This master's thesis investigates the connection between profit margin, return on assets, long-term debt, and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and they relate to dividend. The study examines whether companies with increasing dividends and companies with decreasing and constant dividends have significantly different effects on the P/E ratio. The results show that profit margin has a positive and statistically significant impact on the P/E ratio in companies with increasing dividends, demonstrating the significance of profitability in affecting investor valuation. Long-term debt and return on assets, however, do not appear to be significantly correlated with the P/E ratio in this group. In contrast, none of the financial performance variables have a major impact on the P/E ratio in companies with decreasing and constant dividends. The research highlights that it is important to take dividend distribution into account as a differentiating element when examining the connection between financial performance and the P/E ratio. However, the study cannot accept or reject the null hypothesis entirely as the results lack statistical significance.

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This thesis discusses the criticism of the businessman of the 1920s from the twenties through the 1960s.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

The primary purpose of this research is to perform an empirical test using Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) in order to investigate the relationship between the Chinese stock market performance and domestic economic activity.China's stock market was established in early 1990s and has operated through a period of strong economic growth. Generally, it has been recognized that the development of a sound financial market is necessary to sustain and support a high growth economy. In turn, a growing economy will drive financial market growth. This research is designed to shed light on this unique relationship by investigating the links between China's booming national economy and the domestic stock returns.Using both time-series and cross-section regressions, several identified macro economic variables are shown to be significant in their influence on stock returns. These variables include the growth rate of industrial production, the growth rate of total social retail sales, the growth rate of terms of trade and the growth rate of total social saving deposits. Stock market indexes are found significantly related to the stock portfolio returns in time-series regressions.Overall, the empirical results suggest that the rapid growth of the Chinese economy is factored into stock returns by the market. It also indicates that the market index has strong explanatory power over, the time-series returns, providing empirical support for the market model Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). However, the explanations of cross-section returns need to be further explored.

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This study investigates stock market anomalies in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE), Malaysia, with some comparisons with three other Far-Eastern markets, namely the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES), the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK). The main anomaly investigated is overreaction in the KLSE. Seasonality and firm size effects, which are usually associated with the overreaction effect, are also examined individually, and in the context of the overreaction effect. The impact of time-varying risk on overreaction is also investigated. First, stock market seasonality across four markets - KLSE, SES, SET and SEHK- is examined. The evidence suggests the existence of December and January effects in Singapore and Hong Kong respectively. A Chinese New Year effect is observed in all countries except Thailand. Next, stock market overreaction in the KLSE is investigated. Two portfolios of extreme stocks (based on their past 3-year excess returns) are formed, and their performance is measured in the next three years for evidence of overreaction. The initial results are consistent with overreaction; winner (loser) portfolios, which outperform (underperform) the market in the prior period, underperform (outperform) the market in the next period. The reversal in performance is more dramatic for losers. Further analyses show that risk and size factors cannot explain fully the observed phenomenon. A seasonal pattern is revealed in the excess returns of winners and losers; there is a pronounced February effect in both. Moreover, the February effect is observed to be greater for smaller firms. Lastly, a post-script chapter is included whereby the effect of the recent Asian economic turmoil on the markets, and on KLSE overreaction, is looked at. It is found that several months into the crisis, both winners and losers underperform the market.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Glynn T. Tonsor / Over the past decade, social media has risen from an emerging novelty to the normative form of expression for many Americans. As these platforms have risen in popularity, researchers have recognized the potential for capturing information users are self-reporting about their beliefs and preferences. Simultaneously, social media corporations have become privy to the value of this information being freely shared by consumers and have safeguarded much of their historical data to monetize the data. Faced with both an enticing new source of data, but a steep price to obtain it, researchers must evaluate the potential gains that can be extracted from the often difficult to analyze data. This study explored the acquisition of social media, namely Twitter, data and the potential uses in the field of agriculture economics. A contract was secured with Sysomos, a social media analytics firm, in July of 2017 to collect raw Twitter data over the proceeding thirteen months. Changes in frequency of tweets and sentiment scoring of tweets were used to attempt to explain election results from November 2017 proposed legislations pertaining to marijuana and minimum wage as well as to explain and predict changes in the stock prices of selected publicly traded firms in the food producing sector. Twitter frequency changes were then compared to changes in traditional print media articles in an effort to determine the exchangeability of the two media sources when used to track events pertaining to animal health. Results of this study suggested that Twitter data possess little power to explain the studied election results, but creation of a strong model was difficult due to the limited number of months of data available. Changes in the frequency of tweets were not found to be a strong indicator of changes in the stock market on the average day, but were shown to explain potentially highly valued information to investors on days with large changes in price. Twitter and traditional print media were shown to be unique sources of data when exploring the topic of animal health events.

This doctoral thesis traces the various forms in which ordinary people engaged in the stock market across twentieth-century Britain. It asks how and why previously stigmatised forms of investment and speculation came to be regarded as socially, politically and economically desirable. I argue that financial and economic historians, preoccupied with the growing dominance of financial institutions over British security markets during this period, have neglected the social and cultural relevance of popular share ownership. Consequently investment is seen as more than an economic activity. Understanding the ways in which social and cultural attitudes towards finance relaxed over time, allows us to better understand the arrival of neoliberalism in Britain. After World War I, Britain witnessed a significant expansion of private stock market investment. However, in comparison to the United States, Britain’s financial establishment took a more conservative stance on universal share ownership and restrained much of the potential for a “democratisation of investment”. After 1945, private share ownership continued to grow gradually across classes due to higher living standards and in spite of nationalisation, high taxation and the institutionalisation of securities markets. Politics was not the main driver of this trend as efforts to widen share ownership were difficult to square with the interventionist postwar economic settlement. More importantly, the rapidly expanding trade of financial journalism increasingly educated multiple audiences about stock market affairs. By widening the analytical scope beyond socioeconomic conditions, it becomes apparent that the sweeping social and cultural changes during the 1950s and 1960s helped to loosen older reservations against financial speculation, thereby drawing evermore investors into the market. The key shift of this period was that ‘playing the stock market’ became a popular and socially acceptable hobby, predominantly among middle-class households. Tracing these developments to the 1970s and 1980s, this thesis concludes that market populism had a powerful appeal to savers and investors hit by inflation, thereby accelerating the growth of economic individualism long before the Thatcherite Revolution unfolded in Britain.