What do investors' searches for public information reveal about their subsequent trading strategies? Does their search for information support the hypothesis of market efficiency or does it lend support to the idea that investors have behavioral biases. Using Google Trends, we find that the volume of Google searches about feeder cattle is associated with re-enforcement of momentum trading in a manner consistent with a positive feedback mechanism. Further, we find evidence that search volume for "cattle" is associated with higher volatility and thus amplifies the positive feedback trading mechanism, while the search volume for "corn", a major input to cattle production, is associated with a reduction in volatility.

What do investors' searches for public information reveal about their subsequent trading strategies? Does their search for information support the hypothesis of market efficiency or does it lend support to the idea that investors have behavioral biases. Using Google Trends, we find that the volume of Google searches about feeder cattle is associated with re-enforcement of momentum trading in a manner consistent with a positive feedback mechanism. Further, we find evidence that search volume for "cattle" is associated with higher volatility and thus amplifies the positive feedback trading mechanism, while the search volume for "corn", a major input to cattle production, is associated with a reduction in volatility.

This dissertation is comprised of two papers. The first paper (Chapter 1) provides the theoretical foundation for the estimation of systematic downside risk. Using a new approach, I derive a measure of downside systematic risk, downside beta, that is free of the endogeneity problem and thus straightforward to calculate. Since there is no consensus in the literature regarding the appropriate method for the estimation of downside beta, I review the alternative specifications proposed in the past. I explicitly show that the derived formula here is more efficient in capturing downside risk on both theoretical grounds and in terms of empirical results. Using this efficient specification of systematic downside risk, I show that downside beta has increased explanatory power towards the cross-section of equity returns as compared to unconditional beta. In particular, downside beta predicts larger and more significant future premia, insignificant intercepts in portfolio cross-section tests and cannot be subsumed by additional risk factors proposed in the past literature. I attribute this superior performance to the ability of downside risk to capture distress risk and to the fact that it does not penalize (reward) good (bad) events in good states. In the second paper (Chapter 2) that is co-authored with my advisor, Gregory Kadlec, we exploit the notion of downside risk to explain a long-withstanding market anomaly; the long-term stock return reversals. We show that downside betas of past losers are significantly greater than downside betas of past winners, and the inclusion of downside beta in Fama-Macbeth regressions subsumes the reversal effect. / Ph. D.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) is a controversial theory in Finance. Advocates of the EMH argue that it provides a basis for understanding financial markets while critics suggest that the hypothesis is unreasonable in its assumptions of the real function of these markets. Although the EMH may not be perfect, it provides a sufficient baseline against which financial markets may be analysed. Over the past couple of years, academics have broadly examined the EMH in both developing and developed financial markets. However, limited research has been done on African markets. Therefore, this study examines the weak-form EMH of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) after 2008 to ascertain the impact the 2008 global financial crisis had on its efficiency. This study analysed the JSE using weekly and monthly returns of the three major indices (RESI 10, FINI 15, INDI 25) as well as the individual companies under these indices from 30th January 2009 to 30th January 2019. Analysis was carried using various statistical tests i.e., runs test, variance ratio test, unit root tests, and a GARCH model which revealed mixed results. Results of the unit root tests (ADF and PP) confirm that the JSE is weak-form efficient when both the weekly and monthly data of the indices and individual companies are analysed. The results of the runs test reveal that all the weekly and monthly data apart from the weekly data of the companies under RESI 10 index exhibit weak-form efficiency. The variance ratio test confirms weak-form inefficiency when weekly data is used while the monthly data confirms weak form efficiency of the JSE and shows that the market moves from periods of efficiency to periods of relative predictability. The results of the GARCH model on the other hand confirm the weak-form efficiency of the JSE when both the weekly and monthly data of the indices are analysed.

Several researchers have over the past decades criticised the efficient market hypothesis as several studies have presented evidence of causality and co-integrating relationships in  inancial markets. As preference shares have become increasingly popular, in recent years, as a mean of raising capital in the Swedish real estate sector, this study investigates the causal relationships between common shares and their corresponding preference share of nine listed Swedish real estate companies. By using daily closing prices over the period Dec 2014 – April 2016, we find weak support for short-run causalities in five of the nine examined pairs but no long-run cointegrating relationships. Further, we find causality running from the largest five firms to the four smallest in the sample firms. These findings violate the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis, which state that asset price fluctuations are random and not possible to forecast by the use of historical asset prices.

Examining the S&P 1500 stocks, the responses of the stocks to fiscal and monetary policy are found to differ due to E, S and G scores by the type of legislation. Non-Financial firms that manage environmental and governance risks better performed better over the pandemic. Part of this was due to their high environmental and governance scores allowing them to hedge the negative effects of the announcements of fiscal policies during the pandemic.

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My dissertation consists of two papers, one in the area of investment and the second in the area of corporate finance. The first paper examines robustness of momentum returns in the US stock market over the period 1965 to 2012. We find that momentum profits have become insignificant since the late 1990s partially driven by pronounced increase in the volatility of momentum profits in the last 14 years. Investigations of momentum profits in high and low volatility months address the concerns about unprecedented levels of market volatility in this period rendering momentum strategy unprofitable. Past returns, can no longer explain the cross-sectional variation in stock returns, even following up markets. We suggest three possible explanations for the declining momentum profits that involve uncovering of the anomaly by investors, decline in the risk premium on a macroeconomic factor, growth rate in industrial production in particular and relative improvement in market efficiency. We study the impact of venture capital funds' (VC) liquidity concerns on the timing and outcome of their portfolio firms' exit events. We find that VC funds approaching the end of their lifespan are more likely to exit during cold exit market conditions. Such late exits are also less likely to be via initial public offerings (IPO). A one standard deviation increase in the age of a VC fund at the time of the exit event is associated with a 5 percentage points decline in the probability of an IPO vs. a trade sale from an unconditional probability of roughly 30%. Several tests indicate that the decline in IPOs with VC fund age is not caused by lower portfolio firm quality. Focusing on the aftermath of IPOs, VC-backed firms experience significantly larger trading volume and lower stock returns around lock-up expirations if they are backed by older funds, and this lock-up effect is amplified if there are multiple VC firms approaching the end of their lifespan. Altogether, our results suggest that the exit process is strongly influenced by VCs' liquidity considerations. / Ph. D.

In the first essay, we study mutual funds' voting on compensation-related proposals initiated by corporate management. Compared with proposals on other topics, proposals on compensation issues are more likely to be challenged by mutual funds. Consistent with active institutional influence, mutual funds are more likely to vote against management at portfolio firms that make more excess CEO pay or depict other symptoms of poor governance such as bad performance and CEO entrenchment. Both active and passive funds' votes are significant drivers of the voting outcome of a proposal. Failed proposals are associated with lower CEO pay, especially excess pay, in the following year. Say-on-pay proposals opposed by more mutual funds are also followed by lower excess CEO pay. Collectively, evidence in this paper suggests that institutions (including passive institutions) play an important role in setting CEO pay through the voting channel. The second essay examines the equity loan supply for short selling. Using detailed stock lending data, we show that active equity funds, on average, are informed, stock lenders. The stocks they lend outperform those that they do not. The stocks they recall and sell perform worse in the future than those that remain on loan. These funds avoid lending stocks when lending fees are extremely high and use the shorting market's signals to form stock-selling decisions. Our findings help explain why institutional investors lend stocks. They also highlight a new source of short-sale constraints arising from the informed loan supply. / Doctor of Philosophy / Shareholders of a firm are expected to monitor executive compensation. Among all share-holders, institutional investors such as mutual funds play an important role in setting pay practices for executives. However, do they vote on related proposals at annual meetings or simply "vote by feet"? The first essay strives to answer the question using mutual fund proposal vote records data. Our findings suggest that mutual funds can affect CEO compensation in the future by voting against management-initiated pay proposals and the effect is both statistically and economically significant. Institutional investors such as mutual funds also participate in lending business on otherwise idle shares in their portfolio. While they are often considered passive and not informed in the equity loan market, their behavior has been much less investigated. We study the extent to which mutual funds exploit information in lending their shares using the first detailed stock lending dataset obtained from SEC filings. We find that mutual funds are informed lenders and important to market efficiency.