Wiley, Marilyn

This dissertation extends previous research on bubbles by investigating whether changes in the financial asset prices of the S&P500 reflect changes in fundamentals. We propose that if this is not the case the volatility is due to a bubble. Hence, this is the general hypothesis from which several testable hypotheses are developed. A key issue in bubble research is the definition of fundamentals. In this work we assume that, in the long-run, operating revenues are the only source from which any payments can be made, including dividend payments. Therefore, if expectations are formulated correctly, on average, there has to be a relationship between changes in prices and changes in corporate revenues. Thus, we use different accounting variables as proxies for fundamentals. In addition, since the literature points to contagion of opinion as one of the causes for the creation of bubbles, we also examine the contemporaneous relationship between prices and several proxies for herding behavior. OLS, panel data analysis, and quantile regression are used to analyze the contemporaneous relationship between prices and fundamentals or contagion proxies; while cointegration (reconciled to be used with panel data) and the Bonferroni inequality are used to investigate the long-run equilibrium between prices and fundamentals. The results indicate that, overall, company earnings are not explanatory of prices. These findings hold both in the short-run and in the long-run equilibrium scenarios. In addition, we find that investors do not reward an increase of the debt in the capital structure of corporations. In reference to our contagion variables, changes in money flow, volume, and volatility are found explanatory of changes in prices. Nevertheless, the effect of these variables is not homogeneous across price changes. Specifically, Money Flow is significant across all quantiles except for the 30% lowest price changes, Volume is explanatory of the 35% highest price changes, while volatility is explanatory across all the distribution of price changes. An interesting observation is that the three independent variables become increasingly explanatory as we move up to higher quantiles. Taken together our findings are supportive of the bubble and contagion hypotheses.

This dissertation extends previous research on the exchange-rate exposure of multinational corporations. Exchange rate exposure is defined as the impact of unanticipated changes in exchange rates on stock prices. The motivation for the study lies in a fundamental discrepancy between academic research and practice: Academic research has shown that exchange-rate exposure is not priced in capital markets, but the use of financial hedging instruments designed to protect firms from unanticipated changes in exchange rates is widespread. This leads to the conclusion that exchange rate exposure is priced in equity markets and is a function of firm specific factors. This dissertation segregated firms based on various factors that might affect its exchange rate exposure. They are: A firms foreign sales characteristics, the export/import characteristics of the industry to which it belongs, the competitive structure of the firms industry, its business organization and its degree of concentration in sales. The results indicate that firms that operate in the service sector of the economy are more exposed to exchange rate risk than those that operate in the manufacturing sector. On the other hand, the degree of competition among firms in an industry does not have an impact on exchange rate exposure. The results indicate that a firms degree of concentration in foreign sales has an impact on its exchange rate exposure. These results imply that restructuring operations can reduce a firms exchange rate risk. When taken together, the results of the dissertation indicate that exchange rate is exposure is priced in capital markets and is a function of firm specific factors. These results have implications for corporate investors and managers. Corporate investors can choose portfolios that will limit their exchange rate exposure. Corporate managers can make hedging decisions for the firm based on the degree of exposure the firm faces which is a function of who it is and what it does.

Researchers of Initial Public Offerings, IPOs, have, traditionally, filtered out low-priced stocks with cut-off prices depending on individual study. This study examines underpricing, short- and long-run performance of one special class of such low-priced stocks. I examine IPOs filed for and issued as Penny Stocks, as defined by the amended SEC Act of 1990. The study finds average first-day excess returns of 128% over a benchmark NASDAQ Decile 1 Index. The excess returns on nonpenny IPOs issued on the same markets as the penny stocks are 7.6% over the S&P 500 Index. Cross-sectional analyses show that lower-priced penny stocks and stocks of smaller firms are more highly underpriced. Consistent with the information asymmetry hypothesis, penny stocks that were issued on the pink sheets are more highly underpriced than those on the more exposed and more regulated environments of the NASDAQ Small Capitalization markets and the OTC markets. The short- and long-run performance analyses show that, in general, penny stocks have a high performance of between 18% to 20% raw returns in the first year of issue but that declines sharply after a 13-month period. I find an 11-month optimal holding period over which an investor could maximize his returns in a portfolio of penny stocks. I further show that a passive buy-and-hold investment in penny stocks held longer than this optimal period can be a poor investment but an actively-managed penny-stock portfolio can outperform comparable benchmark portfolios of various market indexes on both raw and risk-adjusted basis. Penny stock issuers have shifted from public issues to private placement since 2001. I examine the return to investors in these private issues during the lockup period or until those issues eventually end up in the public domain. The average annualized return to investors during the lockup period is 229%, with only 5% of those issues recording negative returns. Investors who bought these stocks immediately after the lockup period, however, experience an 11% drop in value but the trend reversed after about 10 months, indicating a better long-run performance than those initially issued on the public markets. I examine the effect of the Penny Stock Reform Act (1990) on the number of sanctions that were imposed on the penny stock issuers. The policy intervention analysis shows that the number of sanctions dropped by 9% in the immediate aftermath of the enactment of the Act but increased significantly by nearly 4.7% per quarter thereafter.