Recent research documents that voluntary disclosure—in particular, managerial forecast guidance—lowers uncertainty levels, as proxied by option implied variances. In this study I explore the effect of such voluntary disclosure on other dimensions of uncertainty. In particular, I investigate the effect of managerial guidance on the variance risk premium (VRP). Prior research predicts and provides empirical evidence of the VRP, which reflects that implied variances (on average) exceed actual variances, and exists to compensate traders, who sell variance protection for equity options. First, I confirm previous findings that implied variances are lower when firms issue management guidance. Second and more importantly, I document that the VRP is higher when firms provide guidance. I reconcile these seemingly contradictory results by (i) confirming that a significant portion of the increase in VRP is attributable to uncertainty specific to the impending earnings announcement, consistent with the primary role played by the voluntary management disclosure; and (ii) documenting that a higher moment of uncertainty—implied kurtosis levels (i.e., price jump risk)—is higher with managerial guidance. Additional tests examining characteristics of managerial guidance reveal these findings are strongest for firms issuing sporadic guidance, guidance issued close to earnings announcements, and those exhibiting the largest surprise. Overall, the evidence suggests that voluntary disclosure such as management guidance can reduce expected variance, but simultaneously increase higher order moments of uncertainty such as expected price jumps.

The purpose of the thesis is to study share price response to quarterly earnings per share (EPS) announcements in the world steel industry for the last five years (from 2007 to 2011), using the event study methodology. Moreover, the paper attempts to test share price reactions to earnings releases for yearly aggregation (pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis periods) and countries aggregation (developed and developing countries) of sample steel companies. The research is conducted employing a sample of 30 listed companies, operating in the steel industry. The steel producers’ headquarters are situated in thirteen countries; they are traded on twelve stock markets as primary listing stock exchanges and are referred to thirteen respective indexes.The thesis uses the event study methodology in order to address the purpose of the research. This methodology provides an insight on how numerous corporate events (M&As and takeovers announcements, regulatory changings and earnings announcements) influence company’s stock prices. All the announcements were divided into two groups: “negative” announcements (Group I) and “positive” announcements (Group II). By “negative” announcements it is meant, that new actual earnings per share are smaller than earnings per share from the last quarter, and vice versa for “positive” announcements. The pattern for overall aggregation of sample companies showed the significant and expected share price response to earnings announcements for Group I only. The output for Group II was puzzling. This led to the assumption of negative market perception on the steel industry stock prices as a result of 2007-2008 financial crises. Indeed, for 2007, which was determined as a pre-crisis period for the steel industry, the share price reaction was significant for both groups of EPS announcements. However, within the two other periods (crisis period of 2008-2009 and post-crisis period of 2010-2011) significant and expected pattern was obtained only for Group I once again. The 2007 yearly aggregation comprised only twenty companies due to the data availability. This revealed the assumption, that this sample of twenty steel companies should be tested for the two other periods. However, the pattern remained the same as in the overall aggregation case. Furthermore, the sample steel companies were aggregated on countries basis. The obtained response was analogous to overall aggregation response, the only difference is that Group I reaction was more significant for developed countries than for developing counties sample.

Insider trading may convey information to the market and promote accurate pricing of stocks. In this dissertation, I investigate insider trading at the turn of the century. In the first essay, I investigate insider trading activity in technology stocks during the high price - high volatility period of the late 1990s. I document that insiders of technology firms were heavy sellers during the ten month pre-peak period in which stock prices more than doubled. The technology stocks that were sold by insiders more extensively in the pre-peak period had lower returns in the post-peak period. I furthermore investigate the relation between the net order flows (buyer initiated minus seller initiated trades) and abnormal insider trading activity. I document that the net order flow is positively related to abnormal insider trading activity. However, this positive relation becomes weaker in the peak period; which implies less price discovery through insider trading during the rise of technology stock prices. In the second essay, I document that disclosure requirements significantly affect insider trading behavior. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires expedited and on-line disclosure of insider transactions. This increase in the visibility of insider trading reduces informational advantage of insiders and increases the likelihood of facing legal sanctions for insiders. I document that insider purchases significantly declined after the Sarbanes- Oxley Act. In addition, the incidences of insider purchases (sales) prior to positive (negative) earnings surprises declined after the Act. Finally, I document that the earnings announcements become more informative after the Act, which is consistent with less price discovery through insider trading prior to earnings announcements. However, the evidence that the decline in insider trading contributes to more informative earnings announcements is pronounced for insider purchases but not for insider sales.

Theoretical models suggest that ownership structure may be an important determinant of securities' market characteristics. For example, the presence of informed traders leads to greater bid-ask spreads (Copeland and Galai (1983), and Glosten and Milgrom (1985)), and strategic trading of informed and discretionary liquidity traders leads to intertemporal variation in both trading volume and trading costs (Admati and Pfleiderer (1988), and Foster and Viswanathan (1990)). However, the empirical studies on the effect of ownership structure on market characteristics are limited. Prior studies focus on either one type of market characteristics or one type of owners, and usually do not address the potential endogeneity problem between market characteristics and ownership structure. This dissertation extends existing literature with two essays on ownership and market characteristics. The first essay broadly examines the effect of ownership structure (inside ownership, institutional ownership, and individual ownership) on market characteristics such as order flow, price impact of trade, quoted spread and quoted depth. For each market characteristic examined, I establish an empirical model based on existing theories and empirical evidence. My results indicate that stocks with greater inside ownership have lower order flow, greater price impact of trade, greater quoted spread and lower quoted depth, while stocks with greater active institutional ownership and greater individual shareholders have greater order flow, smaller price impact of trade, lower spread and greater depth. These results may have implications for corporate governance. For example, while agency theory suggests managerial ownership may align interests of managers and shareholders, this essay finds that this comes with a liquidity cost. Further, my results suggest there are liquidity benefits of individual and institutional ownership. If as suggested by Amihud and Mendelson (1989), investors require a higher rate of return for illiquid stocks, firms can target their shares to specific types of investors (for example, active institutions and individuals) to improve liquidity, and reduce their cost of capital. The second essay is a specific application of the first essay and examines the effect of institutional ownership on price discovery around earnings announcements. I select earnings announcements as the event for my analysis because there are three well-documented regularities about earnings announcements. First, market participants anticipate the forthcoming earnings announcements. Second, the announcements of earnings news are usually accompanied by abnormal price changes and abnormal volume. Third, there is evidence that stock price continues to move in the direction of earnings surprise after the announcements of earnings news. Since results from the first essay suggest that institutional investors affect market characteristics such as price impact of trade and quoted spread, I expect that institutional participation would also affect the price discovery process around earnings announcements. My results indicate that institutional ownership is associated with greater anticipation of earnings news. Further, stocks with greater institutional ownership have a greater price response to announcements of earnings news. Finally, institutional investors have no significant effect on post-announcement drift. The results of the second essay suggest that institutional investors contribute to the price discovery process. / Ph. D.

We examine how information risk and transaction costs influence the initial and subsequent market reaction to earnings news. We find that the initial market reaction is higher per unit of earnings surprise for higher information risk firms (information content effect). Furthermore, it is information risk that induces transaction costs that limit the initial market reaction and lead to higher subsequent drift (transaction costs effect). Information risk does not have an effect on drift beyond that achieved through transaction costs. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the linkage between information risk and transaction costs in price discovery around public disclosure.

This paper investigates the European CDS markets response to earnings announcements between the years 2011-2013. Through the use of event study methodology, we investigate if the CDS market reacts to earnings news in terms of abnormal spread changes. Furthermore, by exploring the pre- and post announcement window the study examines the efficiency of the CDS market. The results imply that earnings announcements provide valuable information to the CDS market, with statistically significant results on the 5 % and 10 % significant level for negative and positive news respectively. Additionally, the paper shows that the market has a rather symmetric reaction to negative and positive earnings news since there is no significant difference in effects. The paper further reveals that there is no significant difference in the response between different credit rating groups. In terms of market efficiency, the study cannot confirm that there is anticipation for earnings announcements. The study further shows that there is no post-earnings announcement drift in the CDS market and that the market, overall, is efficient in incorporating the information into the spreads. Finally, a cross-sectional regression analysis confirms that negative earnings surprises are linked to large announcement day reactions, while positive earnings surprises are not.

Cette thèse comprend trois chapitres. Le Chapitre 1 présente des généralités sur les stock-options et synthétise la littérature existante sur les attributions et les exercices de stock-options. Le Chapitre 2 examine le comportement d’exercice des dirigeants dans les plus grandes entreprises françaises. Les résultats fournissent des preuves de l’utilisation d’informations privées pour exercer les options loin de l’expiration. Le Chapitre 3 examine l'annonce des résultats annuels et sa relation avec la décision d’exercice des stock-options des dirigeants. Les résultats de ce chapitre indiquent que les résultats annuels sont plus susceptibles de dépasser les prévisions des analystes quand les dirigeants exercent leurs options proches de l'expiration peu de temps après les annonces. La probabilité d'annonces de résultats positifs est également plus élevée lorsque les dirigeants exercent leurs options et revendent les actions obtenues. Les résultats montrent également la capacité de synchronisation des dirigeants. Ils accélèrent les annonces de résultats quand ils doivent exercer leurs options à proximité de l'expiration, en particulier lorsqu’ils vendent les actions obtenues. Le Chapitre 3 montre que les dirigeants utilisent un niveau plus élevé d’Accruals discrétionnaires lorsqu’ils doivent exercer des options à expiration. / This dissertation contains three chapters. Chapter 1 presents a description of stock option compensation and discusses the existing literature on stock option awards and exercises. Chapter 2 investigates CEO exercise behavior in the most important French companies. The results provide evidence of information timing of option exercises. Chapter 3 examines annual earnings announcement and its relation with CEO exercise decisions. The results of this chapter indicate that earnings are more likely to exceed analyst forecasts when CEOs exercise their options close to expiry shortly after the announcements. The likelihood of positive surprise increases when option exercises are followed by stock sales. The results also show CEO timing ability. CEOs accelerate earnings announcements when they have to exercise their stock options close to expiry, especially when they sell the obtained shares. Chapter 3 shows that CEOs use a higher level of discretionary accruals when they have to exercise options that are about to expire.

I examine the effect analysts have on the price response to earnings announcements. To address this question, I exploit an exogenous shock to analyst coverage to show that, following the loss of an analyst, the market reaction to earnings announcements decreases. In cross-sectional analyses, I show that the magnitude of the negative effect is decreasing in information asymmetry and the likelihood that a firm’s earnings are used more for contracting purposes. I further show that the magnitude of the negative effect is increasing in the readability of the financial statements and financial reporting comparability. This study contributes to the literature by providing a deeper understanding of the effect analysts have on the pricing of information contained in earnings announcements. As such, the results of this study should be of interest to regulators, researchers, and investors.

This thesis examines the impact of earnings announcements on the stock return performance. Most literature regarding this topic is related to the US market. We follow 40 of the largest and most liquid stocks on the virtual OMX Nordic Exchange from 2010 to 2012. In this research paper, we present the theoretical framework that gives an overview of the possible research areas, and provide empirical evidence of the repercussion of the earnings announcements on stock returns. We use the event study methodology to conduct this thesis. It is a standard approach established by Fama et al. (1969). It has been used in a variety of researches for gauging the effect of new information on the market value of a security. As we expected good news and bad news to have different reactions on the stock return performances, we have split our data in good news and bad news. To differentiate good news from bad news, we measure analysts’ forecast error. It consists in subtracting the earnings per share (EPS) of the analysts’ consensus forecast from the reported EPS of the same year. The analysis is composed of three different subdivisions: the study of the abnormal return during an event window of 17 days, the cumulative abnormal return during this event window, stock price behavior from growth stocks and from value stocks. Our findings show that stock behavior gradually responds to the earnings announcement. The stock reactions that appear within pre-event window may indicate information leakage. Our results describe most average abnormal returns as statistically insignificant during the event window. Earnings information has a lower impact on the stock market. We also find that the effect of positive earnings surprise on stock price lasts longer than that of negative earnings surprise. Stocks from OMX Nordic 40 index have a stable reaction on negative earnings surprise. As a conclusion, we highlight three points. Earning interim and annual earning information disclosure were unable to influence the stock market effectively, and therefore could not fully reflect the changes on the stock price. Investors can get the abnormal returns by using this earnings information during the whole event window.

ix, 69 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / In this dissertation I investigate whether managers alter the linguistic tone of their earnings announcements to increase the value of their stock options. Empirical research finds evidence that managers use optimistic tone to signal future firm performance. However, prior literature also finds a positive relation between optimistic tone in earnings announcements and short-window abnormal returns. The market reaction to optimistic tone suggests that managers can profit from using pessimistic tone to lower the firm's stock price prior to option grants and optimistic tone to increase the stock price prior to option exercises. I hypothesize that managers adjust the tone of their earnings announcements to increase the value of their stock options. In addition, I hypothesize that managers will alter the tone to increase option payouts when the costs of doing so (proxied by litigation risk) are low and when the financial reporting incentives to do so (proxied by earnings management) are high. I test these predictions using 17,211 firm-quarter observations from 1998-2006. In my tests I regress the tone of the earnings announcement on its known determinants and indicators for a stock option grant or exercise shortly following the announcement. I do not find evidence that managers, on average, alter the tone of earnings announcements prior to option grants or exercises. However, I find that managers decrease optimistic tone prior to option grants when they also record low discretionary accruals, which suggests that altering tone and managing earnings are complementary strategies to move stock price. I also find that managers increase optimistic tone prior to option exercises when litigation risk is low, but decrease optimistic tone prior to option exercises when litigation risk is high. Further analysis indicates the litigation risk results hold only after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Overall, my evidence suggests that managers increase optimistic tone prior to option exercises except when a high threat of litigation constrains such opportunism. When managers do alter tone, the average financial gain is small relative to their total compensation. / Committee in charge: Steven Matsunaga, Chairperson, Accounting; Angela Davis, Member, Accounting; David Guenther, Member, Accounting; Jeremy Piger, Outside Member, Economics