The economic profitability of pre-IPO earnings management and IPO underperformance

The purpose of this paper is to test the market performance of a zero-investment trading strategy based on the knowledge of IPO underperformance and estimates of pre-IPO earnings management. This trading strategy is implemented by forming two-firm portfolios that take short positions in the IPOs and long positions in control firms matched by industry and market capitalization. The first test shows that significant positive abnormal returns can be earned trading on the knowledge of IPO underperformance. However, the relationship between the level of abnormal returns and the level of pre-IPO earnings management is not found to be significant. Overall, our results suggest that existent pre-IPO earnings management plays important roles although investors may not sophisticated enough to measure the level of earnings management.     

创业投资声誉、创业板IPOs初始收益和长期业绩

以我国创业板市场IPOs为样本,引入创业投资声誉对IPO折抑价理论模型进行修正,采用多元回归和两阶段回归方法,实证检验创业投资声誉与创业板IPOs初始收益和长期业绩之间的关系后发现:我国创业板市场中创业投资核证监督作用微弱;创业投资声誉对IPOs初始收益无显著影响;创业投资声誉对IPO后企业长期业绩有显著正效应。本文的研究结论对创投声誉下的创业板发行制度建设有积极作用。     

Credit ratings and long-term IPO performance

We examine the impact of credit ratings on long-term IPO pricing. Our findings suggest that the provision of credit ratings prior to IPO reduces information asymmetry and improves market efficiency. The increase in disclosure through credit ratings can reduce information risk and price discounts. IPOs with (without) credit ratings are less (more) underpriced and more positively (negatively) perceived by outside investors. The market reactions for rated IPOs are more immediate and more complete (as the result of improved transparency), while long-term performance is insignificant when information asymmetry is reduced.     

Factors affecting secondary share offerings in the IPO process

We investigate whether the sale of secondary shares in the IPO process is affected by an issuing firm's market-timing and window-dressing activities. We find that secondary share offerings in IPOs exhibit positive autocorrelation, and the positive autocorrelation is mainly affected by the overall stock market return. Similar to the IPO wave, this finding suggests that favorable market conditions attract existing pre-IPO shareholders to sell their shares in IPOs and cause the clustering of secondary share offering in IPOs. In addition, we find that window dressing has a significant effect on both the probability of secondary share offering and the proportion of secondary shares offered in an IPO. The result is robust after controlling for firm age, industry affiliation, and other factors. Our result also indicates that the number of firms offering secondary shares in IPOs, the probability of secondary share offerings, and the proportion of secondary shares offered in IPOs are significantly lower in the Internet bubble period.     

Retail investors’ trading and stock market liquidity

The paper investigates the relation between retail investors’ participation in trading and aggregate stock market liquidity. The findings show a positive and significant relation between retail investors’ trading and stock market liquidity. Examination of the determinants of retail investors’ trading reveals that, on average, retail investors with more diversified trading activity tend to trade when liquidity is higher, the frequency of their arrival to the market is not affected by the level of liquidity, and retail investors are willing to trade at a lower liquidity level as sellers than as buyers. Moreover, retail investors’ trading does not create price noise at the aggregate market level. Overall, the evidence suggests that retail investors contribute to market quality.     

Foreign equity flows: Boon or bane to the liquidity of Malaysian stock market?

This paper examines the impact of gross foreign equity inflows on aggregate liquidity of the Malaysian stock market using newly assembled foreign trading data and the best performing bid-ask spread proxy. Employing vector autoregression, we discover a one-way causality from gross inflows to aggregate liquidity, and foreign investors erode liquidity of the Malaysian stock market. Additional analyses reveal that uncertainties in the U.S. markets negatively affect aggregate liquidity through the flows of foreign institutions, whose positive feedback trading destabilizes the local bourse. Despite the shocks, there is sufficient liquidity provision from local state-backed institutional funds and local proprietary day traders.     

Institutional investors’ ownership stability and their investee firms’ equity mispricing

This study examines the impact of institutional investors' equity ownership stability and their investment horizon to determine the impact on their investee firms' equity mispricing. Mispricing represents the difference between a firm’s market and fundamental values. We treat institutional investors as a heterogenous group, i.e., dedicated, transient, or quasi-indexer as defined by Bushee, 1998, Bushee, 2001 since their categorization determines their trading strategy. Higher institutional ownership, higher stability in institutional investors' equity ownership, and institutional investors classified as long-term are all associated with lower equity mispricing at investee firms.     

Accruals quality,information risk,and institutional investors’ trading behavior: Evidence from the Korean stock market

This study analyzes the effect of firm-specific information risk, measured by accruals quality, on the cost of capital using institutional investors’ trading behavior. Institutional investors in firms with lower accruals quality increase their net selling in later years. Furthermore, these investors’ net selling is relevant to the innate and discretionary factors of accruals quality. This relationship is stronger for foreign institutions than for domestic institutions, and it is mostly observed under favorable macroeconomic conditions. We do not observe this relationship for large business groups connected by shares.     

Donating Money to Get Money: The Role of Corporate Philanthropy in Stakeholder Reactions to IPOs

This study examines how stakeholders' investment time horizons interact with information about corporate giving in initial public offering (IPO) firms. Specifically, we build a model that explains how corporate philanthropy affects IPO performance. We find that at the IPO‐preparation stage, corporate giving is negatively related to underwriter prestige, venture capital investment, and IPO financing costs. We also find that at the IPO‐issuance stage, negative media coverage of IPOs moderates the U‐shaped relationship between corporate giving and market premiums. At the IPO‐trading stage, we find that corporate giving only positively influences the market premiums for IPO firms that are the subject of negative media reports. Our findings contribute to the signalling theory by showing how various stakeholders interpret the same signals differently, and they have implications for understanding how the relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate financial performance materializes in the IPO markets.     

The day of the week effect in IPO initial returns

Monday IPOs occur infrequently and have higher mean initial returns than those issued on other days. The latter result is not a product of outliers or penny stocks and remains after controlling for factors related to IPO underpricing. The Monday effect is generally robust across time, but during 1995–2003 is present only in IPOs with their first reported trade on their offer date. Volume patterns suggest Monday IPOs come to market later in the day, which has been linked to higher initial returns. We argue that the observed patterns are consistent with the incentives of underwriters and investors.     

Institutional investors' attention to environmental information,trading strategies,and market impacts: Evidence from China

Using a large proprietary database of intraday high‐frequency trading, we investigate the trading strategies of institutional investors in dealing with the negative environmental event disclosure of listed companies and their impact on markets, aiming to reveal the mechanism of the lack of “green efficiency” in China's capital market from the perspective of institutional investors. The results show that institutional investors react to negative environmental events prior to the announcements, indicating premature information leakage in the market; in addition, their trading behaviors mitigate the immediate effect of negative environmental event announcements on stock price. After the event is disclosed, institutional investors engage in short‐term selling and long‐term buy and hold. This trading strategy undermines the irrational selling of individual investors in the event of disclosure, short‐term decline in stock price, and long‐term reversal of market overreaction. In a China context, institutional investors generally take environmental information into consideration. However, they fail to recognize the long‐term value effect of negative environmental events and instead cater to trading strategies towards market volatility.     

Long-term industry performance following IPOs

While firms are more likely to go public when the corresponding industry prospects are favorable, they may also serve as formidable threats to pull market share from the industry. In addition, if IPOs are timed when industry valuations are unusually high, there may be an aftermarket correction in the industry. We find that the corresponding industry rival portfolios experience unfavorable price performance on average over the 36-month period following an IPO. The dispersion in long-term industry effects following the IPOs can be partially explained by competitive effects and the timing of the IPO. The adverse industry effects are more pronounced when the IPOs are small, and when the IPO is the first in the industry within the last 2 years. Furthermore, the adverse industry effects are more pronounced when the IPOs are in regulated industries, and when prevailing industry multiples are relatively high at the time of the IPO. Overall, these characteristics document the influence of competitive effects and timing signals on industry effects associated with IPOs.     

Early internet IPOs versus subsequent entrants

This paper examines whether investors in early Internet IPOs earned superior returns to those who invested in later entrants. We document three differences between early public firms in a new Internet technology and their followers: underpricing, operating characteristics at the IPO, and stock price performance after the IPO. We find that there is value in going public relatively early in a new Internet technology. Specifically, long-term returns are significantly higher for the early entrants. We also find evidence, consistent with previous studies that examine hot IPO markets, that the early public firms have better operating characteristics at the IPO than later entrants.     

询价制IPO初始收益率实证研究

文章通过构建模型,揭示了询价制下影响我国IPO初始收益率的因素主要有发行时机、流通股比例、净资产收益率和中签率,而行业和发行后每股收益对抑价率的影响并不明显;指出股票供给严重不足和投资者不成熟是造成询价制下IPO高抑价的主要原因,并提出了相应的改进建议。     

双重上市股票更有投资价值吗？——基于H+A股与A股的对比分析…朱宏泉，应潇潇

通过对比先在H股上市、后回到A股上市的股票（简记为H+A股）与仅在A股上市的股票上市首日收益率、上市后短期和长期收益的差异,探讨两类股票的投资价值。结果显示：相较于A股股票,H+A股上市首日收益更高,但上市后的短期收益和长期收益更低。究其原因,H+A股更高的上市首日收益与其发行定价低相关,短期和长期市场收益低既与公司的业绩不好相关,也与投资者的不认可相关,表明相较于仅在A股上市的股票,H+A股更不具备投资价值。     

The impact of individual investor trading on information asymmetry in the Korean stock market

This paper examines the impact of individual investor trading on information asymmetry in the market. In particular, we examine the relationship between the trading volume by individual investors and the corresponding bid-ask spread in the Korean stock market, where the majority of the trading activity is driven by individual investors and therefore information asymmetry can be evident. We find that high trading activity by individual investors increases the bid-ask spread in a short investment horizon, suggesting that individual investors, as uninformed and unsophisticated traders, amplify the degree of information asymmetry in the market through trading.     

IPO定价与公司内含价值——基于常山药业的案例研究

如何对IPO公司准确定价是学术界和实务界广泛争议的热点话题。IPO定价准确性的评价依赖于对公司内含价值的判断，选择不同的标准确定公司的内含价值会得出IP0定价过高或过低的不同结论。本文应用可比公司法对常山药业的内含价值进行估计，使用四种可比公司乘数计算的结果表明公司实际发行价格高于公司内含价值，这意味着公司的发行价格存在一定程度的高估现象。与同期证券分析师对常山药业发行价格预测的平均估价水平相比，结果发现多数证券分析师由于过度乐观而高估公司内含价值。本文研究结果表明可比公司法具有计算简单、可操作性强等特点，不仅有助于一级市场中不同投资者对IP0公司的内含价值做出合理的估计，而且可以为二级市场交易中小投资者形成正确的投资决策提供依据，减少超额投资损失。     

Managing Underpricing? The Case of Pre‐IPO Discretionary Accruals in China

Previous studies have found that companies use income‐increasing positive discretionary accruals (DAC) prior to initial public offerings (IPOs) to inflate earnings as a signal to anticipate future income and future dividends. This study, directly explores the role of DAC in prospectus information of 691 A‐shares IPOs in China during the period 1995–2002 and its relationship with market‐adjusted returns. The results suggest that in China, pre‐IPO non‐discretionary accruals (NDAC) as well as DAC have informative value in explaining first‐day returns as well as first‐year adjusted returns. However, in yearly cross‐sectional models, I find that firms use income‐decreasing accruals (conservative accounting) in prospectus financial statements. This downward manipulation or income “understatement” creates a regulatory setting that could explain initial underpricing and abnormally high IPO returns for A‐shares. In addition, the results show that as state ownership (SO) increases, cash flow also increases, exacerbating agency costs and adverse selection problems. These findings may suggest that managers might be using more conservative accounting in Prospectus financial data to offset the agency costs related to high cash flow, and high SO, by “banking income” and possibly therefore “smoothing” the effects of possible future suboptimal earnings.     

Earnings Management in Domestic and Foreign IPOs in the United States: Do Home Country Institutions Matter?

Using a large sample of domestic and foreign IPOs in the US, we investigate how threats of enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and private litigation influence earnings management in IPO prospectuses. We propose that perceptions of foreign institutions may influence SEC enforcement action and private litigation. We provide evidence that enforcement and litigation threats are negatively related to the strength of legal institutions in the foreign IPO’s country of origin. We find earnings management is more pronounced in foreign IPOs from countries with strong legal institutions. We further explore whether earnings management is priced in the IPO market and find no relation between IPO proceeds and earnings management. Our results are consistent with upward earnings management as in Stein (1989), the magnitude of which is reduced when the anticipated cost of enforcement and litigation is higher. Collectively, our results cast doubt on the validity of the bonding hypothesis.     

中国上市公司IPO后经营业绩变化情况的分析——来自A股公司的经验数据

本文以1999￣2000年在沪、深两市首发上市的216家A股公司为样本,以这些公司从首发前一年延伸至2003年的数据,研究了中国A股上市公司IPO前1年至后3年的收入、成本、费用及效益的变化。研究发现:与上市前相比,中国A股公司IPO后的主营业务收入、主营业务成本、期间费用等绝对数指标均显著上升,而主营业务收入营业利润率却显著下降;造成业绩下降因素很多,其中最直接的主要原因是公司上市后成本、费用的大幅度上升。