Almost two decades after the burst of the Dot-com bubble, investors are opinionated as to whether a new technology bubble has formed in the equities market. Similar to the late 1990's and early 2000's, many Internet firms today go through initial public offering without yet turning over a dollar of earnings, but boast certain revenue-associated performance metrics to investors promising of future success. However, investors are known to hold sentiments sensitive to earnings announcements (Seok, Cho & Ryu, 2019) and reward firms which meet or beat earnings with higher stock returns (Bartov, Givoly & Hayn, 2002). That raises a question on the content of earnings announcements: Besides earnings and cash flow, are there other factors that may influence investor decisions to trade some Internet stocks? My primary hypothesis is that the voluntary disclosure of specific non-financial key performance indicators (NFKPI) during earnings announcement by Internet firms influences the investors' investing/trading decisions. My motivation for this research is to understand better whether there is a strategic element in the voluntary disclosure of NFKPI in Internet companies and how it may impact investors' decisions. The results could be useful to firms in their evaluations of whether to release NFKPI or similar information and to equity research analysts as well as investors in measuring their expectations and valuations of the firms' stocks. The intention of the study is not to generalize the findings to the full market, as the number of companies with the practice of voluntary disclosure of NFKPI is comparatively few compared to those without the practice. Instead, this study examines the effects of NFKPI on the stock returns of those companies which choose to disclose it. I use event study methodology to test the statistical significance of disclosure of NFKPIs during earnings announcements. By controlling for earnings surprise and other meaningful financial ratios, I also examine how the signaling effect of NFKPI could be distinguished from the signaling effects of important information concurrently released during earnings announcements. I focus on two types of NFKPI within the Internet industry: Gross Bookings for online booking agency services and Daily Active Users for social media. As earnings reports and quarterly filings often do not necessarily come together on the same date, I hand-collected data to estimate the surprise effect of NFKPI per earnings announcement, by using available broker forecasts of the respective NFKPI as a proxy for the investor's NFKPI expectation. The results show that while revenue surprise remains consistently the most influential variable to investors, NFKPI Surprise has a positive, statistically significant relationship with the firm's abnormal returns. Additionally, despite being insignificant when expected earnings is beat or in line with consensus, NFKPI Surprise is found statistically significant with a positive relationship to abnormal returns when expected earnings is missed. In line with existing research on management's motivation to prevent negative earnings surprises (Matsumoto, 2002), these findings imply that if firms could employ the voluntary disclosure of NFKPI to manipulate investors' impression and to cushion their stock prices against potential negative market reactions when earnings is missed.

This thesis examines the stock market price variations associated with physical asset expenditure announcements in Australia. With the exception of the study of Chen and Ho (1997) in Singapore, most capital expenditure studies in other markets investigate the announcement effects associated with changes in budgeted capital expenditures. The fact that there is almost never any firm level capital budget announcement in Australia presents a unique opportunity to examine individual physical asset expenditure announcements. ¶ Three primary hypotheses pertaining to growth opportunities, free cash flow theory, and the capital market monitoring argument are developed and tested. These arguments are formulated to explain the abnormal return variations associated with physical asset expenditure announcements. The growth opportunities hypothesis posits that the abnormal returns at physical asset expenditure announcements are positively related to a firm's growth opportunities. Both free cash flow theory and capital market monitoring hypothesis postulate that the abnormal returns at physical asset expenditure announcements are negatively related to a firm's free cash flow, and cash flow respectively. Other control explanators are incorporated from the merger and takeovers literature. ¶ Event study methodology is used to examine the abnormal returns associated with physical asset expenditure announcements. Two sets of data, intraday and daily, are used to investigate the market reaction. Intraday returns are calculated on a time-weighted approach and two methods are used to calculate intraday abnormal returns. The first method defines abnormal returns as the difference between actual returns and market returns. The second method defines abnormal returns as the difference between market-adjusted returns and market-adjusted returns on a control portfolio. Daily abnormal returns are calculated using the market model. ¶ Both univariate and multivariate analyses provide strong support for the growth opportunities hypothesis. The results suggest the quality of firms' growth opportunities is the key variable determining the direction and magnitude of the abnormal returns at announcement. Support for the capital monitoring argument and the free cash flow theory is mixed, generally with a lack of support. The free cash flow variable is found to be significantly negatively related to abnormal returns, only when a finer dummy is used in the multivariate regression. All other control variables are found to be insignificant in explaining the stock market variations once the growth opportunities variable is included in the regression. ¶ This thesis makes the following contributions. First, this thesis presents the initial empirical evidence concerning physical asset expenditure announcements in Australia. Second, the thesis shows that the quality of a firm's growth opportunities is the key factor in determining the direction and magnitude of abnormal returns around physical asset expenditure announcements. These results also suggest that the equity market in Australia reacts to physical asset expenditure announcements which contain information pertaining to growth opportunities rather than the relative size of the physical asset expenditure transactions to firm value. Third, support for the capital monitoring argument and the free cash flow theory is not strong. Fourth, all other control variables are found to be insignificant in explaining the stock market variations once market to book ratio is included in the regression. Fifth, the results suggest that prior research which fails to segregate market to book ratio and free cash flow proxy into finer partitions may have possibly underestimated the market to book and the free cash flow effects.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:33:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 3032329 bytes, checksum: 713b32648fde2a6f619f4e0a47c54a68 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This work aims to examine how advertising, produced in printed media, represents rurality, observing their transformation through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, by analyzing the ads of the magazine Globo Rural. Through analyzing the ads, discourse and semiotic, it was sought to understand how representations about rurality have evolved. Consequently, there were analyzed all 384 ads corresponding to the magazines of March, June, September and December of the years 1988, 1998 and 2008. Throughout the analysis and comparison of the ads, the heterogeneity of representations of rurality was evident by the mark of temporality. In other words, as the context changes, representations follow and express their modifications. This evidence confirmed the hypothesis of this research that advertising, over time, represents the multiplicity of identities of the new rurality and their social changes. At a starting point, in the '80s, rural world is presented as a space of hard work, which could generate wealth and achievements through technological transformation for the sake of production and productivity. Afterwards, it has evolved in the 2000s, into a representation of thisnew rurality as heterogeneous and with multiple meanings and activities, in line with what the academic discussions argued. We conclude that advertising, rather than being an agent of change as proposed by some authors, is presented here as a reinforcement of the dominant culture. / Esta dissertação visa analisar como a publicidade produzida em meios de comunicação impressos, representa o rural, observando sua transformação nas décadas de 1980, 1990 e 2000, utilizando-se para isso os anúncios da revista Globo Rural. Através da análise da publicidade, análises de discurso e semiótica, pretendeu-se compreender como foram modificando as representações acerca do rural. Para isso foram analisados os 384 anúncios correspondentes às edições dos meses de março, junho, setembro e dezembro, dos anos 1988, 1998 e 2008. Ao longo da análise e comparação dos anúncios, a heterogeneidade das representações sobre o rural ficou evidente pela marca da temporalidade. Ou seja, à medida que o contexto se modificou, as representações sobre o rural acompanharam e manifestaram suas modificações. Essa evidência veio confirmar a hipótese dessa pesquisa de que a publicidade, ao longo do tempo, representa a multiplicidade de identidades da nova ruralidade e as mudanças sociais incorporadas pelo mundo rural. Parte-se de um rural como espaço de trabalho, esforçado, mas que podia ser gerador de fartura e conquistas, através de modelos tecnológicos, em prol da produção e produtividade, nos anos 80, evoluindo para a representação de uma nova ruralidade heterogênea, pluriativa e de múltiplos significados na década de 2000, em consonância com as discussões acadêmicas sobre o rural. Conclui-se que a publicidade, em vez de ser agente de mudança como propõem alguns autores, apresenta-se neste caso como reforçadora de uma cultura dominante.

The study examined the impact of earnings announcements on the share price of selected mining companies using the most recent data from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This study covered a period from 1 January 2011; to 31 December 2015. Using the classical event study methodology, the speed of reaction of the market to annual earnings information releases for a sample of 27 companies listed on the exchange is tested. Over the sample period, the Abnormal Returns (AR), Average Abnormal Returns (AAR) and Cumulative Average Abnormal Returns (CAAR) were calculated. The AR, AAR and CAAR show positive results obtained during the earnings announcement period. The returns yielded from these results are significantly different from zero. / Financial Accounting / M. Phil. (Accounting Sciences)

[pt] Mostramos que o movimento do retorno de ações horas antes do anúncio do FOMC ocorre principalmente em períodos de alta incerteza de mercado. Especificamente, esse retorno anormal é explicado por uma redução significativa do prêmio de risco (volatilidade implícita e prêmio de variância) antes do anúncio, mas apenas quando o prêmio de risco do mercado é alto (quando está acima da sua mediana). As medidas de incerteza de mercado que são relevantes são persistentes e não são relacionadas à incerteza ou expectativa com relação à política. O mercado não fica estressado dias antes do anúncio, e a resolução de incerteza não é revertida dias após a reunião. Além disso, nós explicamos o porquê do movimento de antecipação não ser observado na última década, uma vez que a ausência de evidência advém da variação no tempo que também estava presente em dados passados. Adicionalmente, o CAPM funciona em datas de FOMC apenas quando o prêmio de risco é alto, ou seja, quando a volatilidade implícita está acima da mediana histórica até o momento. Os resultados são robustos a diferentes amostras e medidas alternativas de prêmio de risco e incerteza. / [en] We show that the pre-FOMC announcement drift in equity returns occurs mostly in periods of high market uncertainty. Specifically, this abnormal return is explained by a significant reduction in the risk premium (implied volatility and variance risk premium) prior to the announcement, but only when the risk premium is high, e.g., when it is above its median. The relevant measures of market uncertainty are persistent and are not related to policy uncertainty or expectations. Markets do not become stressed in the days prior to the announcement, and the resolution of uncertainty is not reversed in the days after the meeting. Moreover, we explain why recent studies suggest that the pre-FOMC drift might have disappeared in the past decade, as this decline in the effect is due to time variation that was also present in older data. Additionally, CAPM only works on FOMC dates when the risk premium is high, e.g., implied volatility above its prior median level. The results are robust to different samples and to alternative risk premium and uncertainty measures.

L'objectif principal de ma thèse est d'évaluer la réaction du marché à la publication de différentes annonces de notation de crédit. Précisément, la thèse étudie l'impact des annonces sur la volatilité des prix et sur plusieurs indicateurs d'activité et de liquidité sur le marché obligataire et de CDS. Un chapitre examine également si et comment le prix des actions réagit aux retraits de notation de crédit. / The main aim of my thesis is to evaluate the market reaction to credit rating announcements. Precisely, the thesis studies the impact of the release of such announcements on the price volatility, liquidity and several trading activity measures in the bond market and CDS. A chapter also examines whether and how the issuer stock price reacts to the withdrawal of its credit rating.

This essay is a study which is intended to explore how public service announcements in broadcast media use humour as a method of conveying their core messages in a manner which is both memorable and persuasive; to consider why humour is chosen as a strategy; and to identify the similarities and differences in the use of humour in PSAs and commercial broadcast advertising. Six video commercials were analysed in total: three PSAs and three advertisements. The analysis identified semantic and stylistic features including metaphors, puns, idioms, vagueness, polysemes, homonyms, homographs and homophones, as well as visual metaphors. It continued on to investigate how PSAs contextualise their messages, applying Grice's co-operative principle, as well as the principles of relevance, as proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986). The results revealed that the PSAs examined appear to show the application of a range of linguistic devices that contribute to making their content humorous. Ambiguity, mostly generated by verbal and visual metaphors, vagueness and polysemy, appears to be the most common strategy for stimulating interest and engaging the viewer. It was observed that viewers must possess the ability to recover meaning through non-linguistic signifiers, such as body language, and through contextual cues. It was also established that similar linguistic devices tend to be used in the production of PSAs and advertisements to create humorous content, but to a different extent.

We assess the effects of austerity announcements on investors' perception of the government's solvency across the financial cycle. To do so, we construct a unique news dataset utilizing a newswire database which consists of governmental and parliamentary approvals of austerity measures for 11 European countries. We also follow more regular statements of governmental representatives towards austerity measures. The effects are studied on 10-year sovereign bond yield spreads vis-à-vis Germany during the period 01:2000-12:2019. Implementing pooled OLS regressions, we find significant decreasing effects in the pre-crisis period especially for the GIIPSH group (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Hungary) and decreasing although not significant effects in the post-crisis period. The crisis period manifests itself with increased surprise effects of announcements. The markets adopted announcements of the GIIPSH group as signals of deteriorating solvency which led to further increases of yield spreads. On the other hand, prudent countries (Czechia, France, Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia) enjoyed a low sensitivity to their announcements across the cycle. Finally, we find that markets react rather on final announcements of austerity measures than to comments expressed by national representatives....

This study will validate several key results from previous studies of bank loan announcement effects by using the data from Hong Kong market following the 1997 Asian crisis. Banks are believed to play a unique role in financial market which could effectively reduce the problem of information asymmetry and moral hazard. Banks could access borrowers’ inside information which is not available to other participants. Thus bank loan announcements convey valuable information to the market, and market response of the stock price should be positive. However, because of the significant reform in both financial market and information market, the valuation of bank loan announcement conveyed need to be reconsidered. This study investigates whether banks are still “unique” in the financial market or whether they are like middlemen between borrowers and investors. Data used in this study is collected from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Index, and a standard event study with the market model is applied in the research to conduct the empirical analysis. The results suggest bank loan announcements are associated with significantly higher positive abnormal returns than non-bank loan announcements. Based on the market model of event study, market response is found to be significantly positive for loan syndication, short maturity loan and borrower’s debt ratio, and negatively related to firm size and loan size. Bank loans with refinancing and capital expenditure and no specific purpose have significantly higher positive abnormal returns, and borrowers with property and industrial industry type have more significant positive abnormal returns compared to other industry type. The findings also suggest the Hong Kong stock market is efficient in both strong and semi-strong form for bank loan announcements. A strong evidence of information leakage problem is found for non-bank loan announcements. The results are generally consistent with the existing literature.

Submitted by Andrei Francalacci de Castro Faria (andrei.francalacci@bndes.gov.br) on 2016-06-07T19:21:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Andrei Francalacci.pdf: 2215041 bytes, checksum: 671600e92ce454211d0c6493c0ba75bc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2016-06-10T12:18:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Andrei Francalacci.pdf: 2215041 bytes, checksum: 671600e92ce454211d0c6493c0ba75bc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2016-06-20T16:21:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Andrei Francalacci.pdf: 2215041 bytes, checksum: 671600e92ce454211d0c6493c0ba75bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-27T18:56:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Andrei Francalacci.pdf: 2215041 bytes, checksum: 671600e92ce454211d0c6493c0ba75bc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05-31 / We studied the effects on Petrobras shares arising from the presentation of the earnings announcements of 2014´s third and fourth quarter, the first announcements made after the beginning of the corruption investigation called Operação Lava Jato. We evaluate the impact on prices of the company's stocks with an Event Study. As a control, we analyzed the effects of the disclosure of 1,152 quarterly earnings announcements on other 48 stocks that are part of the IBOVESPA´s theoretical portfolio in the period between 2010 and 2015. We seek to identify the presence of abnormal returns and verify that all information is automatically transferred to prices, suggesting the semi-strong efficiency of the Brazilian stock market in accordance with the Market Efficiency Hypothesis (EMH) developed by Fama (1970). At the end we compare the results of the two specific earning announcements studied with the observed results of other earnings announcements of Petrobras. No evidence was found of market efficiency during the 2010-2015 period neither for the group of 48 stocks, NÃO_PETRO, nor for the PETRO group, formed by the two Petrobras shares. We then analyzed the results in two periods. The first, called Bonanza (2010-2013), showed the same results as the 2010-2015 period, with no significant abnormal returns in the event window [0,1]. The results of the Crisis period (2014 -2015) showed that the information of the earning announcements ha a statistical significant impacted on the prices of the studied stocks. To analyzing the results of the individual earning announcements of Petrobras, we identified the need for additional information, extrapolating the scope of an event study. / Este trabalho propõe-se a estudar os efeitos sobre as ações da Petrobras decorrentes da apresentação dos balanços do terceiro e quarto trimestre de 2014, primeiros balanços apresentados após as denúncias da Operação Lava Jato. Avaliamos os impactos nos preços das ações da empresa através de um Estudo de Evento. Como controle, analisamos os efeitos da divulgação de 1.152 balanços trimestrais sobre outras 48 ações de que fazem parte da Carteira Teórica do IBOVESPA no período entre 2010 e 2015. Buscamos identificar a presença de retornos anormais e verificar se toda informação se transfere automaticamente aos preços, sugerindo a eficiência semiforte do mercado de ações brasileiro de acordo com a Hipótese de Eficiência do Mercado (HEM) desenvolvida por Fama (1970). Ao final comparamos os resultados específicos dos balanços em estudo com os resultados observados em outros balanços da própria Petrobras. Não foram encontradas evidências de eficiência de mercado durante o período 2010-2015 nem para o grupo de 48 ações, chamadas de NÃO_PETRO, nem para o grupo PETRO, formado pelas duas ações da Petrobras. Ao dividir os mesmos grupos em dois momentos, os resultados para o período batizado de Bonança (2010-2013), permanecem iguais ao do período completo, ao passo que o período chamado de Crise (2014 -2015) apresenta retornos anormais estatisticamente significativos nas janelas de eventos. Ao avaliar os retornos de balanços individuais da Petrobras, identificamos a necessidade de informações adicionais, extrapolando o escopo de um estudo de evento.