Negative Abnormal Returns Research Articles

How do stock markets in emerging economies respond to World Bank loan approvals?

This paper examines the impact of World Bank loan approvals on equity markets in borrowing countries. We exploit a rich dataset with World Bank loan commitments and daily stock market returns for 47 emerging markets, allowing us to study short run market reactions to news about World Bank programs. These programs fall into three categories: investment projects, structural adjustment loans that tie future macroeconomic reforms to future loan disbursements (prior to FY2006), and development policy loans that reward completed macroeconomic reforms with current loan disbursements (since FY2006). Event study analysis shows positive abnormal stock market returns on the trading day following investment project loan announcements. The effect depends on loan size as well as market characteristics. Structural adjustment loan announcements are followed by negative abnormal returns; development policy loan announcements, in contrast, are considered good news. This suggests that expected macroeconomic implications of policy change in response to loan conditions drive market reactions, and that changes in the conditionality and disbursement structure of World Bank policy lending were successful in improving market reactions to World Bank programs.

Religious Investor Sentiment, Shariah Compliance Impact, and Theological Risk: Evidence from Bursa Malaysia

This study examines the financial implications of religious restrictions by analyzing how changes in the Shariah compliance status of stocks affect their price and trading volume. Employing the market model in an event study approach and using data from Malaysian firms between 2000 and 2016, the study focuses on 30 announcements from the Security Commission Malaysia’s List of Shariah Compliant Securities (LSCS), resulting in 370 additions and 284 deletions from the compliance list. The findings indicate that the inclusion of stocks in the compliance list generates longterm demand driven by Islamic institutional and Muslim retail investors, leading to a permanent increase in abnormal returns and trading volume. Conversely, the removal of stocks from the compliance list induces short-term negative abnormal returns and increased trading volume, reflecting selling pressure. These results contribute to understanding the financial consequences of religious restrictions, highlighting the influence of Shariah compliance on stock market performance and investor behaviour.

Global equity, commodities and bond market response to Israel-Hamas war

This study used event study methodology to examine the impact of Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel in global equity, commodities, and bond markets. The results show that negative abnormal returns in global equity markets are limited to the Middle East region. The major world economies - China, Europe and the US, present insignificant abnormal returns. The increase in geopolitical risk, however, brings good news for commodities and bonds that observe significant positive abnormal returns with the intensification of the conflict. This result means that bonds and commodities are a hedge against stocks on average and a safe haven against conflict risk.

Different lies to different audiences: Tax avoidance versus earnings inflation

Using a proprietary dataset collected by the National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China (NBS), we are able to compare earnings reported to the NBS in the pre-IPO (initial public offerings) period with earnings for the same firm and the same year reported in firms' IPO prospectus. While Ball and Shivakumar (2008) find that in the U.K., financials reported at IPOs tend to be more conservative than the original reports, we find the opposite: income reported by Chinese firms in their IPO prospectus tend to be higher than those reported to the NBS. In the year immediately preceding the IPO, the discrepancy is mostly driven by firms inflating earnings in the IPO prospectus to increase issue prices. In earlier years, firms in provinces with weak law enforcement report lower earnings to the NBS to avoid taxes, which also contributes to the discrepancy between the IPO and NBS data. These findings suggest that firms tell different lies to different audiences. The discrepancy between the IPO and NBS earnings is positively correlated with the IPO issue price, indicating that firms are able to increase their IPO proceeds by raising earnings in the IPO prospectus from the original NBS reports. Furthermore, firms with the highest discrepancies experience the most significant declines in return on assets (ROA) and the most negative abnormal returns after the IPOs. Our paper complements the existent literature on earnings quality at IPOs, sheds light on firms' tax avoidance behaviors, and is of practical value to regulators.

Can old sin make new shame? Stock market reactions to the release of movies re-exposing past corporate scandals

We study stock market reactions to the release of movies that re-expose past publicly known corporate scandals. Using a sample of 54 event firms featured in 23 movies, we find that these firms have significantly persistent negative abnormal returns following the movie releases. We posit that such negative reactions are associated with the adverse public perception of the firms induced by the scandal re-exposing movies. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find more pronounced negative abnormal returns for the firms featured in the more popular movies. Moreover, the event firms experience increased implied costs of capital following the movie releases.

How does stock market react to environmental penalty announcements?

Environmental penalty announcement (EPA) has received increasing attention for its potential to convey valuable information and affect capital market performance. Using data on listed companies in China, this paper examines stock market reaction to environmental penalty announcements, the behavior of different types of investors, and the moderating factors of these responses. The findings show that (1) disclosure of EPA by listed companies results in negative abnormal returns, but this negative market reaction is not sustained. (2) Heavy polluters and non-state-owned enterprises are exposed to more negative abnormal returns when they disclose EPA. (3) Environmental reputation can mitigate the negative stock market reaction to EPA, while the participation of green investors will intensify this reaction. (4) Retail investors tend to sell stocks of companies that disclose EPA as media attention increases, while institutional investors increase their shareholding especially in companies that already have high holdings, high ESG scores, and in regions with low levels of green finance development. This paper serves as a reference for governments, firms, and stakeholders on stock market reaction to environmental information disclosures.

ESG resilience in conflictual times

Measuring the market reaction to a series of announcements related to gas rationing, we find that stock returns of firms with high ESG scores are less affected than their peers. Negative abnormal returns caused by the escalation of the Russia–Ukraine conflict are significantly less pronounced for firms with high scores in the environmental pillar of their ESG evaluation. This effect is mainly driven by the efficient usage of natural resources and low carbon emissions. This evidence is robust to different asset-pricing model specifications. Our findings suggest that higher environmental commitment makes companies more resilient to geopolitical shocks affecting the market price of fossil resources. Interestingly, the evidence in favour of ESG resilience mainly comes from countries more dependent on energy import.

Giao dịch của người nội bộ và những ảnh hưởng lên giá cổ phiếu tại Việt Nam

The paper examines the effect of insider trading on stock prices of non-financial companies listed on the Vietnam stock market in the period of 2010-2019. Using event study methodology, the empirical results show that there are abnormal returns surrounding announcements of trading activities of insiders in Vietnam. More specifically, there are positive abnormal returns when buying announcements of insiders and there are negative abnormal returns when selling announcements of insiders. In addition, the study also shows factors affecting positively the abnormal returns around announcements of insider trading events, such as dividend per share, return on assets, insiders who are member of the Board of Directors and the number of insider trading stocks.

Does financial stability communication affect financial asset prices? Evidence from the Bank of England's communication experiment

AbstractThis paper examines the Bank of England's (BoE) communication on financial stability between 2013 and 2018. We apply an event study to determine the communication effect on financial institutions' stock market returns. We find that the BoE's announcements generate negative average abnormal returns for non‐banking and banking systems, including the Global Systemically Important Banks. The same effect emerges when we consider the communication's tone. Furthermore, we construct a macroprudential decision communication index and show that the negative impact of the BoE's tone is significant only when the decision communication index value is above average. Moreover, we find evidence that negative abnormal returns tend to appear after the Brexit referendum, while we find positive abnormal returns before that date. Besides, we do not identify a noticeable effect related to communication practices.

Does environmental and social performance affect pricing efficiency? Evidence from earnings conference call tones

This paper examines how environmental and social (ES) performance, proxied by related incidents, affect the managerial and analyst tones in quarterly earnings conference calls and its incremental effect on post-earnings call returns. We document that firms experiencing poor ES performance in the quarter prior to the earnings call exhibit more negative management tone after controlling for quarterly financial performance metrics. Tone difference in conference calls between managers and analysts predicts negative abnormal returns in the three-day window around the call. In the 60-day post-call period, we show that firms with poor ES performance exhibit returns negatively related to the tone difference on the conference call – low tone difference leads to return continuation and high tone difference predicts reversals for firms with positive earnings surprises. These results are consistent with an increase in information asymmetry and lower transparency for firms following poor ES performance.

Short-term market impact of crypto firms’ bankruptcies on cryptocurrency markets

This paper examines the short-term market reaction of crypto firms’ bankruptcies on cryptocurrency markets. Using an event study for twenty-one crypto firms’ bankruptcies, the results show negative and statistically significant abnormal returns for the sample of cryptocurrency firm’s failures. Despite the existence of heterogeneous impacts surrounding bankruptcy announcements, the results reveal significant higher negative abnormal returns for cryptocurrency firm’s failures associated with high estimated losses and for the subsample of cryptocurrencies with less liquidity.

Are high-income and innovative nations resilient to the Russia-Ukraine war?

Using an event study analysis on daily closing prices of 83 stock market indices from February 10, 2021 to March 14, 2022, we find that the Russia-Ukraine war negatively impacts stock returns, affecting the high-income nations the most. However, the impact varies from country to country, with some experiencing significant positive or negative abnormal returns during different event windows. Cross-sectional results indicate that the income group of nations, innovation index, net-oil exports, trade-to-GDP ratio, military expenditure, inflation, past returns, and volatility significantly impact the cumulative abnormal returns during different event windows. While countries with a higher innovation index, higher net oil exports, higher military expenditure and lower trade-to-GDP ratios experience positive returns, high-income countries experience significant negative returns. Concomitantly, higher past returns and volatility predict abnormal returns during the war.

Abnormal Returns to Artificial Intelligence Patent Infringement Litigations

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an important driver of economic growth and innovation. With rapid advances in AI, firms have a strategic opportunity to re-envision the cognitive reapportionment of tasks between humans, AI, and non-AI technologies. In doing so, firms can transform and dramatically elevate value creation through their business models, processes, and market offerings. We focus on a key risk, patent infringement litigation (PIL), that can adversely impact a firm’s value creation with AI. We posit and demonstrate that firms facing AI-PILs would have more negative short term abnormal returns compared to firms facing non-AI PILs. We further suggest that the abnormal returns are moderated by the types of plaintiffs and AI patents in which the abnormal returns are more negative when the plaintiffs are non-practicing entities (versus practicing entities) and when the AI patents at suit concern expertise-driven (versus data-driven) AI. Exploring the moderators jointly, we find evidence that for data-driven AI patents, the negative abnormal returns are stronger when the plaintiffs are practicing entities, but for expertise-driven AI patents, the negative abnormal returns are stronger when the plaintiffs are non-practicing entities.

More is less? Wealth effects of Italian stocks to the increase in allowed voting rights

To address the steadily declining numbers of listed companies, several European countries are going to allow the issuance of dual class shares. However, there is skepticism among corporate governance experts whether this is an attractive option to increase the number of IPOs. To evaluate this new rule, the Italian stock market offers a unique natural experiment. We investigate the wealth effect for Italian shareholders to the announcement of this increase in allowed voting rights. Our results show significant negative abnormal returns for firms with dual class shares, thus indicating an aversion of investors towards an asymmetrical distribution of voting rights.

Volatility and Herding Bias on ESG Leaders’ Portfolios Performance

We here analyze the factor loadings given by the CAPM, the Fama–French three (FF3), and the five-factor model (FF5), and test the performance and the validity of adding two more factors (volatility and dispersion of returns) to the FF5 factor model of European index-based ESG leaders’ portfolios. Our ESG leaders’ portfolios generated significant negative alphas during 2012–2022, corroborating the literature’s negative argument. The negative abnormal returns of ESG leaders’ portfolios are homogeneous across the three ESG pillars. We conclude that European ESG leaders’ portfolios are biased toward large cap and value stocks with robust operating profitability and against aggressive investments. As robustness tests, we examine Global ESG leaders’ index-based portfolios, producing the same results but with reduced importance in some loading factors like profitability and investment strategy. Furthermore, we deduced that European and Global ESG leaders’ portfolios tilt towards volatility and herding bias.

Unexpected management forecasts and future stock returns

AbstractThis study investigates the effect of managerial discretion regarding initial earnings forecasts on future stock returns for Japanese firms. We estimate the unexpected portion of initial management earnings forecasts (“unexpected forecasts”) based on the findings of fundamental analysis research and define it as a proxy for forecast management. Using this measure, we find that firms with higher unexpected forecasts are related to negative abnormal returns over the subsequent 12 months. By contrast, the expected portion of earnings forecasts is not related to future abnormal returns. These results suggest that the market tends to appropriately price the credible portion of management forecasts, while overpricing the less credible portion. Further analysis reveals that the relationship between unexpected forecasts and future returns is (1) distinct from accruals anomaly, notably (2) in the 6‐month return window, (3) in the first half of the sample period (especially in 2005 and 2006), (4) in extreme unexpected forecast news and (5) in a poor information environment. This study extends the literature by focusing on a more desirable research setting in Japan, compared to other studies, to explore management forecasts and present new implications for the market pricing of management earnings forecasts.

The impact of monetary policy interventions on banking sector stocks: an empirical investigation of the COVID-19 crisis

The enduring impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the financial sector is undeniable, persisting far beyond the eventual waning of the pandemic. This research examines central bank interventions during the pandemic, using a quantitative event study approach over a five-day window to analyse the impact of 188 monetary policy announcements on banking stocks in China, the U.S., and Europe. Our results demonstrate how monetary policy announcements targeting different economic mechanisms have produced a diverse market reaction throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Namely, cuts in interest rates and the maintenance of a low interest rate environment by the Federal Reserve resulted in negative abnormal returns in the U.S.A., while short-term announcements surrounding intra-day credit and liquidity provisions boosted banking sector stock prices. In Europe, a muted reaction by the banking sector was observed, with negative abnormal returns observed in response to the ECB’s 2% inflation objectives. Finally, banking stocks in China responded strongly and positively to foreign currency and exchange-related announcements by the People’s Bank of China. The results and insights from this analysis can thus inform preparations made by policymakers, governments, and financial market stakeholders in the event of future waves of COVID-19, or further extreme societal disruptions.

How did African stock markets react to the Russia-Ukraine crisis “black-swan” event? Empirical insights from event study

This study builds on the recent literature by investigating how various types of African stock markets responded to the Russia-Ukraine crisis (commonly referred to as the black-swan event). The empirical analysis used in this paper centred on event study analysis, a statistical technique used to measure the impact of a specific event. The findings show that the black-swan event had a significant negative impact on African stock markets (14/20), with stocks having a negative abnormal return on the event day, and out of this, nine stocks’ abnormal returns are statistically significant. These include Safaricom Kenya, Commercial International Bank, Attijariwafa Bank, Morocco Casablanca Index, Egyptian Exchange 30, Nairobi All Share Index, AVI Equity, MCB Group Ltd, FTSE/JSE All Share, Delta Corp. Ltd, Stock Exchange of Mauritius, Tunisia Stock Exchange, Tanzania All Share Index, and Banque de Tunisie. Furthermore, the study discovers that African stock markets reacted heterogeneously to the impact of the crises, while some stocks were severely affected, some were minimally affected. The study concludes that African stock markets should build a resilient market capable of withstanding external shock and reducing the risk of contagion.

Digital transformation under uncertainty – market value effects of early Industry 4.0 innovation projects

In the initial phase of Industry 4.0 between 2011–2016, companies have been driven to invest massively in the development of digital innovation, which is linked to uncertainty. In particular, studying the interrelationship between digital innovation type (process vs. product) and institutional arrangement (alliance vs. internal) is of great interest to know how to develop them and what setting is best suited. Drawing on real options theory and extended resource-based view, this study applies event study methodology to 578 announcements by German and U.S. companies providing three contributions. First, this research quantifies the market value impact of digital innovation in a period of uncertainty. Second, the finding (negative abnormal returns of -0.23%) refines the common notion that digital innovations must be value-adding per se. Third, the study provides guidance to managers that digital process innovations are better developed in alliances and digital product innovations in-house to address the uncertainty.

Did the Indian stock market overreact to Covid-19?

Several studies have used event studies to determine the impact of events such as war or pandemics on individual stocks. However, standard event study methodologies assume that the event does not affect the market index. Our study introduces a framework that aims to aid in interpreting event study findings, particularly in evaluating the effects of widespread factors such as pandemics or wars on individual stocks. We then use this framework to understand the impact of Covid-19 on stock prices in India.We examine the returns of stocks from sectors that were adversely affected and those that benefitted (or did not suffer) during the pandemic. Usingthedaily returns ofIndian companies, we find that the returns on stocks from both sectors fell during the pandemic before the returns started increasing for the safe sectors. We find that this happens because the entire index fell after the event. After we adjusted for this, we found that the safer stocks generated positive abnormal returns while the riskier stocks generated negative abnormal returns during this period. We also find that the market overreacted initially but started correcting itself after eight trading days.