The Consequences of REIT Index Membership for Return Patterns

We study the impact of S&P index membership on REIT stock returns. Given the hybrid nature of REITs, their returns may become more like those of other indexed stocks and less like those of their underlying properties. The existing literature does not offer clear predictions on these potential outcomes. Taking advantage of the inclusion of REITs in major S&P indexes starting in 2001, we find that shared index membership significantly increases the correlation between REIT returns after controlling for the stock characteristics that determine index membership. We also document that index membership enhances the link between REIT stock returns and the performance of the underlying real estate, consistent with improved pricing efficiency. REIT investors appear to be able to enjoy the benefits of improved visibility and liquidity associated with index membership as well as the exposure to underlying real estate markets and the related benefits of diversification.

Future Earnings Growth Volatility and the Value Premium

The value premium is well established in empirical asset pricing, but to date there is little understanding as to its fundamental drivers. We use a stochastic earnings valuation model to establish a direct link between the volatility of future earnings growth and firm value. We illustrate that risky earnings growth affects growth and value firms differently. We provide empirical evidence that the volatility of future earnings growth is a significant determinant of the value premium. Using data on individual firms and characteristic-sorted test portfolios, we also find that earnings growth volatility is significant in explaining the cross-sectional variation of stock returns. Our findings imply that the value premium is the rational consequence of accounting for risky earnings growth in the firm valuation process.

Volatilidade dos retornos e governança: um estudo de eventos da crise do subprime

The financial crisis that occurred between the years 2007 and 2008, known as the subprime crisis, has highlighted the governance of companies in Brazil and worldwide. To monitor the financial risk, quantitative tools of risk management were created in the 1990s, after several financial disasters. The market turmoil has also led companies to invest in the development and use of information, which are applied as tools to support process control and decision making. Numerous empirical studies on informational efficiency of the market have been made inside and outside Brazil, revealing whether the prices reflect the information available instantly. The creation of different levels of corporate governance on BOVESPA, in 2000, made the firms had greater impairment in relation to its shareholders with greater transparency in their information. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the subprime financial crisis has affected, between January 2007 and December 2009, the volatility of stock returns in the BM&BOVESPA of companies with greater liquidity at different levels of corporate governance. From studies of time series and through the studies of events, econometric tests were performed by the EVIEWS, and through the results obtained it became evident that the adoption of good practices of corporate governance affect the volatility of returns of companies

Empirical studies on share issuance and repurchase decisions

Financial constraints influence corporate policies of firms, including both investment decisions and external financing policies. The relevance of this phenomenon has become more pronounced during and after the recent financial crisis in 2007/2008. In addition to raising costs of external financing, the effects of financial crisis limited the availability of external financing which had implications for employment, investment, sale of assets, and tech spending. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the effects of financial constraints on share issuance and repurchases decisions. Financial constraints comprise both internal constraints reflecting the demand for external financing and external financial constraints that relate to the supply of external financing. The study also examines both operating performance and stock market reactions associated with equity issuance methods. The first empirical chapter explores the simultaneous effects of financial constraints and market timing on share issuance decisions. Internal financing constraints limit firms’ ability to issue overvalued equity. On the other hand, financial crisis and low market liquidity (external financial constraints) restrict availability of equity financing and consequently increase the costs of external financing. Therefore, the study explores the extent to which internal and external financing constraints limit market timing of equity issues. This study finds that financial constraints play a significant role in whether firms time their equity issues when the shares are overvalued. The conclusion is that financially constrained firms issue overvalued equity when the external equity market or the general economic conditions are favourable. During recessionary periods, costs of external finance increase such that financially constrained firms are less likely to issue overvalued equity. Only unconstrained firms are more likely to issue overvalued equity even during crisis. Similarly, small firms that need cash flows to finance growth projects are less likely to access external equity financing during period of significant economic recessions. Moreover, constrained firms have low average stock returns compared to unconstrained firms, especially when they issue overvalued equity. The second chapter examines the operating performance and stock returns associated with equity issuance methods. Firms in the UK can issue equity through rights issues, open offers, and private placement. This study argues that alternative equity issuance methods are associated with a different level of operating performance and long-term stock returns. Firms using private placement are associated with poor operating performance. However, rights issues are found empirically to be associated with higher operating performance and less negative long-term stock returns after issuance in comparison to counterpart firms that issue private placements and open offers. Thus, rights issuing firms perform better than open offers and private placement because the favourable operating performance at the time of issuance generates subsequent positive long-run stock price response. Right issuing firms are of better quality and outperform firms that adopt open offers and private placement. In the third empirical chapter, the study explores the levered share repurchase of internally financially unconstrained firms. Unconstrained firms are expected to repurchase their shares using internal funds rather than through external borrowings. However, evidence shows that levered share repurchases are common among unconstrained firms. These firms display this repurchase behaviour when they have bond ratings or investment grade ratings that allow them to obtain cheap external debt financing. It is found that internally financially unconstrained firms borrow to finance their share repurchase when they invest more. Levered repurchase firms are associated with less positive abnormal returns than unlevered repurchase firms. For the levered repurchase sample, high investing firms are associated with more positive long-run abnormal stock returns than low investing firms. It appears the market underreact to the levered repurchase in the short-run regardless of the level of investments. These findings indicate that market reactions reflect both undervaluation and signaling hypotheses of positive information associated with share repurchase. As the firms undertake capital investments, they generate future cash flows, limit the effects of leverage on financial distress and ultimately reduce the risk of the equity capital.

Volatilidade dos retornos e governança: um estudo de eventos da crise do subprime

The financial crisis that occurred between the years 2007 and 2008, known as the subprime crisis, has highlighted the governance of companies in Brazil and worldwide. To monitor the financial risk, quantitative tools of risk management were created in the 1990s, after several financial disasters. The market turmoil has also led companies to invest in the development and use of information, which are applied as tools to support process control and decision making. Numerous empirical studies on informational efficiency of the market have been made inside and outside Brazil, revealing whether the prices reflect the information available instantly. The creation of different levels of corporate governance on BOVESPA, in 2000, made the firms had greater impairment in relation to its shareholders with greater transparency in their information. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the subprime financial crisis has affected, between January 2007 and December 2009, the volatility of stock returns in the BM&BOVESPA of companies with greater liquidity at different levels of corporate governance. From studies of time series and through the studies of events, econometric tests were performed by the EVIEWS, and through the results obtained it became evident that the adoption of good practices of corporate governance affect the volatility of returns of companies

Méthodes de Bootstrap pour les modèles à facteurs

Cette thèse développe des méthodes bootstrap pour les modèles à facteurs qui sont couram- ment utilisés pour générer des prévisions depuis l'article pionnier de Stock et Watson (2002) sur les indices de diffusion. Ces modèles tolèrent l'inclusion d'un grand nombre de variables macroéconomiques et financières comme prédicteurs, une caractéristique utile pour inclure di- verses informations disponibles aux agents économiques. Ma thèse propose donc des outils éco- nométriques qui améliorent l'inférence dans les modèles à facteurs utilisant des facteurs latents extraits d'un large panel de prédicteurs observés. Il est subdivisé en trois chapitres complémen- taires dont les deux premiers en collaboration avec Sílvia Gonçalves et Benoit Perron. Dans le premier article, nous étudions comment les méthodes bootstrap peuvent être utilisées pour faire de l'inférence dans les modèles de prévision pour un horizon de h périodes dans le futur. Pour ce faire, il examine l'inférence bootstrap dans un contexte de régression augmentée de facteurs où les erreurs pourraient être autocorrélées. Il généralise les résultats de Gonçalves et Perron (2014) et propose puis justifie deux approches basées sur les résidus : le block wild bootstrap et le dependent wild bootstrap. Nos simulations montrent une amélioration des taux de couverture des intervalles de confiance des coefficients estimés en utilisant ces approches comparativement à la théorie asymptotique et au wild bootstrap en présence de corrélation sérielle dans les erreurs de régression. Le deuxième chapitre propose des méthodes bootstrap pour la construction des intervalles de prévision permettant de relâcher l'hypothèse de normalité des innovations. Nous y propo- sons des intervalles de prédiction bootstrap pour une observation h périodes dans le futur et sa moyenne conditionnelle. Nous supposons que ces prévisions sont faites en utilisant un ensemble de facteurs extraits d'un large panel de variables. Parce que nous traitons ces facteurs comme latents, nos prévisions dépendent à la fois des facteurs estimés et les coefficients de régres- sion estimés. Sous des conditions de régularité, Bai et Ng (2006) ont proposé la construction d'intervalles asymptotiques sous l'hypothèse de Gaussianité des innovations. Le bootstrap nous permet de relâcher cette hypothèse et de construire des intervalles de prédiction valides sous des hypothèses plus générales. En outre, même en supposant la Gaussianité, le bootstrap conduit à des intervalles plus précis dans les cas où la dimension transversale est relativement faible car il prend en considération le biais de l'estimateur des moindres carrés ordinaires comme le montre une étude récente de Gonçalves et Perron (2014). Dans le troisième chapitre, nous suggérons des procédures de sélection convergentes pour les regressions augmentées de facteurs en échantillons finis. Nous démontrons premièrement que la méthode de validation croisée usuelle est non-convergente mais que sa généralisation, la validation croisée «leave-d-out» sélectionne le plus petit ensemble de facteurs estimés pour l'espace généré par les vraies facteurs. Le deuxième critère dont nous montrons également la validité généralise l'approximation bootstrap de Shao (1996) pour les regressions augmentées de facteurs. Les simulations montrent une amélioration de la probabilité de sélectionner par- cimonieusement les facteurs estimés comparativement aux méthodes de sélection disponibles. L'application empirique revisite la relation entre les facteurs macroéconomiques et financiers, et l'excès de rendement sur le marché boursier américain. Parmi les facteurs estimés à partir d'un large panel de données macroéconomiques et financières des États Unis, les facteurs fortement correlés aux écarts de taux d'intérêt et les facteurs de Fama-French ont un bon pouvoir prédictif pour les excès de rendement.

Information Content of Bank Credit Rating Changes: Evidence from Europe

This thesis examines the short-term impact of credit rating announcements on daily stock returns of 41 European banks indexed in STOXX Europe 600 Banks. The time period of this study is 2002–2015 and the ratings represent long-term issuer ratings provided by S&P, Moody’s and Fitch. Bank ratings are significant for a bank’s operation costs so it is interesting to investigate how investors react to changes in creditworthiness. The study objective is achieved by conducting an event study. The event study is extended with a cross-sectional linear regression to investigate other potential determinants surrounding rating changes. The research hypotheses and the motivation for additional tests are derived from prior research. The main hypotheses are formed to explore whether rating changes have an effect on stock returns, when this possible reaction occurs and whether it is asymmetric between upgrades and downgrades. The findings provide evidence that rating announcements have an impact on stock returns in the context of European banks. The results also support the existence of an asymmetry in capital market reaction to rating upgrades and downgrades. The rating downgrades are associated with statistically significant negative abnormal returns on the event day although the reaction is rather modest. No statistically significant reaction is found associated with the rating upgrades on the event day. These results hold true with both rating changes and rating watches. No anticipation is observed in the case of rating changes but there is a statistically significant cumulative negative (positive) price reaction occurring before the event day for negative (positive) watch announcements. The regression provides evidence that the stock price reaction is stronger for rating downgrades occurring within below investment grade class compared with investment grade class. This is intuitive as investors are more concerned about their investments in lower-rated companies. Besides, the price reaction of larger banks is more mitigated compared with smaller banks in the case of rating downgrades. The reason for this may be that larger banks are usually more widely followed by the public. However, the study results may also provide evidence of the existence of the so-called “too big to fail” subsidy that dampens the negative returns of larger banks.

Liquidity, Governance and Adverse Selection in Asset Pricing

A plethora of recent literature on asset pricing provides plenty of empirical evidence on the importance of liquidity, governance and adverse selection of equity on pricing of assets together with more traditional factors such as market beta and the Fama-French factors. However, literature has usually stressed that these factors are priced individually. In this dissertation we argue that these factors may be related to each other, hence not only individual but also joint tests of their significance is called for. In the three related essays, we examine the liquidity premium in the context of the finer three-digit SIC industry classification, joint importance of liquidity and governance factors as well as governance and adverse selection. Recent studies by Core, Guay and Rusticus (2006) and Ben-Rephael, Kadan and Wohl (2010) find that governance and liquidity premiums are dwindling in the last few years. One reason could be that liquidity is very unevenly distributed across industries. This could affect the interpretation of prior liquidity studies. Thus, in the first chapter we analyze the relation of industry clustering and liquidity risk following a finer industry classification suggested by Johnson, Moorman and Sorescu (2009). In the second chapter, we examine the dwindling influence of the governance factor if taken simultaneously with liquidity. We argue that this happens since governance characteristics are potentially a proxy for information asymmetry that may be better captured by market liquidity of a company’s shares. Hence, we jointly examine both the factors, namely, governance and liquidity – in a series of standard asset pricing tests. Our results reconfirm the importance of governance and liquidity in explaining stock returns thus independently corroborating the findings of Amihud (2002) and Gompers, Ishii and Metrick (2003). Moreover, governance is not subsumed by liquidity. Lastly, we analyze the relation of governance and adverse selection, and again corroborate previous findings of a priced governance factor. Furthermore, we ascertain the importance of microstructure measures in asset pricing by employing Huang and Stoll’s (1997) method to extract an adverse selection variable and finding evidence for its explanatory power in four-factor regressions.

Synthetic portfolio for event studies: Estimating the effects of volatility call auctions

We propose a method denoted as synthetic portfolio for event studies in market microstructure that is particularly interesting to use with high frequency data and thinly traded markets. The method is based on Synthetic Control Method and provides a robust data driven method to build a counterfactual for evaluating the effects of the volatility call auctions. We find that SMC could be used if the loss function is defined as the difference between the returns of the asset and the returns of a synthetic portfolio. We apply SCM to test the performance of the volatility call auction as a circuit breaker in the context of an event study. We find that for Colombian Stock Market securities, the asynchronicity of intraday data reduces the analysis to a selected group of stocks, however it is possible to build a tracking portfolio. The realized volatility increases after the auction, indicating that the mechanism is not enhancing the price discovery process.

International stock market linkages : are overnight returns on the U.S. Market informative?

Based on the theory of international stock market co-movements, this study shows that a profitable trading strategy can be developed. The U.S. market return is considered as overnight information by ordinary investors in the Asian and the European stock markets, and opening prices in local markets reflect the U.S. overnight return. However, smart traders would either judge the impact of overnight information more correctly, or predict unreleased information. Thus, the difference between expected opening prices based on the U.S. return and actual opening prices is counted as smart traders’ prediction power, which is either a buy or a sell signal. Using index futures price data from 12 countries from 2000 to 2011, cumulative returns on the trading strategy are calculated with taking into account transaction costs. The empirical results show that the proposed trading strategy generates higher riskadjusted returns than that of the benchmarks in 12 sample countries. The trading performances for the Asian markets surpass those for the European markets because the U.S. return is the only overnight information for the Asian markets whereas the Asian markets returns are additional information to the European investors.

Predicting stock market returns and volatility with investor sentiment : evidence from eight developed countries

We test the predictive ability of investor sentiment on the return and volatility at the aggregate market level in the U.S., four largest European countries and three Asia-Pacific countries. We find that in the U.S., France and Italy periods of high consumer confidence levels are followed by low market returns. In Japan both the level and the change in consumer confidence boost the market return in the next month. Further, shifts in sentiment significantly move conditional volatility in most of the countries, and in Italy such impacts lead to an increase in returns by 4.7% in the next month.

The Importance of Stock Market Returns in Estimated Monetary Policy Rules: a Structural Approach

This paper estimates a standard version of the New Keynesian Monetary (NKM) model augmented with financial variables in order to analyze the relative importance of stock market returns and term spread in the estimated U.S. monetary policy rule. The estimation procedure implemented is a classical structural method based on the indirect inference principle. The empirical results show that the Fed seems to respond to the macroeconomic outlook and to the stock market return but does not seem to respond to the term spread. Moreover, policy inertia and persistent policy shocks are also significant features of the estimated policy rule.

Commonality in Returns, Order Flows, and Liquidity in the Greek Stock Market

Using a unique high-frequency data-set on a comprehensive sample of Greek blue-chip stocks, spanning from September 2003 through March 2006, this note assesses the extent and role of commonality in returns, order flows (OFs), and liquidity. It also formally models aggregate equity returns in terms of aggregate equity OF, in an effort to clarify OF's importance in explaining returns for the Athens Exchange market. Almost a quarter of the daily returns in the FTSE/ATHEX20 index is explained by aggregate own OF. In a second step, using principal components and canonical correlation analyses, we document substantial common movements in returns, OFs, and liquidity, both on a market-wide basis and on an individual security basis. These results emphasize that asset pricing and liquidity cannot be analyzed in isolation from each other.

Rule Britannia!: British Stock Market Returns, 1825-1870

This article presents a new series of monthly equity returns for the British stock market for the period 1825-1870. In addition to calculating capital appreciation and dividend yields, the article also estimates the effect of survivorship bias on returns. Three notable findings emerge from this study. First, stock market returns in the 1825-1870 period are broadly similar for Britain and the United States, although the British market is less risky. Second, real returns in the 1825-1870 period are higher than in subsequent epochs of British history. Third, unlike the modern era, dividends are the most important component of returns.