Information Asymmetry and Added Value of Analyst Recommendations
We examine if analysts can add value beyond what stock characteristics can provide in Korean market using their stock recommendations. The stock characteristics included in this study are price momentum, contrarian variables such as turnover ratio, earnings -to-price ratio and book-to-market ratio, and size. Given that these characteristics and their return predictabilities are already known to analysts, if analysts can provide added value, the investment strategy following their stock recommendations should generate higher returns than the investment strategies formed by stock characteristics do. In addition, we examine how the information asymmetry can affect the investment value analysts provide through their stock recommendations. We first show that three month buy-and-hold abnormal returns on zero investment portfolio using consensus recommendation and changes in consensus recommendation earn 12.89% and 9.61%, respectively, confirming the previous findings that analyst recommendations have investment value. Then we examine if analyst recommendations add value, using a model following Jegadeesh et al. (2004). The results show that the level of consensus recommendations does not add value, whereas, the changes in consensus recommendations do add value up to 2 month holding period. We also show that analysts can add more value when the information asymmetry is higher in the market. When the information asymmetry is high, the three month zero investment portfolio returns on the level and the changes in consensus recommendations are statistically significant 3.45% and 3.50% respectively. It indicates that the analysts’ private information contributes more to the investment value added by analysts when the information asymmetry is high.
Information Asymmetry and Added Value of Analyst Recommendations
Keyword : Volume Effect,Volatility Persistence,Asymmetric Volatility,Mixture of Distribution Hypothesis,Korean Stock Market
Can Trading Volume Explain Persistence and Asymmetry of Return Volatility?
We investigated the relationship between return volatility and trading volume using 20 individual Korean stocks. Employing trading volume as a proxy for information arrival, the implications of volatility persistence and asymmetry were tested using the GARCH(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) models. The empirical analysis shows that, although including trading volume in the GARCH and EGARCH models explains the persistence and asymmetry of conditional variances, the remaining ARCH effects are still present in the residuals of those models. These results do not support the implications of the volatility–volume relationship of the mixture of distribution hypothesis in the Korean stock market.
Can Trading Volume Explain Persistence and Asymmetry of Return Volatility?
Infroduction and Expiration Impacts of Equity Linked Warrant(ELW) on Underlying Assets
Similar to the derivative warrant or covered warrant, the equity linked warrant (ELW) market has been rapidly growing since its first appearance on December 2005 in Korea. The Korean ELW market is now ranked fourth in the world with 1,300 listed ELWs and 300 billion dollars of daily dollar trading volume within one year upon debut. A rich variety of hybrid derivative linked securities (DLS) has been witnessed and the importance of DLS more stressed for the developed and increased capital market. One of the most interesting topics is to examine the effect of several types of DLS issuance or repurchase on its underling assets. Out of the various DLS, this paper investigates on the price, volume, and volatility effects of underlying stocks around the introduction and expiration date of ELW, very popular DLS in Korea. The study finds the delta hedge effect that the price and volume of underlying stocks increase on or prior to the date when the term and conditions of ELW issuance is determined, and the short-term signaling effect that the price and volume of underlying stocks increase a day after ELW introduction. With respect to the expiration of ELW, it is shown that the price of underlying stocks goes down before the expiration date and goes up after the date of out-of-the money ELW, and that the price of underlying stocks decreases a little bit around the expiration date for in-the-money ELW. In addition, the price of underlying stocks shows higher volatility during ELW list periods rather than before the introduction or after the expiration date. The results of this paper demonstrate somewhat different pictures, compared to those of the previous literatures. The reasons may be explained that the Korean ELW market has not been settled down yet. Therefore, the paper is short of perfection on the ELW trading system, which should be improved. The current system does not allow physical settlement on the expiration of ELW and bid-ask quota for a liquidity provider within 30 days before expiration date. Also, most issuers play a role of the liquidity provider and the time gap is only 2 or 3 days between the announcement and introduction dates. The paper makes some contribution in the sense that it is the first study of ELW in Korea. The paper reveals some imperfection through comparison of the results of this paper to those of the previous literatures. This will help the ELW market to completely settle down in Korea. The paper also could trigger the various studies with respect to ELW, for instance on the development of ELW price determination model or the factor analysis of price.
Infroduction and Expiration Impacts of Equity Linked Warrant(ELW) on Underlying Assets
Keyword : Volatility Spread,Skewness,Kurtosis,Risk Aversion,KOSPI 200,KOSPI 200 option,Generalized Method of Moment(GMM),Likelihood Ratio Test(LR test),KOSPI 200
Volatility Spread on KOSPI 200 Index Options and Risk Aversion
Based on the theorem 1 of Bakshi and Madan(2006) that the difference between the historical volatility and the risk-neutral volatility is determined by the risk aversion and the higher moments of return distribution, this paper investigates the risk aversion implied on KOSPI 200 index options. In addition, we explore relative importance between skewness and kurtosis by using the change of the parameter value estimated when imposing upon restrictions on higher moments. We find out that the risk aversion implied on KOSPI 200 option is smaller than that implied on S&P index options, and the kurtosis of return distribution is relatively more important than the skewness. The importance of kurtosis is consistent to the result of S&P options market. To test a reliability of the methodology used in Bakshi and Madan (2006), finally, we compare our results to the results using the methodology of Bliss and Panigirtzoglou (2004). The method of Bakshi and Madan (2006) gives the risk aversion similar to those of extant methodologies, albeit a small quantity of computational load.
Volatility Spread on KOSPI 200 Index Options and Risk Aversion
Keyword : Conflicts of Interest,Underwriting,Asset Management,IPO,Underpricing
Conflicts of Interest Among Securities Firms Running Asset Management Businesses
Many securities firms are running asset management businesses as well as underwriting businesses. However, when securities firms run these two businesses at the same time, a conflict of interest may arise between customers of underwriting business and those of asset management business. For example, securities firms want to favor customers of asset management businesses at the expense of those of the underwriting businesses because they can get more profit from the former business which is growing much faster than the latter one. We test for conflict of interest by comparing the underwritten prices of IPOs from 1999 through 2006 in Korea by securities firms both with and without asset management businesses. We find that IPOs are more deeply underpriced when they are underwritten by securities firms running asset management businesses. This shows that there may be conflicts of interest among them which favor customers of the asset management business by channeling deeply underpriced IPO stocks into their running funds. In addition, conflicts of interest turn out to be more conspicuous among securities firms having larger fund market shares or those that have begun with the asset management business first before running the underwriting business. Our results imply that the combination of underwriting and asset management businesses may cause conflicts of interest and the degree of conflicts of interest may vary in accordance with how deeply they are engaged in the asset management business.
Conflicts of Interest Among Securities Firms Running Asset Management Businesses
Do corporate managers manipulate the stock price to have a lower exercise price for their stock options? : Some evidence from the U.S. stock market
We investigate a unique period of at least six months and one day, at the beginning of which a group of American companies cancel their employee stock options that are voluntarily tendered in return for replacement options to be granted at the end of the period (the stock option exchange program). As the exercise price of the replacement options is determined by the stock price on the re-grant date, a decrease in the stock price during the period benefits participating employees. We examine the hypothesis that management, when its options are tendered in exchange for replacement options, manipulates the stock price during the period to have a lower exercise price for the replacement options. We find some evidence supportive of this hypothesis. Furthermore, participation of management in the exchange program appears to be costly to shareholders who have to sell before the end of the period.
Do corporate managers manipulate the stock price to have a lower exercise price for their stock options? : Some evidence from the U.S. stock market
Keyword : Mergers and Acquisitions,Size effect,Acquirer,Event study,Market reaction
Acquire's Firm Size and Stock Market Response to M&A Announcement
We examined a sample of 264 acquisitions by firms listed in KRX (Korea Exchange) from 1998 to 2005. We found the size effect in acquisition announcem ent returns, which is consistent with the study of Moeler, Schlingemann, and Stulz (2004). The announcement abnormal return for small acquirers averages 6.53% compared to 4.84% of large a cquirers. After finding that small firms are better acquirers than large firms, we examined possible explanations for the size effect as folows; First, we investig ated that the small firms' gains might be from the economies of s cales. Second, poor performance may lead to prudent decisions. Third, managements with large free cash flows would make poor acquisitions rather than increase payouts to shareholders. Fourth, firms make acqui sitions when they exhaust their growth oportunities. For these hypotheses to explain the size effect, we test whethe r or not small and large acquirers have different characteristics. The size effect is robust to firm, and it will not
Acquire's Firm Size and Stock Market Response to M&A Announcement
Keyword : credit ratings,capital structure,Credit Ratings-Capital Structure Hypothesis (CR-CS),tradeoff theory
Credit ratings and capital structure
We test the Credit Ratings-Capital Structure Hypothesis (CR-CS) that credit ratings afect capital structure decisions of firms, using 695 firms listed on the Korea Stock Exchange. We also examine whether CR-CS is efective in the empirical models of the tradeof capital structure theory. Korea underwent structural changes since the currency crisis of 197. Our sample period is divided into the pre-crisis term of 1995 to 19 97 and the post-crisis term of 1998 to 2005. Our empiric al results are as follows.First, the CR-CS is not supported in the former term but suppor ted in the latter term. Second, while the variable turns out to be not significant, the variable has a significantly negative efect on the debt ratio, reflecti ng an upward bias in the Korean ratings. Third, variables of credit ratings are also significan tly negative in the tradeoff models.
Keyword : within-firm diversification,across-firm diversification,related and unrelated diversification,firm value,financial crisis
Valuation Effect of Across-firm and Within-firm Diversification
This study examines the valuation effect of across-firm diversification as well as within-firm diversification using data of Korean firms listed on KRX during the period over 1994~2003. Although many Korean firms diversify their business through the ownership of other firms, current literature has paid little attention to the valuation effect of across-firm diversification. This study, by considering ownership relations across firms, attempts to examine the valuation effect of across-firm and within-firm diversification. Specifically, the degree of related and unrelated diversification is separatedly measured, employing the Caves' method. The sample period is divided into pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods in order to reflect the impact of financial crisis in late 1990's. Our results show that the negative valuation effect of within-firm diversification presented by prior studies hold only for unrelated diversification and for pre-crisis period. The valuation effect of within-firm diversification have disappeared since crisis period. However, although there were no valuation effect during pre-crisis and crisis period, across-firm diversification have a significant negative effect on firm value for both related and unrelated diversification during post-crisis period. These results indicate that corporate restructuring enforced and regulations and systems established following financial crisis have a significant impact on corporate strategy and market perception of diversification activities.
Valuation Effect of Across-firm and Within-firm Diversification
Critical Assessment of BTO(Build-Transfer-Operate)
‘Build-Transfer-Operate(BTO)', one variation of project financing, has been widely used to finance the infrastructure projects. To induce private participation in the infrastructure projects with low (or even negative) rate of returns, BTO arrangements were supplemented with ‘minimum rate of return guarantee' by the government. This ‘BTO with minimum rate of return guarantee' caused much economic inefficiencies-overestimation of the demands and resulting waste of tax money-due to the perverse incentives inherent in the arrangements. This paper analyzes the BTO arrangement using simple economic models and suggests some measures to mitigates the inefficiencies.
Critical Assessment of BTO(Build-Transfer-Operate)
