In this paper I use an equity duration framework to develop and empirically test the hypothesis that returns on growth stock portfolios react more strongly to Federal Funds target rate change announcements, as compared to value stock portfolios. When I decompose the Federal Funds rate change, I find that portfolio returns are only sensitive to rate shocks, as opposed to the predictable component of rate change. Since growth stocks are expected to have higher duration than value stocks, I further explore the well documented polarity between value and growth stocks, by examining the interest rate sensitivities of portfolios that diverge along four fundamental-to-prices ratios: dividend yield, book-to-market value, earnings-to-price and cashflows-to-price. In each case, I find that price reactions are more pronounced for portfolios with high growth characteristics. I also document that portfolio returns react asymmetrically to positive and negative target rate surprises, and that this reaction is conditional on the state of business cycles - periods of economic expansions and recessions. To improve the robustness of my results, several statistical applications have been applied. First, I include Newey-west estimators to examine significant levels of regression estimates. Second, I check if there is any contemporaneous correlation across target rate shocks …

Using 1,473 going private transactions completed between 1985 and 2007, I assess whether the increase in going private transactions that occurred after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was driven by SOX, or whether this phenomenon continues an ongoing historical trend. To examine this issue, I initially used structural break tests and intervention analysis. From the initial techniques, I find support that the passage of SOX increased going private transactions for these categories. Secondarily, I use Granger causality tests and impulse response functions to examine the link between going private transactions and the public stock market. When I categorize going private transactions according to the type of acquirer, transaction size, and target industry, I find bi-directional Granger causality relationships between smaller-sized going private transactions and the S&P 500 Index (or Tobin's Q). I also find several unidirectional Granger causality relationships for some categories of going private transactions, based on the type of acquirer or the target industry, to the S&P 500 Index (or to Tobin's Q). The impulse response of going private transactions (or the public stock market) to a shock in the public stock market (or going private transactions) is not immediate, but is delayed two …

Most initial public offerings (IPOs) feature share lockup agreements, which prohibit insiders from selling their shares for a specified period of time following the IPO. However, some IPO firms agree to have a much longer lockup period than other IPO firms, and some are willing to lockup a much larger proportion of shares. Thus, the primary research question for this study is: "What are the reasons for the divergence of the lockup agreements?" The two main hypotheses that this dissertation investigates are the signaling hypothesis based on information asymmetry, and the commitment hypothesis based on agency theory. This study uses methods that have not been applied by previous studies in the literature relating to IPO lockups. First, I directly use IPO firms operating performance as a proxy for firm quality. The results show neither a negative nor a strong positive relationship between lockup length and firm operating performance. Thus, based on operating performance, the evidence does not support the agency hypothesis while showing weak support for the signaling hypothesis. I then examine the long-run returns for IPO firms with different lockup lengths. I find that firms with short lockup lengths have much better long-run returns than firms with long lockup …

This study examines the impact of reducing tick size and, in particular decimalization on stock splits. Based on previous studies, this study examines hypotheses in the following three areas: first, market reaction around stock split announcement and ex-dates, second, the effect of tick size on liquidity after stock split ex-dates, and third, the effect of tick size on return volatility after stock split ex-dates. The impact of tick size on market reaction around split announcement and ex-dates is measured by abnormal returns and buy and hold abnormal returns (BHARs). Also, this study investigates the long term impact of decimalization on market reaction for small, medium, and large firms for the three different tick size periods. The effect of tick size on liquidity after stock split ex-dates is measured by turnover, relative bid ask spread, and market maker count. The effect of tick size on return volatility around stock split announcement and ex-dates is measured by return standard deviation. Also, this study investigates the long term impact of decimalization on volatility after split ex-dates for small, medium, and large firms for three different tick size periods.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the "limits of arbitrage" on securities mispricing. Specifically, I investigate the effect of the availability of substitutes and financial constraints on stock mispricing. In addition, this study investigates the difference in the limits of arbitrage, in the sense that it will lead to lower mispricing for these stocks, relative to non-S&P 500 stocks. I also examine if the lower mispricing can be attributed to their lower limits of arbitrage. Modern finance theory and efficient market hypothesis suggest that security prices, at equilibrium, should reflect their fundamental value. If the market price deviates from the intrinsic value, then a risk-free profit opportunity has emerged and arbitrageurs will eliminate mispricing and equilibrium is restored. This arbitrage process is characterized by large number of arbitrageurs which have infinite access to capital. However, a better description of reality is that there are few numbers of arbitrageurs to the extent that they are highly specialized; and they have limited access to capital. Under these condition arbitrage is no more a risk-free activity and can be limited by several factors such as arbitrage risk and transaction costs. Other factors that are discussed in the literature …

Issuers’ credit ratings change by one or more notches when credit rating agencies provide new ratings. Unique to the literature, I study the influences affecting multi notch versus single notch rating upgrades and downgrades. For Standard & Poors data, I show that rating changes with multiple notches provide more information to the market than single notch rating changes. Consistent with prior literature on the business cycle, I show that investors value good news rating changes (upgrades) more in bad times (recession) and that investors value bad news rating changes (downgrades) more in good times (expansion). I model and test probit models using variables capturing the characteristics of the previous issuer’s credit rating, liquidity, solvency, profitability, and growth opportunity to determine the classification of single notch versus multi notch rating changes. The determinants of multi notch versus single notch rating changes for upgrades and downgrades differ. Business cycle influences are evident. Firms that have multi notch rating upgrades and downgrades have significantly different probit variables vis-à-vis firms that have single notch rating upgrades and downgrades. The important characteristics for determining multiple notch upgrades are a firm’s prior rating change, prior rating, cash flow, total assets and market value. The important characteristics …

Do firms with higher levels of innovation output, measured by patent counts and citations, enjoy lower costs of funds? The process to develop and apply for patents involves valuable resources. Thus, applying for a patent is a credible signal that the underlying invention is valuable. This value is validated to some degree when the patent is granted. In addition, patents contain detailed information about the firm's inventions and provide collateral value as they can be sold and licensed. The number of citations a firm receives act as a proxy for high-quality inventions, active networking, and pioneering. These attributes are expected to attract investors and reduce the cost of funds. Univariate and cross-sectional regression analyses of a sample consisting of 404,595 firm-years, involving firms from twenty-eight countries spanning from 1976 to 2012, demonstrate a significant negative association between innovation output and the cost of funds. The evidence suggests that the marginal benefit of innovation diminishes as innovation output increases. The results are robust to different measures of the cost of equity and the cost of debt. The negative association between the cost of equity and innovation output is economically larger for younger and smaller firms. The long-term level of innovation seems …

This study examines the comparative magnitude of disturbances in intraday data for exchange traded foreign exchange (FX) options. An in-depth time series analysis on the frequency and extent of discrepancies in the disturbances is conducted. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, using intraday data and trading volume, this study attempts to determine whether both put-call parity and lower boundary conditions consistently hold for exchange traded options written on U.S. dollar denominated options on the Euro trading on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX). Second, this study attempts to investigate the magnitude of any discrepancies that may exist due to a temporary cessation of either put-call parity or lower boundary conditions. Intraday (tick-by-tick) bid prices, ask prices, and trading volume on U.S. dollar denominated European style call options and put options on the Euro are obtained. Option data is collected through a Structured Query Language (SQL) request from the Bloomberg database. Corresponding tick-by-tick spot rates for the underlying exchange rate are obtained for the same time period. Tick-by-tick 3-month Treasury bill rates are obtained to for use as the relevant risk-free interest rate. The primary data set spans an approximate one month period from 11/1/2011 to 12/6/2011. Call and option …

This dissertation consists of three essays: essay 1, Underwriting Use of Credit Information and Firm Performance ‐ An Empirical Study of Texas Property‐Liability Insurers, essay 2, Prediction of Ratings in Property‐Liability Industry when The Organizational Form Is Endogenous, and essay 3, A Discussion of Parsimonious Methods Predicting Insurance Companies Ratings. The purpose of the first essay is to investigate the influence of underwriting use of credit information on variation in insurers’ underwriting performance. Specifically, this study addresses the following two research questions: first, what firm‐level characteristics are associated with the insurers’ decision to use credit information in underwriting? second, is there a relationship between the use of credit information and variation in insurers’ underwriting performance? The empirical results indicate that larger insurance companies, companies having more business in personal auto insurance, and those with greater use of reinsurance are more likely to use credit information in underwriting. More importantly, the results indicate that use of credit information is associated with lower variation in underwriting performance, consistent with the hypothesis that use of credit information enables insurers to better predict their losses. The purpose of the second essay is to resolve the inconsistent relationship between the organizational forms (i.e., stock versus …

Several studies have observed that stocks tend to drop by an amount that is less than the dividend on the ex-dividend day, the so-called ex-dividend day anomaly. However, there still remains a lack of consensus for a single explanation of this anomaly. Different from other studies, this dissertation attempts to answer the primary research question: How can investors make trading profits from the ex-dividend day anomaly and how much can they earn? With this goal, I examine the economic motivations of equity investors through four main hypotheses identified in the anomaly’s literature: the tax differential hypothesis, the short-term trading hypothesis, the tick size hypothesis, and the leverage hypothesis. While the U.S. ex-dividend anomaly is well studied, I examine a long data window (1975 to 2010) of Thailand data. The unique structure of the Thai stock market allows me to assess all four main hypotheses proposed in the literature simultaneously. Although I extract the sample data from two data sources, I demonstrate that the combined data are consistently sampled. I further construct three trading strategies: “daily return,” “lag one daily return,” and “weekly return” to alleviate the potential effect of irregular data observation. I find that the ex-dividend day anomaly exists …

Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. (MISO) is a non-profit regional transmission organization (RTO) that oversees electricity production and transmission across thirteen states and one Canadian province. MISO also operates an electronic exchange for buying and selling electricity for each of its five regional hubs. MISO oversees two types of markets. The forward market, which is referred to as the day-ahead (DA) market, allows market participants to place demand bids and supply offers on electricity to be delivered at a specified hour the following day. The equilibrium price, known as the locational marginal price (LMP), is determined by MISO after receiving sale offers and purchase bids from market participants. MISO also coordinates a spot market, which is known as the real-time (RT) market. Traders in the real-time market must submit bids and offers by thirty minutes prior to the hour for which the trade will be executed. After receiving purchase and sale offers for a given hour in the real time market, MISO then determines the LMP for that particular hour. The existence of the DA and RT markets allows producers and retailers to hedge against the large fluctuations that are common in electricity prices. Hedge ratios on the MISO …

This study provide empirical evidence whether bias in the standard errors of Jensen’s alpha explains conflicting results in the extant literature in real estate funds. Significant alphas in real estate mutual funds and REITs are compared with heteroskedasticity consistent covariance matrix estimators (HC1, HC2 and HC3), Newey-West standard errors, a robust regression tempering the effect of high leverage points, a GARCH model, and a HC3 adjusted wild bootstrap. In the analysis of real estate mutual funds and a separate sample set of REITs, the HCCME had a minimal impact attenuating the number of firms with excess returns. Contrary to expectations the differences from HC1 to HC2 to HC3 were also negligible. The Newey-West standard error provided highly variable results when compared with the OLS results particularly in the REIT sample. Of the techniques to adjust for bias in the standard error, the wild bootstrap with HC3 adjustment to the standard error provided the most conservative result to the number of real estate mutual funds and REITs with significant alphas. The co-movement of real estate funds suggests common exogenous influences. Including state variables such as the changes in unexpected inflation, term spread, default spread, market skewness and industrial production growth in …

This dissertation identifies key determinants of outbound cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by emerging Asian acquirers during 2001-2012. Using a zero-inflated model that takes into account different mechanisms governing country pairs that never engage in cross-border M&As and country pairs that actively participate in cross-border M&As, I uncover unique patterns for emerging Asian acquirers. Emerging Asian acquirers originate from countries with lower corporate tax rates than those countries where their targets are located. Furthermore, the negative impact of an international double tax burden is significantly larger than that found in previous studies. While country governance differences and geographical and cultural differences are important determinants of international M&As, relative valuation effects are muted. Coefficients of these determinants vary substantially, depending on whether targets are located in developing or advanced nations. Also, determinants differ considerably between active and non-active players in cross-border M&As. Moreover, comparisons of empirical models illustrate that estimating a non-linear model and taking into account both the bounded nature and non-normal distributions of fractional response variables lead to different inferences from those drawn from a linear model estimated by the ordinary least squares method. Overall, emerging Asian acquirers approach the deals differently from patterns documented in developed markets. So, …

During the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008, liquidity and credit dried up, threatening the stability of financial institutions, particularly the banking firms. Traditional source of funds from the last resort, the Discount Window of the Federal Reserve System, failed to remedy the liquidity problem. To assuage the liquidity and credit problem, the Federal Reserve System established several emergency lending facilities and provided unprecedented amount of loans to the banking industry. Using a dataset published by Bloomberg LLP in the aftermaths of the financial crisis, which contains daily loan balances from the Fed, I conduct an event study to test whether financial markets are efficient in reflecting all public, anticipated and classified information in security prices. The most important contribution of this dissertation to the finance discipline and literature is the investigation and analysis of the Fed’s unprecedented loans to the banking industry during the Great Recession and the market reaction to it. The second major contribution of this study is the empirical test of strong form efficient market hypothesis, which has not been feasible due to legal data challenges. This dissertation has other contributions to the finance discipline and banking research. First, I develop an algorithm for measuring the …

The initial matching relationships between underwriters and bonds/issuing firms and the certification quality of underwriters, as determined by changes in the issuing firm’s financial strength post issue, are the two primary research topics in this dissertation. Based on total underwriter syndicate market share, two distinct categories, low market power (LMP) syndicates and high market power (HMP) syndicates were defined. Firm financial strength is examined based on a new factor developed in this research. A comparison of the two underwriting categories, or pools, indicates that the HMP underwriters take on firms of lower initial financial strength and additionally, the issuing firms decline more in financial strength two years following bond issuance than do firms using LMP underwriters. Notwithstanding these results, the more interesting findings are the relationships within each of these pools. In the LMP pool of underwriters, financially stronger firms used the larger LMPs to underwrite their bonds, while the weaker firms used smaller LMPs. In contrast, among HMP underwriters, the largest HMPs aligned with the firms of relatively lower financial strength. The relationships in both pools reverse when changes in financial strength are examined. Larger LMPs are associated with greater issuing firm financial decline while larger HMPs correlate with …