Advertising and Investor Recognition of Banking Firms: Evidence from Taiwan

This study examines the effect of advertising expenditure on strengthening a firm’s intangible capital and firm value by attracting the public on the firm’s visibility and then investigates the role of advertising expenditures on a banking firm’s market value, liquidity, and breadth of ownership. The empirical results find that the advertising has a significantly positive effect on banking firm’s share value, liquidity, and institutional holdings. Consequently, this study concludes that advertising benefits banking firms through increased investor perceptions of such firms. In particular, the findings provide additional support for the home bias phenomena, in which investors prefer to invest in familiar stocks.     

Investor Conferences,Firm Visibility,and Stock Liquidity

We examine the influence of investor conferences on firms’ stock liquidity. We find that firms participating in conferences experience a 1.4% to 2.8% increase in stock liquidity compared to nonconference firms. Consistent with investor conferences improving firm visibility, the increase in liquidity is larger for firms with low pre‐conference visibility and varies predictably with conference characteristics that affect the ability of investors to revise their beliefs about the firm. However, for firms with a large investor base and high visibility, conference participation is associated with a decline in stock liquidity, consistent with investor conferences exacerbating the information asymmetry among investors.     

股票市场投资者结构国际比较研究

本文梳理了A股市场与相关国家(地区)股市投资者结构的现状,探讨这些市场投资者结构的演变路径、以及促成这种演变的主要因素。基于境外主要市场投资者结构演变及政策措施的经验教训,本文提出改进A股市场相关制度的六点政策建议:第一,从更宏观的政策层面入手,改进上市公司结构,增厚上市公司利润,以增进A股市场的长期投资价值;第二,着力培育和鼓励大体量资金机构进入股市;第三,有必要继续扩大海外合格机构投资者资金规模;第四,完善金融产品供应,适当放宽交易规则约束,使机构投资者有更多工具和交易方式参与市场交易;第五,在个人投资者方面,监管部门需要适度转变监管理念,进而改进相关交易规则,鼓励个人投资者以合理方式理性参与股市;第六,创新税收激励机制,合理引导个人投资者。     

Positive Feedback Trading and Investor Sentiment

This article examines how investor sentiment affects positive feedback trading behavior. By analyzing the daily closing total return of CSI 300 index and its individual returns of stocks, we find that relatively high or low sentiment induces active positive feedback trading. With a specific indicator of sentiment, we explain the microstructure setting of the relationship between positive feedback trading and sentiment. We adopt the classical feedback model from Sentana and Wadhwani (1992) to measure positive feedback trading behavior. By adding sentiment factor to the model, we successfully explain how sentiment influences the behavior of both feedback traders and rational investors. The empirical findings suggest that positive feedback traders are more likely to trade when the prices of most securities move forward together. When the sentiment of feedback traders is at an intermediate level, the feedback trading behavior is insignificant.     

投资者情绪与中国股票市场过度波动

本文分析中国投资者分类情绪及信心变化与中国股票市场波动的同期及动态影响。实证结果表明:就同期而言,中国投资者对国内经济基本面的信心变化以及中国股票市场波动,将影响投资者对国际经济金融环境的信心;就中长期而言,中国投资者情绪中关于国内经济基本面和国内经济政策的信心变化是影响中国股票市场过度波动的重要原因;中国投资者关于国际经济金融环境的信心深受国内经济基本面的信心变化的影响,中国投资者对A股市场估值的判断,受投资者对A股市场的股票估值信心以及国内经济基本面信心变化影响较大。     

Investor Trading Behavior and Sentiment in Futures Markets

This study investigates the effects of investor trading behavior and investor sentiment on futures market return. We find that the spot investor trading behavior, futures investor trading behavior, spot market sentiment, and futures market sentiment all have positive effects on daily futures returns in Chinese financial market. More importantly, we show that the effect of (spot) futures investor trading behavior has better explanatory power than (spot) futures market sentiment on futures returns. Further supporting our results, high investor trading behavior and high investor sentiment strengthen the positive relation between sentiment-returns and behavior-returns.     

标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度：一个概念性分析框架

基于在标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度之间做出的区分,本文提出了一个概念性分析框架,并对国有股权的制度安排在中国股票市场发展中的作用进行了初步的解释。标准的投资者保护制度——市场、法律和管制——固然重要,但是对于转轨国家而言,由于缺乏支撑标准的投资者保护制度运转的制度资源,利用替代性的投资者保护制度对于股票市场的早期发展就是至关重要的。     

Impact of liquidity on stock returns: an empirical investigation of the Tunisian stock market

This paper investigates the return–liquidity relationship on one Middle East and North Africa frontier market, the Tunisian Stock Exchange (TSE). The findings provide evidence that there is a significant and positive premium for companies with high price impact and low trading frequency. However, Tunisian investors appreciate more low spread stocks. We show, also, a non-linear relation between potential delays of execution and stock returns. In addition, we find that Tunisian investors require a premium to compensate past cumulative illiquidity risk (high price impact, low turnover and high potential delay of execution) over the prior three to 12 months and to compensate past cumulative spread over 12 months. We point out also that these effects are seasonal.     

海外投资者保护基金制度及借鉴

保护投资者尤其是保护中小投资者,是证券市场监管的核心内容,也是证券市场健康运行的基础.国际上,证券投资者保护机制已经有30多年的运行经验,很多方面值得我们借鉴.本文从法律框架、组织模式、资金来源、赔偿机制、运作情况等方面,对国际上主要国家和地区的证券投资者保护基金制度进行了比较,并结合我国证券市场特征,对我国证券投资者保护制度的建立和完善提出若干建议.     

Primacy in stock market participation: the effect of initial returns on market re-entry decisions

We examine whether initial returns influence investors’ decisions to return to the stock market following withdrawal. Using a survival analysis technique to estimate Finnish retail investors’ likelihood of stock market re-entry reveals that investors who experience lower initial returns are less likely to return, even after controlling for returns in the last month and average monthly returns for the duration of investing. This primacy effect is robust to accounting for endogeneity in investors’ exit decisions, and other behavioural biases such as recency and saliency of investment experience. Individual investors appear to be subject to primacy bias and tend to put a significant weight on initial experiences in re-entry decisions.     

Gas storage valuation under limited market liquidity: an application in Germany

Natural gas storages may be valued by applying real options theory. However, it is crucial to take into account that most evolving gas markets, like the German spot market, lack liquidity. This implies that large-scale operation of storages reduces the achievable operating margin since storage operators will pay higher prices for injected gas and earn less on withdrawn gas. Optimal storage operation will take this into account. In this context, considering storage operators as price takers does not account for interdependencies of storage operations and market prices. This paper offers a novel approach to storage valuation taking into account the effect of management decisions on market prices. The methodology proposed within this paper determines the optimal production schedule and value by determining the stochastic differential equation describing the storage value and then applying a finite difference scheme. We find that limited liquidity lowers the storage value and reduces withdrawal and injection amounts. Further, we observe decreasing reservation prices for injection and withdrawing for growing illiquidity resulting in a left shift of injection and withdrawing threshold prices.     

Investor Sentiment and Stock Returns: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates the relation between investor sentiment and stock returns on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, employing vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis and Granger causality tests. The sample period extends from July 1997 to June 2005. In the VAR models, stock portfolio returns and investor sentiment proxies are used as endogenous variables. Two dummy variables accounting for natural and economic crises are used as exogenous variables. The analysis results suggest that, excepting shares of equity issues in aggregate issues, stock portfolio returns seem to affect all investor sentiment proxies, namely closed-end fund discount, mutual fund flows, odd-lot sales-to-purchases ratio, and repo holdings of mutual funds. Investor sentiment does not appear to forecast future stock returns; only the turnover ratio of the stock market seems to have forecasting potential.     

Investor Familiarity and Home Bias: Japanese Evidence

We examine how foreign and domestic portfolio investors, both classified into money managers, invest in Japanese firms over the sample period of 1985–1998. We propose the agency-familiarity hypothesis to explain investment behavior of these institutional investors focusing on the two firm-level variables: market capitalization and export ratios. Both types of institutional investors over-invest in familiar firms measured in firm size while each shows opposite preference patterns with respect to the export ratios. The foreign investors become more export-firm oriented in the second-half sample and the domestic orientation of the domestic institutional investors becomes statistically significant during the same second-half. Because of the location difference of their client investors, the compositions of familiar firms are different between these two types with respect to the firm’s export activities. Home bias at the firm level in terms of the sensitivity to the export ratio is evident for both types of investors, especially, in more recent years, although equity home bias at the country level has been gradually mitigated. Based on these macro- and micro-level results, we conclude that the investment behavior of money managers is more consistent with the agency-familiarity explanation than the information-based explanation regardless of their nationalities.     

Liquidity and information asymmetry considerations in corporate takeovers

ABSTRACT

We examine how stock market liquidity and information asymmetry considerations influence the wealth effects of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). We present a simple model predicting that M&As of listed targets that have relatively illiquid stocks are profitable for acquirers due to (a) the weak bargaining power of the targets’ shareholders, and (b) the limited information asymmetry concerns when evaluating takeover synergies. Our results show that cash-financed M&As of listed targets that have relatively illiquid stocks are associated with an increase in acquirer risk-adjusted returns. These gains are equivalent to those realized from comparable private target M&As. When engaging in stock-financed listed-target M&As, acquirers with liquid stocks enjoy significant gains when the targets have relatively illiquid stocks. This result holds especially when the deal is announced during periods of deterioration in the overall stock market liquidity. Lastly, we find that liquidity considerations affect the acquirer’s choice of the target firm’s listing status, as well as the M&A method of payment.     

Executive risk incentives,product market competition,and R&D

Prior studies have examined the relation between product market competition (PMC) and research and development (R&D) investments, while the impact of executive risk incentives on this relation remains unexplored. In this study, we find that Vega (the sensitivity of executives’ wealth to stock return volatility) weakens the negative relation between PMC and R&D. We also find that Vega strengthens the negative relation between PMC and firm performance when R&D investments grow higher. In sum, our results suggest that high‐Vega compensation portfolios in competitive environments may induce executives to overinvest in R&D projects, therefore hurting firm performance.     

Do measurement-related fair value disclosures affect information asymmetry?

Using a sample of European real estate firms over the 2007–2010 period, this study provides some evidence that measurement-related fair value disclosures reduce information asymmetry. We find a negative association between the extent of fair value disclosures and the bid-ask spread, but no association with two additional measures of information asymmetry (zero returns and price impact). Contrary to our expectation, we fail to find evidence that firms using model estimates exclusively benefit the most from such additional disclosure. Analysing measurement errors (the absolute difference between the selling price of an asset and its fair value prior to sale), we find that firms that use model estimates exclusively and provide more measurement-related disclosures have lower errors and more accurate fair value estimates. In other words, if our lack of results is due to investors not using this additional disclosure this is to their detriment.     

Advertising,investor attention,and stock prices: Evidence from a natural experiment

I test whether advertising affects stock prices through an investor attention channel. I use corporate sponsorships of college football bowl games as a natural experiment that provides variation in advertising exposure that is unrelated to firm fundamentals. Sponsoring firms' stocks experience large increases in investor attention, abnormally high turnover, and temporary price pressure that is related to bowl games' TV‐ratings and score differentials. Retail investors are net buyers of sponsors' stocks, whereas institutional investors initially remain neutral and then start selling, ultimately driving a reversal toward fundamental values. These findings shed light on who wins/loses when advertising attracts investor attention.