The Diversification Puzzle: Revisiting the Value Impact of Diversification for UK Firms

Abstract:  The literature on value impact of diversification decisions has focused on US firms and has examined industrial rather than geographic diversification . This study exploits the Lang and Stulz (1994) , Berger and Ofek (1995) and Bodnar et al. (1999) methodologies and controls for form of diversification in assessing value impact for a sample of UK firms, for the period 1996-2000. Using an adjusted value metric that controls for industry effects, we report a significant and perverse geographic discount of 14%, and no systematic industrial value impact, suggesting that sector characteristics may be a significant driver of diversification choice for UK firms.     

Exploring Portfolio Diversification Opportunities Through Venture Capital Financing: Evidence from MGARCH-DCC,Markov Switching,and Wavelet Approaches

Islamic financial institutions are being pressurized by critics to offer profit and loss sharing (PLS) financing, such as venture capital (VC) financing, for the purpose of entrepreneurial development aligned to the principle of equity risk sharing. Our study aims to link PLS investments with portfolio optimization opportunities for the Islamic asset managers. Using portfolio analysis with dynamic conditional correlation, Markov switching, and maximal overlap discrete wavelet transformation, our findings tend to indicate that there is indeed a portfolio optimization opportunity in investment universe for the fund managers who invested in PLS investments in the context of VC asset class over the long run.     

Direct Evidence of Non-trading on the London Stock Exchange

The extent of non-trading is shown to be much greater in the UK than in the more heavily researched US equity markets. Over the period 1975 to 1995 we find that almost 44% of all stocks in our sample failed to trade on the last day of a given month, a figure which is significantly higher than for stocks in the US (see Foerster and Keim, 1993). In this paper we investigate the relationship between the non-trading of UK stocks and the autoregressive and seasonal behaviour of UK stock returns. In addition, we find that stocks are much more likely to be recorded as not having traded on the last day of the month in the period prior to April 1981 than after this date. We trace this result to a reporting requirement change on the London Stock Exchange and investigate whether the change has any real implications for systematic risk estimates over this period. We also find that alternative methods for calculating betas, in the presence of thin trading, are very sensitive to stock size and to non-trading.     

The Effect of Investor Sentiment on Feedback Trading and Trading Frequency: Evidence from Taiwan Intraday Data

Abstract

Although extensive literature has suggested that investor sentiment may be one of the most important factors in explaining investor trading frequency and trading strategies, how individual investors are significantly influenced by sentiment remains underexplored. The feature of numerous individual investors in the Taiwan stock market provides an avenue to examine the relationship of investor sentiment to trading frequency and positive-feedback trading according to intraday data. Using a vector autoregression model to measure feedback trading in one-minute intervals, we find that trading frequency appears to increase in periods of rising market, suggesting that investor sentiment–driven trading increases market trading frequency without relying on past experiences to conduct trading behavior.     

Market Efficiency and Returns to Simple Technical Trading Rules: Further Evidence from U.S., U.K., Asian and Chinese Stock Markets

Tian, Wan and Guo (2002) explored the predictability and profitability of technical trading rules in markets with different efficiency levels; namely, the U.S. and China. In the case of the U.S. they found rules to have no predictability after 1975, whereas their results give support to technical trading rules having both predictability and profitability for the Chinese markets across the 1990's. The purpose of this paper is to extend the analysis of Tian et al. in two ways. First, to see if the conclusions extend to other markets – namely, the U.K., Hong Kong and Japan. Second, in the case of China, to examine whether the predictability and profitability of technical trading rules changed across the 1990's. On the basis of daily data Tian et al's results for the U.S. market are supported by the results for a number of the main developed markets where the technical trading rules had predictive ability during the 1970's that disappeared by the 1990's. Furthermore, the results suggest that while technical trading rules had short term predictive ability and profitability in the Chinese stock markets during the 1990's, this lessened as the decade progressed. JEL Classification: G14, G15     

The Impact of Information Release on Stock Price Volatility and Trading Volume: The Rights Offering Case

This paper examines whether information released via rights offering announcements induces changes in price volatility and trading volume of underlying stock. The results of this paper provide support for the release of new information via offering announcements and evidence of its effects on price volatility and volume of underlying stock. Specifically, utilization of the announced information by investors is evidenced by greater trading volume following the announcement date than during the pre-announcement period. We interpret this result to mean that informedness dominates consensus. However, stock price volatility decreased from the pre-announcement period to the post-expiration period of rights offerings.     

The Impact of Universal Stock Futures on Feedback Trading and Volatility Dynamics

Abstract:  This paper investigates the impact of the introduction of Universal Stock Futures (USFs) on underlying market dynamics (volatility and the level of feedback trading). Analysis of USFs provides a number of advantages compared to investigation of index futures, leading to reliable and wider ranging insights into the impact of derivatives. Specifically: (i) any impact of derivatives is more likely to be evident in the behaviour of individual stocks; (ii) with USFs it is possible to directly trade the underlying; (iii) USFs have multiple introduction dates within a given market; (iv) differential country/industry effects can be identified; and (v) the endogeneity issue can be addressed using control stocks. Findings suggest limited feedback trading in USF stocks, but listing has reduced this further. While news has less impact and persistence and asymmetry effects are more evident post-futures, control stock results suggest these changes are not futures induced. Differences are evident across industries. The need for analysis of an appropriate (industry based) control sample is highlighted if reliable policy conclusions are to be reached.     

Design and Implementation of Return on Capital Employed Performance Indicators Within a Trading Regime: The Case of Executive Agencies

The financial regime under which trading executive agencies operate implies that return on capital employed (ROCE) is used to indicate that revenues meet but do not exceed costs, including the cost of capital; that is, that there is neither cross-subsidisation nor hidden taxation. This paper develops a model for measuring ROCE derived from this objective. It argues that users of ROCE indicators are likely to lack financial sophistication and to want to compare performance between entities, so that indicators should be clear, readily understandable and comparable. The range of measurement and presentation methods used in practice undermines clarity and comparability and some methods are inconsistent with the model. Performance is sometimes characterised as meeting the target when this is problematic. The paper also examines outturn performance and finds some very substantial excess returns, implying hidden taxation.     

Bank Portfolio Allocation: The Impact of Capital Requirements, Regulatory Monitoring, and Economic Conditions

This paper develops a structural, dynamic model of a banking firm to analyze how banks adjust their loan portfolios over time. In the model, banks experience capital shocks, face uncertain future loan demand, and incur costs based on their proximity to regulatory minimum capital requirements and the intensity of regulatory monitoring. Implications of the model then are estimated using panel data on large U.S. commercial banks operating continuously between December 1989 and December 1997. The estimated model is used to simulate the optimal bank response to (1) past and proposed changes in capital requirements, (2) changes in regulatory monitoring intensity, and (3) economic downturns. The simulation results are used to shed light on the decline in loan growth and the rise in bank capital ratios witnessed over a decade ago as well as the possible impact of the current proposed modification to capital requirements.     

Monthly Pattern and Portfolio Effect on Higher Moments of Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence from Hong Kong

Using a direct test, this paper studies the month-of-the-year effect on the higher moments of six industrial stock indices of the Hong Kong market. We also examine the portfolio effect on skewness and kurtosis across month of the year to see if such an anomaly exists. The empirical results support a weak month-of-the-year effect in higher moments of stock returns. Using a complete sample of all possible combinations for each portfolio size, we show that portfolio effect varies across month of the year for both skewness and kurtosis. In particular, our results show that diversification does not necessarily provide benefits to rational investors when the stock return distribution is non-normal, even though portfolio formation can reduce standard deviation. In June, August and October, diversification across industrial sectors results in a more negatively skewed and leptokurtic return distribution, which is not preferred by investors with risk-aversion. Two (one) possible explanations for the portfolio effect on skewness (kurtosis) are also provided. Our empirical results add new evidence to the existence of anomalies in the Hong Kong stock market. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Governance Effect of the Media's News Dissemination Role: Evidence from Insider Trading

We investigate whether the media plays a role in corporate governance by disseminating news. Using a comprehensive data set of corporate and insider news coverage for the 2001–2012 period, we show that the media reduces insiders’ future trading profits by disseminating news on prior insiders’ trades available from regulatory filings. We find support for three economic mechanisms underlying the disciplining effect of news dissemination: the reduction of information asymmetry, concerns regarding litigation risk, and the impact on insiders’ personal wealth and reputation. Our findings provide new insights into the real effect of news dissemination.     

The incremental information content of non-US GAAP earnings disclosures: Evidence from UK firms

This paper examines price and trading volume responses in the US equity market to the preliminary earnings announcements (PEAs) in the UK of UK firms listed on US exchanges (e.g., NYSE and AMEX). The inquiry focuses on whether the return forecast error (absolute and squared values) and volume residual (standardized and unstandardized) for each day were significantly different from the average on the day of the earnings announcements (PEA). The most significantly unexpected return occurred the day prior to the Financial Times (FT) announcement. The results suggest prompt volume and price responses to the UK PEAs in the US security market. Excess trading volume occurred the day prior to and the day of the FT release price response occurred on the day subsequent to the PEAs. This may suggests that investors possess differential prior beliefs or likelihood functions in evaluating public disclosure. Consistent with Frost and Pownall [Frost, C., & Pownall, G. (1996), Interdependencies in the global markets for capital and information: The case of Smithkline Beecham plc. Accounting Horizons, 1, 38-57], US investors seem not to be confused by US/UK generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) differences, and in fact use information about UK GAAP earnings in their valuations and trading decisions. This implies that traders correctly use UK accounting output to the determination of values in setting security prices and arriving at trading decisions. Broadly, these findings support the assumption that disclosures by UK-listed firms in their domestic market influence share liquidity and trading in the US market.     

The Articulation of Returns and Accounting-Related Variables when Returns Lead Earnings: UK Evidence

This paper constructs a simple setting in which economic returns always lead accounting earnings. It then uses this setting to explore analytically the likely effect of 'returns leading earnings' on the properties of the market-to-book ratio, accounting profitability, the price-earnings ratio and profitability persistence. The analysis predicts that 'returns leading earnings' will tend to drive up the level of each of the three accounting-related ratios and will generate certain patterns of association between those ratios. Analysis of data from a sample of UK companies supports many of the predictions.     

The Impact of Firm-Specific Public News on Intraday Market Dynamics: Evidence from the Turkish Stock Market

This study attempts to discover the intraday firm-specific news announcements and return volatility relation in the Turkish stock market. The GARCH framework is utilized to investigate the impact of firm-specific public news announcements on volatility persistence with and without trading volume. For the majority of the stocks in the sample, the volatility persistence diminishes with the inclusion of firm-specific news, implying that news is impounded rapidly into prices. This effect is more pronounced for larger stocks. When there is no news, the trading volume does not appear to reduce the volatility persistence for the majority of stocks, possibly due to the presence of private information possessed by informed traders.     

The effects of activity and geographic diversification on performance: Evidence from French financial institutions

Our paper studies the impact of activity and geographic diversification on financial institution's performance. These diversification strategies are complementary in generating performance and may provide important implications. Moreover, we investigate the interaction between these two strategies. Our dataset comprises 4532 years observations over the period of 2002 to 2012 and covers 412 French financial institutions. We find a negative relationship between diversification and performance. However, this relationship is significantly positive when institutions implement a dual diversification strategy. In this paper, we propose a classification of French financial institutions. For generalists’ banks and cooperative banks, we find similar results to those of the entire sample. Furthermore, for specialized financial institutions, the relationship is positive and significant. Our findings are robust to the potential endogeneity problem and to measures of diversification and performance.     

A Comparative International Analysis of the Impact of Accounting Principles on Profits: The USA versus the UK,Sweden and The Netherlands

This paper explores the extent to which there are material quantitative differences in profits reported under US GAAP compared to profits reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands. From an analysis of Form 20-F reports filed with the SEC in the USA, there is support for the hypothesis that UK GAAP are significantly less conservative than US GAAP. On the basis of a case study approach, it seems that Swedish GAAP tend to be more conservative than US GAAP, particularly when the transfers to reserves are analysed, but there is insufficient evidence to establish a systematic pattern. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that Dutch GAAP are at the less conservative end of the spectrum of financial reporting measurement practices, in a position relatively similar to that of UK GAAP, although again the evidence is insufficient to establish a systematic pattern.     

The Performance of the Foreign‐Owned Sector of UK Manufacturing: Some Evidence and Implications for UK Inward Investment Policy

This paper analyses the reported performance of foreign‐owned manufacturing subsidiaries in the UK between 1994 and 1998. The paper is set in the context of uncertainty about the performance of some foreign‐owned sectors of UK manufacturing and the implications of this performance for the beneficial spillover effects sought by policy‐makers from foreign‐owned capital. Japanese‐owned subsidiaries are the focus of particular attention, with reported profits and tax liabilities significantly below those of subsidiaries from other national sources. The wider ramifications of this finding are analysed for the UK case, particularly in terms of the need to take into account the wider exchequer effects of inward investment in the general evaluation of the financial assistance provided to foreign firms.     

内幕交易实时监控系统的构建——基于GARJI模型的实证研究

从信息抵达和动态跳跃特征的角度研究内幕交易的事中监管,构建了基于GAR JI模型的实时监控系统。从兼顾漏报和错报率的角度出发,提出了两档基于异常信息抵达概率和股价涨跌幅的内幕交易预警标准,保证了预警的功效。针对案例股票的模拟监控实验表明,该系统效果良好,适用于当前股市。     

To Trade or Not to Trade: The Effect of Broker Search and Discretionary Trading on Securities Market Performance

In this article we examine the interaction of brokerage search with the Bayesian learning behavior of competitive dealers under asymmetric information. We particularly focus on the effects of price search and discretionary trading on the performance of a dealer market. A search process is incorporated into a model in which brokers determine their reservation price and whether to continue their trades. The model enables us to uncover the interrelationships among search cost, bid‐ask spread, and price volatility. We show that both spread revision and price volatility are dependent upon the optimal search process, inventory fluctuation, and search cost. Furthermore, our model predicts a negative relationship between price volatility and liquidity trading volume.