| Abstract: | Previous studies on the announcement effect of seasoned equity offerings document an average two-day common stock abnormal return of approximately −3%. The overall results from these studies suggest that capital structure hypothesis, information hypothesis, and/or price-pressure hypothesis offers a potential explanation for the abnormal reaction around the announcement date. This paper controls for capital structure related effects by examining the announcement effect of seasoned equity offerings made by all-equity firms. Our results show that the average two-day common stock abnormal return is −0.82% (significant at 5% level). This result suggests that capital structure related effects constitute a major portion of the announcement effect of seasoned equity offerings studied in the previous literature. Furthermore, the negative abnormal returns following equity issues cannot be attributed entirely to capital structure related effects. Our cross-sectional tests indicate that the information hypothesis is significant in explaining the abnormal reaction. While our results do not support the price-pressure hypothesis, we find that the negative reaction around the announcement date is significantly mitigated if a firm has issued stock more frequently during our sample period. |
