Analyst estimation revision clusters and corporate events, Part II

Summary In Part I of this study, we evaluated the relative usefulness of information in alternative corporate information events (CIEs) to analysts by examining the frequency with which they trigger clusters of analysts’ earnings estimate revisions. In Part II, we examine investor response to various CIEs and their revision clusters. We find that stock prices react most strongly and adjust most quickly to revision clusters that accompany CIEs that focus on financial statement information. CIEs that offer strategic information take longer for analysts and investors to assimilate, and investors appear to rely heavily on later analyst revisions following such events.     

Auditors’ Liability,Investments, and Capital Markets: A Potential Unintended Consequence of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act

To restore investors’ confidence in the reliability of corporate financial disclosures, the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002 mandated stricter regulations and arguably increased auditors’ liability. In this paper, we analyze the effects of increased auditor liability on the audit failure rate, the cost of capital, and the level of new investment. We focus on a setting in which, with imperfect auditing, a firm has better information than investors about its prospects and seeks to raise capital for new investments in a lemons market. The equilibrium analysis derives corporate reporting and investing choices by the firm, attestation opinions by the auditor, and valuation by rational investors. Three empirically testable predictions emerge: although increasing auditor liability decreases the audit failure rate and the cost of capital for new projects, it also decreases the level of new profitable investments.     

Do Foreign Investors Encourage Value-Enhancing Corporate Risk Taking?

This paper examines whether foreign investors in Korea affect incentives for firms to take risks in corporate investment. The short-term focus of foreign investors encourages managers to engage in conservative investment behavior. On the other hand, foreign investors encourage managers to focus on long-term value rather than short-term returns as active participants in corporate governance. These competing views are examined by testing for the association between foreign ownership and variations in corporate cash flow, a proxy for the risk of chosen investments. Furthermore, we examine whether risk taking is positively associated with firm growth, which is a primary concern in debates regarding the myopic behaviors of foreign investors. The results show that firms with high foreign ownership are less likely to avoid risk taking—and that risk taking is, in turn, positively associated with firm growth, implying that foreign investors perform a monitoring function in encouraging value-enhancing risk taking.     

The role of creative strategy,ad disclosure and regulatory focus in investors’ decision making: An experimental investigation

This study examines the effects of creative strategy and ad disclosure in financial services advertising (FSA) and individual differences in regulatory focus on retail investors’ attitudes and behavioral intentions. Results from a between-subject experiment indicate that investors’ regulatory focus (promotion focus versus prevention focus) moderates the effects of FSA related to creative strategy and ad disclosure. Specifically, prevention-focused investors (promotion-focused investors) had more favorable attitudes towards and showed greater purchase intentions of a financial product when exposed to informational ads and ads with disclosures (transformational ads and ads without disclosures). The authors offer theoretical, managerial and public policy implications.     

An Empirical Investigation into the Importance,Use, and Technicality of Saudi Annual Corporate Information

This study examines the perceptions of the users of annual corporate reports in Saudi Arabia. The focus is on the use, importance, and technicality of the different sources of corporate information contained in Saudi annual reports. Our sample comprises five major user groups, namely individual investors, institutional investors, creditors, government officials, and financial analysts. In comparison with previous research efforts elsewhere around the world, this study found that the balance sheet and the income statement are the most important sections of the annual report to most of the Saudi users’ groups. The board of directors’ report was found to be the least popular. Individual investors were found to place much less importance on the cash flow statement, a finding that is similar to what has been reported in previous literature. Concerning the technicality of the language of Saudi annual corporate information, individual investors indicated that the language of most of the sections of the annual reports is fairly complicated. Although our findings do not indicate a serious problem with the technicality of the language of the report's sections for most of the user groups, a more simplified report would be beneficial to the individual investors.     

Global financial shocks and foreign asset repatriation: Do local investors play a stabilizing role?

We study the dynamic response of gross capital flows in emerging market economies to different global financial shocks, using a panel vector-autoregressive (PVAR) approach. Our focus lies primarily on the potentially stabilizing role played by domestic investors in offsetting the response of foreign investors to adverse global shocks. We find that, while foreign investors tend to retrench from emerging markets in response to global risk aversion and monetary policy shocks, foreign asset repatriation by resident investors does not always follow suit. Local investors play a meaningful stabilizing role in the face of global risk aversion shocks, with sizeable asset repatriation largely offsetting the retrenchment of non-residents. In contrast, foreign investor retrenchment in response to global monetary policy shocks is not mirrored by asset repatriation. Finally, we find robust evidence that positive global real shocks tend to have a positive impact on net capital inflows to emerging markets. Our results shed light on the likely impact of the Fed's QE tapering on capital flows to emerging market economies.     

Taste,information, and asset prices: implications for the valuation of CSR

Firms often undertake activities that do not necessarily increase cash flows (e.g., costly investments in corporate social responsibility or CSR), and some investors value these non cash activities (i.e., they have a “taste” for these activities). We develop a model to capture this phenomenon and focus on the asset-pricing implications of differences in investors’ tastes for firms’ activities and outputs. Our model shows that, first, investor taste differences provide a basis for investor clientele effects that are endogenously determined by the shares demanded by different types of investors. Second, because the market must clear at one price, investors’ demands are influenced by all dimensions of firm output even if their preferences are only over some dimensions. Third, information releases cause trading volume, even when all investors have the same information. Fourth, investor taste provides a rationale for corporate spin-offs that help firms better target their shareholder bases. Finally, individual social responsibility can lead to corporate social responsibility when managers care about stock price because price reacts to investments in CSR activities.     

机构投资者能抑制上市公司商誉减值风险吗？——基于中国A股市场的经验证据

巨额商誉减值风险是资本市场系统性风险的重要诱因之一。本文以2011—2018年中国A股上市公司为样本,检验机构投资者持股对上市公司商誉减值风险的影响。研究发现,机构投资者持股能够显著抑制上市公司计提商誉减值的风险。分类来看,相比非独立机构投资者,以证券投资基金、社保基金及QFII为代表的独立性机构投资者持股对商誉减值风险的抑制作用更显著。机制检验发现,机构投资者通过提供并购前咨询服务和改善公司并购后绩效来抑制商誉减值风险。本文研究揭示了机构投资者发挥了有效的监督治理功能,对防范商誉减值风险具有一定的启示意义。     

Foreign institutional investors,information asymmetries,and asset valuation in emerging markets

This study investigates the effects of information asymmetries and asset valuation model differences (investor heterogeneity) between foreign and domestic investors on their distinct portfolio holdings in an emerging market setting. I argue that information asymmetry and investor heterogeneity views significantly interact in explaining the different asset allocation decisions of foreign and domestic investors. Employing a large dataset from Turkey, the findings suggest that both information asymmetry and investor heterogeneity view play a key role in explaining the investment decisions of different investor groups. Specifically, different from domestic investors, foreign investors are more likely to invest in firms with a higher global market performance which supports the investor heterogeneity view. However, this relationship only holds for firms with high information asymmetries. The difference in valuation models between foreign and domestic investors converge when asymmetric information problems between these investor groups weaken. This study contributes to the international finance literature by providing a new explanation of why foreign and domestic investors invest in different assets.     

Investor response to Morningstar's ratings,category information,and alpha in the Japanese mutual fund market

Mutual fund investors evaluate fund managers' skills before making investment decisions. Previous studies worldwide examined the rationale behind retail investors' investment decisions and found that investors reward performance by net fund flow. A Japanese study found that investors respond to alpha but do not risk factor-related returns. Surprisingly, the result would mean that Japanese investors are more sophisticated than US investors because the literature reported that US investors respond to factor-related returns without distinguishing them from alpha. We explore the background of this result in the Japanese market. This study focuses on the effects of Morningstar's fund ratings, its categories, and salient gross returns, which are readily available to investors unlike alpha. We find the following results: (1) Morningstar's rating does not substitute alpha, indicating that our result differs from the US results. (2) Investors respond only to high category excess returns, but it is a unique effect different from alpha. (3) Salient gross returns do not have a concrete relation with alpha. Moreover, we find solid convex relationships between alpha and fund flows. Investors' responses are limited to a few extreme flows; other than these, they do not respond to alpha. This extreme flow can explain the reactions to alpha on average reported in previous studies. In addition, we find that the category excess return has similar features. The solid convexity reveals that the Japanese mutual fund market is far from sophisticated, consistent with the literature. These results reveal the importance of fund distributors' behavior and information disclosure regulations.     

信息不对称、过度自信与股价变动

信息传导的非同步和投资者情绪变化是股票市场的两个典型特征,前者会引发投资者之间出现信息不对称问题,后者主要体现为投资者过度自信,两者共同作用影响股票价格变动。本文将信息不对称和投资者过度自信情绪置于同一个分析框架,建立两阶段动态序贯定价理论模型研究现实市场上信息传导过程中股价变动的内在机制。结果表明:(1)面临新信息的进入,投资者对股票收益预期的调整与均衡价格之间具有正相关关系;(2)面临有利消息时,过度自信投资者比例越大,股票的均衡价格越高,投资收益将越低;面临不利消息时则相反;(3)随着过度自信投资者比例以及过度自信程度升高,市场风险溢价将下降;(4)投资者群体在信息传导过程中出现分化,对股价变动形成异质信念,未获取信息和获取信息但未出现过度自信的投资者认为股价被高估,获取信息且出现过度自信的投资者认为价格被低估,促使更多的交易,引发市场成交量和股价变动;(5)过度自信投资者比例与过度自信程度提高均会对市场效率产生正向影响,而对市场深度具有负向效应。最后,基于理论结果对非对称性和持续性等典型的市场波动性特征进行解释。     

Trading strategies with partial access to the derivatives market

This research analyzes trading strategies with derivatives when there are several assets and risk factors. We investigate portfolio improvement if investors have full and partial access to the derivatives markets, i.e. situations in which derivatives are written on some but not all stocks or risk factors traded on the market. The focus is on markets with jump risk. In these markets the choice of optimal exposures to jump and diffusion risk is linked. In a numerical application we study the potential benefit from adding derivatives to the market. It turns out that e.g. diffusion correlation and volatility or jump sizes may have a significant impact on the benefit of a new derivative product even if market prices of risk remain unchanged. Given the structure of risk investors may have different preferences for making risk factors tradable. Utility gains provided by new derivatives may be both increasing or decreasing depending on the type of contract added.     

Institutional cross-ownership,heterogeneous incentives,and negative premium mergers

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Cross-owners, investors who have stakes in both the acquiring and target firms, are likely to focus on the total portfolio wealth effects from...     

Learning about beta: Time-varying factor loadings, expected returns, and the conditional CAPM

We amend the conditional CAPM to allow for unobservable long-run changes in risk factor loadings. In this environment, investors rationally “learn” the long-run level of factor loadings from the observation of realized returns. As a consequence of this assumption, we model conditional betas using the Kalman filter. Because of its focus on low-frequency variation in betas, our approach circumvents recent criticisms of the conditional CAPM. When tested on portfolios sorted by size and book-to-market, our learning-augmented conditional CAPM passes the specification tests.     

信任与欺骗:投资者为什么陷入庞氏骗局？——来自e租宝88.9万名投资者的经验证据

庞氏骗局是金融学的重要话题,但是使用大样本数据进行的实证研究较为匮乏。本文首次利用e租宝88.9万名投资者的微观数据研究投资者陷入庞氏骗局的原因,研究表明,信任是使投资者陷入庞氏骗局的重要原因。首先,投资者的投资探索行为使其逐步积累起对平台的信任。本文发现:投资者待回收本金会随着投资笔数的增多而显著增多,即投资者过往投资中得到及时还款等正面反馈而逐步建立起对平台的信任。其次,投资者也会受到朋辈效应的影响。研究发现:随着e租宝平台存续时间延长,投资者待回收本金显著增多所需的投资笔数越来越少,即投资者投资决策会受到朋辈的影响,所以在投资者整体数量变多后,投资者加深了对平台的信任。此外,外部信任背书也是导致投资者陷入庞氏骗局的重要因素。本文发现央视广告当期新增投资者首次投资金额和原有投资者待回收本金都显著增加,即央视广告使投资者相信该平台的可靠性。本文从内部视角研究庞氏骗局投资者的微观投资规律,对后续的研究具有一定的启发意义。     

What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors

This paper investigates behavioral biases among Turkish individual stock investors during 2011. Using transaction data, we analyze how common disposition effect, familiarity bias, representativeness heuristic, and status quo bias are, what factors affect these biases and how these biases relate to each other including overconfidence and return performance. We find that biases are common among investors. Male, younger investors, investors with lower portfolio value, and investors in low income, low education regions exhibit more familiarity bias. Female, older investors and investors with high portfolio values are more subject to disposition effect and representativeness heuristic. Individuals in the opposite edge of overconfidence are subject to status quo bias. Overconfidence is positively correlated with familiarity bias. Representativeness heuristic deteriorates wealth while status quo bias results in higher trade performance. Familiarity bias has a nonmonotonic effect on return; lower (higher) levels of familiarity bias have a negative (positive) effect on return. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the few studies that focus on nationwide data and analyze the biases simultaneously. Using a unique dataset, we extend the findings of the behavioral finance literature to emerging markets. Besides, analysis of multiple biases helps us better understand the relationship among biases.     

Transparency in IPO mechanism: Retail investors’ participation,IPO pricing and returns

Using data from the transparent Indian IPO setting, the paper examines retail investors’ participation, their influence on IPO pricing and the returns they make on IPO investment. The transparency in the mechanism, which allows investors to observe prior investors’ participation, leads to demand which is concentrated at either one or two points of the offer price range. Analysis of investors’ demand during the offer period shows that the participation of retail investors is significantly influenced by the participation of institutional investors. We examine IPO pricing and find that favourable demand by retail investors is positively associated with a high IPO price even after controlling for demand by institutional investors. Further, we find that due to aggressive bidding by overconfident investors, retail investors are, on average, unlikely to make positive allocation weighted initial returns even in a setting where they do not have to compete with institutional investors. Retail investors, however, can earn significant positive allocation weighted initial returns if they limit their participation in IPOs with above average institutional investors’ demand.     

Financial Reporting Quality,Debt Maturity,and the Cost of Debt: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the influence of different financing channels—bond issuance or bank loans—as well as debt maturity and the quality of financial reporting on the cost of debt in China. The authors find that conservative accounting is an important characteristic of high-quality financial reporting that can reduce the cost of longer maturity debt such as bank loans and bonds. Even state-owned enterprises, which have fewer financial constraints than non-state-owned enterprises, benefit from accounting conservatism's ability to reduce financial costs. Moreover, the findings indicate that bond investors are concerned about the issuer's fundamentals, while banks are more likely to focus on the operation and bankruptcy risk of borrowers.     

Underwriter reputation and the quality of certification: Evidence from high-yield bonds

This paper provides primary evidence of whether certification via reputable underwriters is beneficial to investors in the corporate bond market. We focus on the high-yield bond market in which certification of issuer quality is most valuable to investors owing to low liquidity and issuing firms’ high opacity and default risk. We find bonds underwritten by the most reputable underwriters to be associated with significantly higher downgrade and default risk. Investors seem to be aware of this relation, as we further find the private information conveyed via the issuer-reputable underwriter match to have a significantly positive effect on at-issue yield spreads. Our results are consistent with the market-power hypothesis, and contradict the traditional certification hypothesis and underlying reputation mechanism.     

Crossborder dividend taxation and the preferences of taxable and nontaxable investors: Evidence from Canada

We consider how fund managers respond to the conflicting preferences of their investors. We focus on the conflict between the taxable and retirement accounts of international funds, which face different tradeoffs between dividends and capital gains. In principle, managers could resolve this conflict through dividend arbitrage, but a proprietary database of dividend-arbitrage transactions shows that in practice they cannot. Thus, managers must resolve it through their investment policies. We find robust evidence that managers with more retirement money favor the preferences of retirement investors and further evidence for this view in the difference between U.S. and Canadian funds’ portfolio weights.