ON THE PREDICTABILITY OF GROWTH IN EARNINGS PER SHARE

Arguments are given to support the hypothesis that corporate earnings per share are predictable by simple forecasting models. If income numbers have predictable properties, growth is predictable and theories of corporate valuation become more credible. Notions that EPS growth are completely unpredictable are disputed.     

SOME TIME SERIES PROPERTIES OF CORPORATE EARNINGS IN NEW ZEALAND: A NOTE

This study examines some time series properties of earnings and returns on shareholders' equity for a sample of 110 New Zealand firms. The results show that successive changes in these time series are independent and that they can be modelled by a random walk process.     

EFFECT OF MERGERS ON THE SHARE PRICE MOVEMENT OF THE ACQUIRING FIRMS: A UK STUDY

The profitability of mergers in Britain has not received the same attention as in the USA. This study examines mergers for the UK industrial sector as a whole for a period (1974–76) when merger activity was relatively slack. A standard methodology is used, but the size effects and the activeness of acquirors as well as the financing of the acquisition are examined. The conclusions contradict to some extent those found by other researchers in that the evidence was inconsis- tent with the Efficient Markets Hypothesis. The effect of taking firm size into account was found to reduce the standard deviations of the sample and it would appear that the cash mergers were viewed as less desirable by the market com- pared to equity exchange. For the separation of merger activehon active firms it was found that there was less dispersion of the residuals for non-merger active firms.