Open-market Stock Repurchase Announcements Research Articles

Unexpected Share Repurchase Announcements

Open-market stock repurchase announcements are generally perceived by the stock market as a signal of firm undervaluation. Our study shows that repurchase announcements that were preceded by SEOs of other firms in the same industry within the prior six months (namely SEO-RPs) are more likely the result of lacking investment opportunities than signaling undervaluation, especially in concentrated industries. Specifically, we find investors response negatively to SEO-RP announcements while react positively to regular repurchase announcements. The higher the intensity of SEO activities in the industry, the more negative market reaction to SEO-RP announcements. We argue that the market doesn’t expect a repurchase announcement when other rival firms are raising more capital via SEOs. These SEO-RPs represent a negative surprise to the market and lead to a downward adjustment in value of the repurchasing firms in the announcement window. In the three-year post-announcement periods, the SEO-RP firms underperform regular repurchasing firms in both stock return and operating performance. Moreover, while regular repurchasing firms gradually increase their capital expenditures, SEO-RP firms significantly reduce their capital expenditures. These findings support our arguments that repurchase announcements that immediately follow SEOs of rival firms (SEO-RPs) more likely indicate the announcing firms entering a slower growth rate with fewer investment opportunities than signal the undervaluation problem. The underperformance in stock return and operation combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditures in the post-announcement periods are consistent with this logic and also explain why the market reacts negatively to SEO-RP announcements.

Do open-market stock repurchases convey firm-specific or industry-wide information? Evidence from REITs

This study examines the extent of firm-specific and industry-level information conveyed in open-market stock repurchases announced by REITs. We measure information revealed in open-market stock repurchase announcements using stock return and decompose the stock return into firm-specific, industry-wide, and market components. We find that the announcement period return is mainly attributed to the firm-specific component. However, long-term returns following the announcement are largely due to the industry return components. We also find that changes in profitability are not related to the announcement abnormal return. Our results suggest that the repurchase signal is about the intrinsic value of a REIT rather than the REIT’s future prospect. Moreover, the repurchase signal is fully incorporated into the pricing process at the announcement.

CEO Optimism and the Credibility of Open-Market Stock Repurchase Announcements

ABSTRACTGiven their low-cost and low level of commitment, open-market stock repurchase announcements are often viewed by the market with a degree of skepticism, leading to a weak initial market reaction followed by positive stock price drifts. The authors argue that the repurchase announcements made by optimistic CEOs should be more credible than those made by nonoptimistic CEOs. Our results show that optimistic CEOs are more likely to actually buy back their shares after the announcements and the abnormal returns following repurchase announcements are larger for optimistic CEOs. This evidence suggests that CEO optimism is an important factor that the market seems to overlook while evaluating the credibility of open-market repurchase announcements. Our main contribution is to link one of the most important managerial traits, optimism, to the open-market repurchases.

Anomalous Price Behaviour around Open Market Stock Repurchase Announcements in India

Executive Summary This article examines the impact of open market share repurchase announcements on stock returns in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The main objective is to examine whether share repurchase announcements under the open market route have any significant impact on the returns of the stocks traded in the BSE. The article covers the period from 2009 to 2013. For sample selection, two criteria were used: first, the firm should have been listed in the BSE for at least 28 trading days before the repurchase announcement date, and second, the firm should have all relevant data required by this study. A total of 95 repurchase announcements fulfilled these criteria. The analysis period extended from –28 to +28 trading days relative to the repurchase announcement date ( t = 0). The findings of the study will help us to understand how the market responds to share repurchase announcements in India and whether a firm actually benefits by repurchasing its own shares from the market. This study uses a standard event methodology based on an ordinary least squares market model with the aim of finding out whether repurchase announcements generate any abnormal return around the repurchase announcement date. While applying the market model for estimating the abnormal returns, the regression is estimated based on the stock return of the firm and market return of the previous 120 trading days. So, here the estimation window takes into account 120 observations. Using this, the expected returns are generated and then the abnormal returns are derived for the event window, 28 days prior to the event date and 28 days after the event date. The findings of the study indicate that share repurchase announcements do not necessarily generate abnormal stock returns in the Indian equity market unlike developed economies like the US, Canada, and Australia. The whole sample is further divided into various subsamples on the basis of firm size and size of repurchase. The subsample analyses reveal that smaller firms do not necessarily experience higher abnormal stock returns following repurchase announcements than that of the larger firms. The findings weakly support the view that larger repurchase size generates greater abnormal stock returns than the smaller ones.

The post-repurchase announcement drift: an anomaly in disguise?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the stock price drifts after open-market stock repurchase announcements by differentiating actual repurchases from repurchase announcements and by controlling for the repurchasing firms’ earnings improvement in the announcement year relative to the prior year. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use the calendar-time method and matching method based on different criteria to calculate the post-announcement abnormal returns. Findings – The results show that only firms actually repurchasing their shares exhibit a positive post-announcement drift. More importantly, the authors find that these repurchasing firms have the same post-announcement drift as their matching firms that have similar size and earnings performance but do not repurchase. This supports the argument that the post-repurchase announcement drift found in previous studies is not a distinct anomaly but the post-earnings announcement drift in disguise. Social implications – The post-repurchase announcement drift found in previous studies is the post-earnings announcement drift in disguise. Originality/value – The study shows that because high earnings performance positively relates to real repurchase activities, controlling for earnings performance in examining whether a drift occurs after repurchase announcements.

An Empirical Study of the Differential Market Reaction to Open-Market Stock Repurchase Announcements

<p class="MsoBodyText2" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; tab-stops: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Significant positive stock price reaction to stock repurchase announcements has been well documented in the finance literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Most studies on repurchase focus on the average positive reaction; however, 30 percent of the repurchasing firms experience negative abnormal returns at announcement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This study examines the apparent heterogeneity in the stock price reaction to stock repurchase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The results show that the market reaction to repurchase announcements is determined by firm specific factors and is based on the overall costs and benefits analysis by the market of the stock repurchase program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The results are consistent with conventional signaling models and agency theories.</span></span></p>

The Wealth and Information Effects of Insurers' Open Market Stock Repurchase Announcements

AbstractThis article examines the use of an increasingly popular method of cash disbursement in the insurance industry: stock repurchase programs. Using a sample of stock repurchase announcements between 1981 and 1997, we examine the motivation for stock repurchase, estimate the market reaction to the repurchase announcement, and evaluate the magnitude of the reaction as it relates to particular insurance industry and firm characteristics. We examine the abnormal returns around the announcement day and find a significant positive wealth effect associated with repurchase announcements—a result that is consistent with that of other studies of both nonfinancial and financial firms. However, we suspect that the nature of the insurance product and the highly regulated status of the insurance industry might serve to mitigate the magnitude of an announcement effect. In fact, we find that the effect for all insurers is smaller than that obtained in samples of industrial firms. Finally, we examine the relationships between the magnitude of the announcement effect and various firm characteristics and test the significance of information signaling and Jensen's free cash flow theories in the insurance setting.

Open-Market Stock Repurchase Announcements and Revaluation of Prior Accounting Information

Open-Market Stock Repurchase Announcements and Revaluation of Prior Accounting Information

Open-market stock repurchases as signals for earnings and risk changes

This paper is an empirical examination of the nature of information conveyed by open-market stock repurchase announcements. The findings weakly indicate that: (1) there are positive unexpected annual earnings in the repurchase announcement year and positive revisions of earnings forecasts by analysts around announcement dates, and that (2) repurchase announcements are followed by declines in the repurchasing firms' common-stock risk. In addition, a regression analysis shows that repurchase announcement returns are positively (negatively) correlated with the earnings (risk) changes conveyed by repurchase announcements.