Financial Markets, Institutions and Instruments最新文献

Using an extensive global sample, this paper investigates the impact of the term structure of interest rates on bank equity returns. Decomposing the yield curve to its three constituents (level, slope and curvature), the paper evaluates the time-varying sensitivity of the bank's equity returns to these constituents by using a diagonal dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH framework. Evidence reveals that the empirical proxies for the three factors explain the variations in equity returns above and beyond the market-wide effect. More specifically, shocks to the long-term (level) and short-term (slope) factors have a statistically significant impact on equity returns, while those on the medium-term (curvature) factor are less clear-cut. Bank size plays an important role in the sense that exposures are higher for SIFIs and large banks compared to medium and small banks. Moreover, banks exhibit greater sensitivities to all risk factors during the crisis and post-crisis periods compared to the pre-crisis period; though these sensitivities do not differ for market-oriented and bank-oriented financial systems.

This study examines the time-varying performance of investment strategies following analyst recommendation revisions in the UK stock market, with specific emphasis on the impact of changing market conditions. We find a negative relationship between the recommendation performance and market conditions as measured in terms of past market return and market volatility. In particular, the upgrade (downgrade) portfolio generates significantly positive (negative) net abnormal returns in bad market conditions (e.g., the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the credit crisis in 2007), but not in other periods of time. Moreover, our non-temporal threshold regression analysis shows that the reported negative relationship disappears when market conditions become better, i.e., when the past market return (market volatility) is higher (lower) than a certain level, indicating the importance of taking non-linearity into account in the long sample period as examined in this study. Our time-series bootstrap simulations further confirm that the superior recommendation performance in bad market conditions is not due to random chance; analysts have certain skills in making valuable up/downward revisions in bad markets.

We show that the acquiring firm's idiosyncratic stock return volatility (sigma) is an important determinant of the selection and perceived valuation effects of earnouts in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). Earnout-based M&As are more often announced by high-sigma acquirers (nearly 40% of all earnout-based M&As), yet the documented higher risk-adjusted returns accrued to acquirers in earnout-based M&As, relative to M&As settled in cash, stock or mixed payments (the earnout effect), appear in deals announced by low-sigma acquirers (nearly 20% of all earnout-based M&As). High-sigma acquirers employing earnouts appear to break even, or even experience losses, relative to their counterparts employing single up-front payments. These results are confirmed based on a quasi-experimental design through which the earnout effect is measured in isolation. We argue that in M&As announced by high-sigma acquirers, the earnout effect is potentially elusive due to the presence of an acquirer-specific information revelation effect, resulting from the heightened extent of information asymmetry between (small) acquirers’ managers and outside investors. On the contrary, the use of earnouts in M&As announced by low-sigma (large) acquirers, whereby the acquirer-specific information revelation effect is likely negligible, sends a strong signal for value creation that also prevents investors from inducing a size-related discount.

We provide evidence on how corporate bond investors react to a change in yields, and how this behaviour differs in times of market-wide stress. We also investigate ‘reaching for yield’ across investor types, as well as providing insights into the structure of the corporate bond market. Using proprietary sterling corporate bond transaction data, we show that insurance companies, hedge funds and asset managers are typically net buyers when corporate bond yields rise. Dealer banks clear the market by being net sellers. However, we find evidence for this behaviour reversing in times of stress for some investors. During the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’, asset managers were net sellers of corporate bonds in response to a sharp rise in yields, potentially amplifying price changes. At the same time, dealer banks were net buyers. Finally, we provide evidence that insurers, hedge funds and asset managers tilt their portfolios towards higher risk bonds, consistent with ‘reaching for yield’ behaviour.

This study examines the relation between managerial ability and bond credit rating changes. We attempt to add to the credit rating agency literature by exploring the role managerial ability plays in the initial bond rating assignments and in rating changes. We predict firms with more-able managers are more likely to have higher bond ratings and to be more able to have a positive influence on rating changes. We find a significant and positive relation between managerial ability and change in credit ratings, suggesting that more-able managers can take effective actions to improve their credit ratings.

This study examines relative price discovery for three major European indices, FTSE, CAC, and DAX, their futures and exchange traded funds (ETFs) using the data on 5-minute intraday transaction prices over a four-year period. We computed both Hasbrouck (1995) information share with error bounds and Gonzalo and Granger's (1995) common factor weights approach. Gonzalo and Granger's (1995) common factor weights suggest the index futures contracts play a dominant role in price discovery in the CAC market: the CAC 40 index futures lead the price discovery and Lyxor CAC 40 ETFs serving the second resort for information transmission. This could be due to the less frequent trading of ETFs. More importantly, CAC40 under the Gonzalo & Granger (1995) test shows upper and lower error bounds in good range may be the main reason to drive for the meaningful results. In contrast, the upper and lower bounds estimated from the Hasbrouck (1995) are far distant for most cases. Finally, FTSE and DAX markets offer compelling evidence to show that ETFs lead price discovery and spots and futures follows.

This study examines environment, social, governance (ESG) consideration in rating reports published by credit rating agencies. 3,719 Moody's credit rating reports between 2004 and 2015 are examined and the ESG consideration is analyzed using a latent dirichlet allocation (LDA) approach. We further analyze the stock returns and credit default swap (CDS) spread changes to check whether ESG consideration has an effect on the capital market reactions. We find a small but present consideration of ESG in rating decisions. Within ESG, corporate governance plays the most important role. Moreover, the results reveal that ESG consideration is a significant determinant in the stock return and CDS spread around the rating announcement. We find that all ESG criteria are important for equity and debt investors.

This paper examines the relationship between business group affiliation and stock price informativeness in an emerging market setting. We use stock price synchronicity as a measure, and study the impact of group affiliation -specifically the extent of affiliation, ownership structure and existence of group bank- on firm specific information content. Results reveal that the amount of firm-specific information capitalized into stock prices tends to be lower (higher) when the firm is group-affiliated (unaffiliated), indirectly (directly) owned, and affiliated group has (does not have) a group bank. Additionally, the extent of group affiliation maintains a non-linear relationship with synchronicity, suggesting that the perception of higher versus lower levels of group ownership differs.