition of all securities, and their holding of stocks with low recognition requires compensation for being imperfectly diversified. Using the number of posts on the Chinese social media platform Guba to measure investor recognition of stocks, this paper provides a direct test of Merton's investor recognition hypothesis. We find a significant social media premium in the Chinese stock market. We further find that including a social media factor based on this premium significantly improves the explanatory power of Fama-French factor models of cross-sectional stock returns, and these results are robust when we control for the mass media effect and liquidity effect. Finally, we find that investment strategies based on the social media factor earn sizable risk-adjusted returns, which signifies the importance of the social media premium in portfolio management.     

Why Are U.S. Stocks More Volatile?

U.S. stocks are more volatile than stocks of similar foreign firms. A firm's stock return volatility can be higher for reasons that contribute positively (good volatility) or negatively (bad volatility) to shareholder wealth and economic growth. We find that the volatility of U.S. firms is higher mostly because of good volatility. Specifically, stock volatility is higher in the United States because it increases with investor protection, stock market development, new patents, and firm‐level investment in R&D. Each of these factors is related to better growth opportunities for firms and better ability to take advantage of these opportunities.     

Macro to micro: Country exposures,firm fundamentals and stock returns

We outline a systematic approach to incorporate macroeconomic information into firm level forecasting from the perspective of an equity investor. Using a global sample of 198,315 firm-years over the 1998–2010 time period, we find that combining firm level exposures to countries (via geographic segment data) with forecasts of country level performance, is able to generate superior forecasts for firm fundamentals. This result is particularly evident for purely domestic firms. We further find that this forecasting benefit is associated with future excess stock returns. These relations are stronger after periods of higher dispersion in expected country level performance.     

The robustness of the Sarbanes Oxley effect on the U.S. capital market

We examine the incidence of new listings and delistings on U.S. stock exchanges and firms’ propensity to delist, as a function of general market conditions, firm fundamentals, and the costs of compliance with the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX). We find that both general market conditions and firm fundamentals explain the delisting incidence and firms’ delisting decisions; while SOX variables are positively associated with firms’ delisting likelihood only when general market conditions are not included in the analyses. Further analyses on the population partitioned into size quintiles suggest that the passage of SOX was not associated with an increase in the likelihood of delisting for any size quintile of firms and that the implementation of SOX section 404 is positively associated with the delisting likelihood for midsized and larger firms. Our empirical evidence is useful to regulators as they consider changes in the imposition and implementation of SOX section 404.     

Investment Plans and Stock Returns

When the discount rate falls, investment should rise. Thus with time-varying discount rates and instantly changing investment, investment should positively covary with current stock returns and negatively covary with future stock returns. Aggregate nonresidential U.S. investment contradicts both these implications, probably because of investment lags. Investment plans, however, satisfy both implications. These investment plans, from a U.S. government survey of firms, are highly informative measures of expected investment and explain more than three-quarters of the variation in real annual aggregate investment growth. Plans have substantial forecasting power for excess stock returns, showing that time-varying risk premia affect investment.     

The Role of Beta and Size in the Cross-Section of European Stock Returns

This paper examines the ability of beta and size to explain cross-sectional variation in average returns in 12 European countries. We find that average stock returns are positively related to beta and negatively related to firm size. The beta premium is in part due to the fact that high beta countries outperform low beta countries. Within countries high beta stocks outperform low beta stocks only in January, not in other months. We reject the hypothesis that differences in average returns on size- and beta-sorted portfolios can be explained by market risk and exposure to the excess return of small over large stocks (SMB). Consistent with recent US evidence, we find that after controlling for size, there is no association between average returns and exposure to SMB.     

Does favorable investor sentiment lead to costly decisions to go public?

We investigate the real effects of decisions to undertake an initial public offering of stock in periods of favorable investor sentiment. Specifically, we examine potential effects of favorable investor sentiment on investment expenditures and how effects on investment affect firm operating performance and value as well as the likelihood of survival. We find that firms going public during periods of favorable sentiment, on average, spend substantially more on investments, especially acquisitions, than firms going public in other periods. The effect of favorable investor sentiment on investment is more pronounced for younger firms. We do not find, however, that the higher investment spending in the wake of favorable sentiment leads to worse operating or stock performance. Stock returns around acquisitions announcements are also positive for firms going public in favorable sentiment periods. The preponderance of our findings indicate that decisions to go public in favorable investor sentiment periods do not lead to corporate investment decisions that harm firm performance and value.     

Dynamic Effects of Information Disclosure on Investment Efficiency

This paper studies how information disclosure affects investment efficiency and investor welfare in a dynamic setting in which a firm makes sequential investments to adjust its capital stock over time. We show that the effects of accounting disclosures on investment efficiency and investor welfare crucially depend on whether such disclosures convey information about the firm's future capital stock (i.e., balance sheet) or about its future operating cash flows (i.e., earnings). Specifically, investment efficiency and investor welfare unambiguously increase in the precision of disclosures that convey information about the future capital stock, since such disclosures mitigate the current owners' incentives to underinvest. In contrast, when accounting reports provide information about future cash flows, the firm can have incentives to either under‐ or overinvest depending on the precision of accounting reports and the expected growth in demand. For such disclosures, investment efficiency and investor welfare are maximized by an intermediate level of precision. The two types of accounting disclosures act as substitutes in that the precision of capital stock disclosures that maximizes investment efficiency (and investor welfare) decreases as cash flow disclosures become more informative and vice versa.