none

The decisions of the federal government such as new legislation, bills and reforms can have serious implications for the financial markets, especially in terms of corporate profitability and shareholder value. As the overseers of federal agencies, U.S. Senators are arguably the most important participants in these decision making processes, in addition to being the most informed investors in the market. As such, Senators may be able to capitalize on their superior networks and information through stock trading. The portfolios traded on such insider information should generate abnormal returns against the market index. This study conducts an analysis of the abnormal returns on common stock purchases reported by U.S. Senators between 1995 and 2012. This paper recreates congressional buy portfolio using a consistent methodology throughout the entire sample period considered by earlier studies. While the sample size is reduced, the methodology used in this analysis relies on actual transactions dates to maximize accuracy. An analysis of the abnormal returns of the common stock investments of U.S. Senators during the period 1995 – 2012 shows that Senators are generally poor investors: purchases made by senators underperform the market index by approximately 3% a year.

One of the most controversial issues for long-term stock performance is whether the presence of anomalies is against the efficient market hypothesis. The methodologies to measure abnormal returns applied in the long-run event studies are questioned for their reliability and specification. This thesis compares three major methodologies via a simulation process based on the UK stock market over a period of 1982 to 2008 with investment horizons of one, three and five years. Specifically, the methodologies that are compared are the event-time methods based on models (Chapter 3), the event-time methods based on reference portfolios (Chapter 4), and the calendar-time methods (Chapter 5). Chapter 3 covers the event-time approach based on the following models which are used to estimate normal stock returns: the market-adjusted model, the market model, the capital asset pricing model, the Fama-French three-factor model and the Carhart four-factor model. The measurement of CARs yields misspecification with higher rejection rates of the null hypothesis of zero abnormal returns. Although the application of standard errors estimated from the test period improves the misspecification, CARs still yield misspecified test statistics. When using BHARs, well-specified results are achieved when applying the market-adjusted model, capital asset pricing model and Fama-French three-factor model over all investment horizons. It is important to note that the market model is severely misspecified with the highest rejection rates under both measurements. The empirical results from simulations of event-time methods based on reference portfolios in Chapter 4 indicate that the application of BHARs in conjunction with p-value from pseudoportfolios is appropriate for application in the context of long-run event studies. Furthermore, the control firm approach together with student t-test statistics is proved to yield well-specified test statistics in both random and non-random samples. Firms in reference portfolios and control firms are selected on the basis of size, BTM or both. However, in terms of power of test, these two approaches have the least power whereas the skewness-adjusted test and bootstrapped skewness-adjusted test have the highest power. It is worth noting that when the non-random samples are examined, the benchmark portfolio or control firm needs to share at least one characteristic with the event firm. The calendar-time approach is suggested in the literature to overcome potential issues with event-time approaches like overlapping returns and calendar month clustering. Chapter 5 suggests that both three-factor and four-factor models present significant overrejections of the null hypothesis of zero abnormal returns under an equally-weighted scheme. Even for stocks under a value-weighted scheme, the rejection rate for small firms shows overrejection. This indicates the small size effect is more prevalent in the UK stock market than in the US and the calendar-time approach cannot resolve this issue. Compared with the three-factor model, the four-factor model, despite its higher explanatory power, improves the results under a value-weighted scheme. The ordinary least squares technique in the regression produces the smallest rejection rates compared with weighted least squares, sandwich variance estimators and generalized weighted least squares. The mean monthly calendar time returns, combining the reference portfolios and calendar time, show similar results to the event-time approach based on reference portfolios. The weighting scheme plays an insignificant role in this approach. The empirical results suggest the following methods are appropriately applied to detect the long-term abnormal stock performance. When the event-time approach is applied based on models, although the measurement of BHARs together with the market-adjusted model, capital asset pricing model and Fama-French three-factor model generate well-specified results, the test statistics are not reliable because BHARs show severe positively skewed and leptokurtic distribution. Moreover, the reference portfolios in conjunction with p-value from pseudoportfolios and the control firm approach with student t test in the event-time approach are advocated although with lower power of test. When it comes to the calendar-time approach, the three-factor model under OLS together with sandwich variance estimators using the value-weighted scheme and the mean monthly calendar-time abnormal returns under equal weights are proved to be the most appropriate methods.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-term share price effects for Swedish companies that employed repurchases programs during 2000 - 2012. This paper applies a trading strategy where the investor invests in stocks of compa-nies that engage in repurchase of their own equity. We test buy-and-hold abnormal returns versus two different proxies for the control firm, using small sample t-statistics. Abnormal returns for one to five years are insignificant under sta-tistic tests, using the supersector indices. In contrast, they are significant using a proxy for the market index as control firm. Factors hypothesized to contribute to this result are incon-clusive using our method of comparison. As a whole, we suggest that investing in companies that repurchase stock is a solid strategy: It is on par or better than index.

none

none

In this thesis we analyze the financial performance of Football clubs following an initial public offering (IPO). We conduct several analyses using time series stock data with a focus on finding evidence of long-run underperformance and IPO over/underpricing. To this end, we estimate cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) and Jensen’s Alpha. We also analyze coefficients such as beta to describe the volatility and the link football clubs’ stocks have to the general market. We look at historical events that may have affected the movement of stock prices and confirm this by benchmarking an index (STOXX index) compiled of a number of European football teams. Our results show that football clubs do in fact follow the clear pattern of other entities and sectors and previous research with regard to underperformance in the long run. We find that football clubs’ stocks are less volatile than the general market and have a low beta. With regards to over/underpricing, we only obtain data for a few football clubs. We find small signs of underpricing but are not able to confirm that this is statistical significant due to the size of our sample.

The effectiveness of the PEG ratio as a valuation tool has been a topical debate between market commentators ever since being popularised by Lynch (1989). This study examines the appropriateness of the fair value criteria of 1.0 (PEGL) in comparison with a time-series based share specific benchmarking model (PEGT). Furthermore, influencing factors of analyst forecasting accuracy, namely: the number of analyst contributions, forecast dispersion and forecast horizon, were tested and compared using sub-set portfolios for each category with the objective of identifying a possible optimal PEG trading rule strategy. The outcome showed a consistent outperformance of PEGT portfolios compared to PEGL portfolios and the market benchmark. Unexpected results were obtained for the impact of analyst forecasts on the performance of the PEG ratio with additional literature review providing possible reasons that analyst optimism may have a more influencing impact on the PEG ratio than forecasting accuracy. Finally, an optimised PEG trading rule strategy delivered annual abnormal returns of 5.4% (CAGR: 19.7%) for a PEGL portfolio, versus that of 13.7% (CAGR: 28.5%) for a PEGT portfolio. The ensuing methodology appeared to single out small cap firms with above market growth prospects. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Directors of listed companies earn abnormal returns by trading in a contrarian manner. This research report investigated whether outside investors can earn abnormal returns by following director contrarian trades. The returns to directors and outsiders, following a director trade were analysed using the event study methodology. The event study methodology utilised director trading information from SENS announcements on the JSE Securities Exchange, daily share prices, betas and price to book values for the selected companies, and daily all share index prices. The focus of the analysis was the post trade Cumulative Average Abnormal Returns (CAAR), in the 20 days following the director trade. The overall CAAR for all transactions was a statistically significant but economically insignificant 0.43%. When viewed from a transaction type perspective, the CAAR was 0.72% and 0.44% for purchases and sales transactions respectively. This study shows that while directors of listed South African companies do earn abnormal returns, they do not do so while consistently trading in a contrarian manner. In fact, transactions not deemed contrarian generated higher abnormal returns for directors. In addition, the study shows that outside investors do not earn abnormal returns by mimicking directors, and actually, their following of director trades generates the abnormal returns for directors. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

In this paper we examine abnormal returns during active repurchasing programs and if the intensity of repurchasing programs impacts the returns. Through the Jensen’s Alpha approach our findings show us that positive abnormal returns are experienced by repurchasing firms under our study period that ranges from 2010 to 2019. The results show us that during active repurchasing programs companies have showed positive average annual abnormal returns ranging from 1,8% to 6%. We also find that the intensity of share repurchases does not have a statistically significant effect on the given abnormal returns. However, our results indicate that the abnormal returns are higher when the repurchases occurred, rather than when they are authorized.