L’histoire de la Bourse de Beyrouth ne se différencie pas de celle des autres nations. Créée en 1920, cette institution sedistingue cependant des autres bourses mondiales par un phénomène singulier. Elle a attendu 34 ans pour être dotée d’uneréglementation spéciale.La fonction la plus traditionnelle de la bourse est de collecter l’épargne en vue de contribuer au financement de l’économie, touten exerçant un rôle primordial de liquidité des capitaux investis à long terme.Donc, mon étude de recherche doit se baser sur l’histoire financière de la Bourse de Beyrouth dès sa naissance en 1920 et lesétapes qui les a surmonté jusqu’à présent.Elle devra se faire suivant quatre axes principaux :§ Une série d’études et de recherche (qualitative et quantitative) concernant les sociétés cotées depuis 1920 avecdes tableaux et des statistiques basées sur les informations boursières (cours et actions) et leur évolutiontemporelle ainsi que leur contribution au développement de l’économie.§ La création de deux indices généraux d’actions : mensuel et annuel§ Etude de la microstructure du marché boursier libanais et de sa nature à travers les différentes sous périodesanalysées§ Une étude financière basée sur des tests économétriques dans le but de vérifier l’efficience, ou non, du marchébeyrouthin des actions.La problématique dans cette étude de recherche est d’utiliser les outils théoriques et techniques de la finance moderne pourcomprendre les phénomènes relevant de l’histoire financière.L’objectif sera de fournir un éclairage sur quelques exemples caractéristiques dans l’histoire de la Bourse de Beyrouth résultantde la tentative d'application concernant sa contribution dans l’économie libanaise.Le rôle de la Bourse de Beyrouth dans le financement de l'économie locale demeure pour le moment négligeable. Depuis sanaissance en 1920, jamais la Bourse de Beyrouth n'est parvenue à jouer le rôle que l'on pouvait en attendre dans l'Economielibanaise.Est-ce encore le signe d'un manque de confiance dans le pays, d'une inadéquation entre les fortes structures familiales dans laplupart des entreprises et l'ouverture du capital qu'elle induit? Toujours est-il que les efforts structurels entrepris dès sa fondationpour relancer cette institution ne sont pas encore récompensés ? / The history of the Beirut Stock Exchange does not differ from that of other nations'. Founded in 1920, this institutiondistinguishes itself from other international stock exchanges through a unique phenomenon. It awaited 34 years to be endowedwith special regulations.The most traditional function of the stock market is to collect savings to contribute towards financing growth. It holds anessential role of liquidity on long-term investments.My research study must build itself on the history of the Beirut Stock Exchange, going back to its birth in 1920 and followingthe steps it has overcome through its evolution so far.It shall be developed through four principal axes:§ A series of studies and research (qualitative and quantitative) pertaining to companies listed since 1920, with chartsand statistics based on stock information (courses and activities) as well as their temporal evolution and theircontribution to the development of the Economy.§ The creation of two general stock indexes: the monthly index and the annual index.§ The study of the microstructure of the Lebanese Stock Market and its nature through the various analyzed periods.§ A thorough analysis of the problems confronting the development of the Stock Exchange at the administrative,structural and conceptual levels.The problematic of this research study are the use of theoretical and technical tools of modern finance to understand thephenomena linked to financial history.The objective is to provide insight into some typical examples in the history of the Beirut Stock Exchange resulting from theattempt of application relative to its contribution in the Lebanese economy.The role of the Beirut Stock Exchange in financing the local economy remains negligible. Since its birth in 1920, the BeirutStock Exchange has never succeeded in holding the role it may have been expected to play in the Lebanese Economy.Is this another reflection of a lack of confidence in the country or an unsuitability between the strong family structures in mostbusinesses and the resulting opening of the capital? Nonetheless, the structural efforts undertaken since the founding of thisinstitution have yet to be rewarded...

Of the many analytical methods collectively referred to as Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is the most familiar to today’s generation of students of finance. The popularity of the CAPM arises from its success in expressing a powerful theoretical insight in a simple, usable form. The primary use of the CAPM is to determine minimum required rates of return from investment in risky assets. The variable in the CAPM is called ‘beta’, a statistical measure of risk which has become familiar to all finance professionals. Over the past decade, beta has become the most widely recognised and applied measure of risk in the investment community. The model has been extensively tested in the developed capital markets, mainly in the United States of America. But the model has not been extensively tested in other developed and developing countries, often due to the size of the capital market and the lack of the data in these countries. This study attempts to fill this vacuum and tries to update the earlier tests done on the Stock Exchange of Singapore. On addition, a review of the validity of the CAPM over time, as proxied by the stationarity of the beta, is performed. Also, tests regarding heteroskedasticity and its implications have been undertaken. / Master of Commerce (Hons)

Public media and previous research have focused mainly on listing day returns of initial public offers (IPOs) by new economy companies in specific periods such as before April 2000, without examining any subsequent equity offers by new economy companies. This study addresses the issue of multiple equity offers and provides additional understanding of new economy initial and seasoned equity offers (SEOs). Without, a priori, favouring any existing explanation of initial and long-term share returns, this research tests a wide range of theories in order to provide insight into share returns of equity offerings by new economy companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange between 1994 and 2004. In general, this thesis documents the ability of publicly available information (obtained from offer documents and company announcements to the market) to explain the returns of equity-issuing new economy companies in Australia. In other words, how useful is public information in the valuation of initial and seasoned equity offers of new economy stocks? Specifically, the thesis seeks to examine the ability of public information to explain (a) listing day and long-term returns subsequent to initial public offers by new economy companies, and the probability of IPO withdrawal, (b) announcement period and long-term returns of seasoned equity offers by new economy companies, and (c) the relationships between the initial and any subsequent equity offers by new economy companies (within three years of listing) in terms of probability of seasoned equity offer, duration between the IPO and the first SEO, and frequency of seasoned equity offers within the first three years of IPO. First, the thesis finds that public information is used by investors to value new economy stocks on listing day and in the long run. The negative effect of withdrawal probability on listing day returns of successful IPOs is confirmed in this thesis in the context of the fixed-price offer process in the new economy sector in Australia. While new economy equity-issuing companies have inferior long-term returns compared to the market index and the small capitalisation stock index, they do not underperform relative to their respective industry index returns. Second, this study also finds that public information can explain new economy stock returns around the announcements of seasoned offers and in the long run. Third, the results reveal that publicly available information can be used to explain the incidence and to estimate the probability of seasoned equity offers by recent new economy IPOs. Furthermore, it is found that public information has the ability to explain the duration between the IPO and the first seasoned offer, as well as the frequency of seasoned offers in the first three years after listing. The results of the study support the theoretical predictions about the effects of public information (representing IPO characteristics) and the incidence of a seasoned equity offer. In particular, IPO quality signalling by retained ownership and by underpricing, and the market feedback effect of post-IPO returns have been confirmed for new economy equity offers in Australia. Underpriced new economy IPOs and those with greater proportion of ownership retained after the offer are significantly more likely to have a seasoned equity offer within three years of listing. Likewise, new economy IPOs with superior aftermarket returns are significantly more likely to have a seasoned equity offer. The implication of this research is that public information contained in offer documents and in company announcements is important to valuation of the Australian Stock Exchange listed new economy companies. Thus, the regulators and the Stock Exchange should continue to insist on a high level of information disclosure prior to equity offers in order to enable investors to properly value companies within the new economy sector.

ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the legal and theoretical basis of continuous disclosure regulation in Australia as it applies to listed companies. An empirical study is undertaken to further investigate the operation of the legislation. As part of the Enhanced Disclosure regime, the continuous disclosure provision was effective from 5 September 1994 as s1001A of the Corporations Law, now the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). This statutory provision is replaced by s674, inserted by Schedule 2 to the Financial Services Reform Act 2001 (Cth), and effective from 11 March 2002. The provision reinforces Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listing rule 3.1. The rule requires a listed disclosing entity to notify ASX immediately of information that would be expected to have a �material effect� on the share price of the company. However, the disclosure requirement is weakened by a number of specific exemptions or �carve-outs� to listing rule 3.1. If a reasonable person would not expect the information to be disclosed, and if the confidentiality of the information is maintained, then disclosure is not mandatory in special circumstances. This study analyses 427 query notices, issued by ASX to listed companies from July 1995 to April 1996. The queries request information concerning unexplained movements in a company�s share price or a failure to comply with the listing rules. An analysis of the companies� replies to these notices provides a profile of the type of company that is likely to be queried. The study also attempts to evaluate the extent to which these companies have relied on the �carve-outs� as an exemption to the regulation.

Corporate cash holdings is a topic constantly under review, companies hoarding cash are criticized by shareholders who rather have companies using their cash for new investments or dividend payouts. Recent academic research has discovered that levels of cash holding are high in times when risk is deemed to be high and found that levels of corporate cash holdings are substantially higher than they used to, making more coverage and a better understanding of the phenomenon crucial. This thesis is investigating an aspect of the interconnection between corporate cash holdings and shareholders by examining if there is a relationship between the level of corporate cash holdings and the risk of the company stock. This research is conducted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the four year period of 2009-2012 and investigates for a relationship not only on the entire stock exchange but also for each size and sector individually. In order to investigate this relationship a cash to assets ratio has been employed to represent the level of corporate cash holdings and the measures of stock beta and volatility are used to represent the risk of the stock. The cash holding ratio is tested for a relationship with both beta and volatility separately using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. This thesis have adopted a quantitative research and implemented an archival research strategy by using official records and numbers. Through these statistical tests this thesis establishes significant relationships between both the cash holding ratio and stock beta and stock volatility separately for the entire stock exchange and some differences arises between different sizes and sectors. For cash holding and stock beta a negative correlation relationship has been discovered for the entire sample, the medium cap size and the health care and industrial sectors. For cash holdings and stock volatility positive correlation findings have been made for the entire sample as well as the small cap size and the sectors of basic materials, health care and technology. This finding implicates that cash holdings to some extent relates stock risk and several potential explanations to this relationship are given and connected to well-established financial theories.

La technologie est de plus en plus omniprésente et nombreuses sont les industries qui doivent demeurer à l'affût de cette dernière afin d'être en mesure de rivaliser sur la scène internationale. L'automatisation est aujourd'hui devenue la norme notamment dans les systèmes de négociation des marchés boursiers. Malgré l'abondante littérature financière qui porte sur le virage électronique dans les systèmes de négociation, une récente innovation découlant des systèmes électroniques a fait ses débuts à la bourse de Boston et demeure jusqu'ici inexplorée. Avec pour principal bénéfice la réduction des coûts de transaction, ce système novateur veut gagner la ferveur du public par le transfert de ces bénéfices vers les investisseurs. Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons d'apporter une contribution à la compréhension des répercussions de ce nouveau système connu sous le nom de Price Improvement Process, ou « PIP ». Ainsi, nous mesurons l'impact de ce système qui se veut comme un processus d'amélioration de prix qui se manifeste au niveau de l'écart bid-ask. Nous trouvons qu'en l'absence du processus d'amélioration de prix « PIP », la transaction médiane est exécutée à l'intérieur de l'intervalle du prix moyen ± 50% de l'écart bid-ask affiché. En d'autres mots, la transaction sera exécutée soit au BidPrice ou au AskPrice. Cependant, les résultats obtenus nous montrent qu'avec le processus d'amélioration de prix « PIP », la transaction médiane est exécutée dans l'intervalle du prix moyen ±30% de l'écart bid-ask. Ce résultat nous indique une amélioration significative de la qualité d'exécution des transactions lorsqu'un « PIP » est lancé. La stratification de la variable volume nous a permis d'identifier avec plus de précision dans quelle situation l'amélioration était la plus significative. Dans un premier temps, les résultats de la stratification du volume par transaction montrent que l'amélioration de prix que procure le « PIP » augmente avec le volume de la transaction. L'amélioration est de l'ordre de 23.8% lorsque les transactions comprennent de 1 à 5 contrats et peut atteindre tout près 56.47% d'amélioration pour les transactions dont le volume est de 51 contrats ou plus. Dans un second temps, nous avons étudié la liquidité journalière. Malgré le fait que les résultats étaient beaucoup moins précis quant à l'influence de chacune des variables, nous avons été en mesure de déterminer que l'amélioration que procure le processus « PIP » est à son maximum les journées de très forte liquidité, soit plus de 500 contrats transigés par jour.

The research is conducted through a quantitative study based on data collected from the Copenhagen Stock Exchange between 2003 and 2011. Our primary purpose was to ascertain whether illiquidity was priced in the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. Illiquidity has been shown as a difficult concept to measure as it is not an observable variable in itself. We show that illiquidity can be measured using Amihud’s (2002) ILLIQ-measure. We investigated the relationship between asset pricing models and illiquidity. We provided an in depth look into illiquidity and past research involving liquidity and asset pricing as well as a thorough theoretical background concerning relevant academic theory. Though our empirical analysis we found evidence which supports the pricing of illiquidity in the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

A survey is conducted through an event study on the Stockholm Stock Exchange based on 119 historical stocks splits with a split factor of at least two, for the years between 1997 and 2012. This study has tested if there is an increase in return variance and systematic risk followed by a stock split. This is a quantitative study with the deductive approach and the positivistic epistemological standpoint. By matching 8925 squared daily returns for 75 days of pre- and post- split data, the sample of stock splits showed an increased return variance 0.515 of the matched squared daily returns, this number is significant at the 1% level in our binomial z-statistics. If the returns are compared on a 15 week interval instead of 75 days, the change in variance disappears; this confirms Dubofsky (1991) findings. When 52 weeks of pre- and post- split data is used, there is an increased variance in a proportion if 0.55 of the 6186 matched observations, this proportion is far greater than our daily sample and tells us that there is a long term effect on the return variance. The systematic risk measured as beta derived from the CAPM, did not show any increase in any of the three different time periods (75days, 16weeks and 52 weeks); the results confirms Wiggins (1992) findings; beta changes are just illusory.  The results suggest that there is an average increase in returns variance in the short and long term after a stock split, that confirms some existing studies by Ohlson and Penman (1985) and Dubofsky (1991). The increase in returns variance can be viewed as the management’s success of signaling the market, enhancing liquidity and reducing information asymmetry without any additional cost of capital. Our findings also contradict the theory of economic irrelevance of shares outstanding. This study is expanding Ohlson and Penman (1985) and Dubofsky (1991) studies, on a European stock market.

This is a summary of doctoral dissertation on evaluation of market structure in stock exchange industry under network formation. The summary arguments the relavance of the research, its aim and objectives. It summarizes the contents of dissertation and presents its outcomes and conclusions. / Tai yra daktaro disertacijos, kurios tema Vertybinių popierių biržų sektoriaus rinkos struktūros vertinimas formuojantis tinklams, santrauka. Joje argumentuojama tyrimo problema ir jos aktualumas, tinklas bei uždaviniai. Santraukoje trumpai pristatomas disertacijos turinys, tyrimo rezultatai ir išvados.

No abstract available. / Thesis (LL. M.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.