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Using the next-day and next-week returns of stocks in the Korean market, we examine the association of option volume ratios – i.e. the option-to-stock (O/S) ratio, which is the total volume of put options and call options scaled by total underlying equity volume, and the put-call (P/C) ratio, which is the put volume scaled by total put and call volume – with future returns. We find that O/S ratios are positively related to future returns, but P/C ratios have no significant association with returns. We calculate individual, institutional, and foreign investors’ option ratios to determine which ratios are significantly related to future returns and find that, for all investors, higher O/S ratios predict higher future returns. The predictability of P/C depends on the investors: institutional and individual investors’ P/C ratios are not related to returns, but foreign P/C predicts negative next-day returns. For net-buying O/S ratios, institutional net-buying put-to-stock ratios consistently predict negative future returns. Institutions’ buying and selling put ratios also predict returns. In short, institutional put-to-share ratios predict future returns when we use various option ratios, but individual option ratios do not.

Historical stock prices have long been used to evaluate a stock’s future returns as well as the risks associated with those returns. Similarly, historical dividends have been used to evaluate the intrinsic value of a stock using, among other methods, a dividend discount model. In this chapter, we propose an alternate use of the dividend discount model to enable an investor to assess the risks associated with a particular stock based on its dividend history. In traditional applications of the dividend discount model for stock valuation, the value of a stock is the net present value of its future cash dividends. We propose an alternative approach in which we calculate the internal rate of return for a stream of future cash dividends assuming the current stock price. We use a bootstrapping approach to generate a stream of future cash dividends, and use a Monte Carlo simulation approach to run multiple trials of the model. The probability distribution of the internal rates of return obtained from the simulation model provides an investor with an expected percentage return and the standard deviation of the return for the stock. This allows an investor to not only compare the expected internal rates of return for a group of stocks but to also evaluate the associated risks. We illustrate this internal rate of return approach using stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Informed traders may prefer the options market to the stock market for reasons including the leverage effect, transaction costs, restrictions on short sale. Many studies try to predict future returns of stocks using informed traders' behavior in the options market. In this study, we examine whether the trading volume ratios of single stock options have the predictive power for future returns of the underlying stock. By analyzing the stock price responses to the “preliminary announcement of performance” of 36 underlying stocks on the Korea Exchange from November 2014 to March 2021 and the trading volume of options written on those stocks, we investigate the relation between the option ratios, which are the call option volume to put option volume ratio (C/P ratio) and the option volume to stock volume ratio (O/S ratio), and the future returns of the underlying stock. We also examine which ratio is better in predicting the future returns. The authors found that both option ratios showed the statistically significant predictability about future returns of the underlying stock and that the return predictability of the O/S ratio is more robust than that of the C/P ratio. This study shows that indicators generated in the options market can be used to predict future underlying stock returns. Further, the findings of this study contributed to a dearth of literature pertaining to single stock options. The results suggest that the single stock options market is efficient and influences the price discovery in the stock market.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the price interrelationship between the Taiwanese and US financial markets.

The trivariate GJR‐GARCH (1,1) model and event study were employed to investigate volatility asymmetry and overreaction phenomenon, respectively.

The empirical results show that return volatility reveals the asymmetric phenomenon, and the holding period returns on US index futures from the opening of the US index futures electronic trading to the opening of the Taiwanese stock market are an important reference for investors in the Taiwanese stock market. Additionally, the paper presents an overreaction of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index to a drastic price rise of E‐min NASDAQ 100 Index futures at the opening of the Taiwanese stock market.

This paper deletes the observations arising from the different national holidays of the USA and Taiwan, to have the same number of observations in both markets, which might contaminate the empirical results.

Investors in the Taiwanese stock market tend to pay more attention to the fluctuations in the share prices of high‐technological companies in the USA.

Most of the previous studies regarding price transmission between the Taiwanese and US stock markets focused mainly on the Taiwanese market reactions to the overnight returns of the US market. This paper enlarges the current field by examining the lead‐lag relationship, the volatility asymmetry, and the overreaction phenomenon between the Taiwanese and US financial markets according to the most updated US stock index information.

In capital markets research, analysts’ consensus forecasts are widely used as a proxy for unobservable market earnings expectation. However, they measure the market earnings expectation with error that may vary cross-sectionally, as the market does not consistently rely on analysts’ consensus forecasts to form earnings expectation (Walther, 1997). Based on this notion, this paper aims to relate the prediction of future stock returns to the cross-sectional variation of the error in measuring market earnings expectation embedded in analysts’ consensus forecasts.

This study uses empirical analyses based on stock returns and annual analysts’ consensus forecasts.

Based on the analytical work by Abarbanell et al. (1995), this study reports that when the measurement error in annual analysts’ consensus forecasts is the smallest, forward earnings-to-price ratio (constructed with annual analysts’ consensus forecasts) best explains future stock returns, and the forward earnings-to-price ratio-based investment strategy is the most profitable.

Findings of this study are useful to capital markets research that relies on the market earnings expectation and to practitioners seeking more profitable investment strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firm-level asset investment effects in returns found for US firms occur within the Greek stock market.

The paper utilizes portfolio-level tests and cross-sectional regressions.

The authors find that growth in total assets is strongly negatively related to future stock returns of Greek firms. In fact, the relation remains statistically significant, even when the authors control for other strong predictors of future returns (i.e. market capitalization and book-to-market ratio). Furthermore, the authors find that a hedge trading strategy on asset growth rate consisting of a long (short) position in firms with low (high) balance sheet growth generates positive returns, confirming that investment growth has significant predictive power for future returns of Greek listed firms.

The paper adds to the literature on the generalization of asset pricing regularities attributable to accounting figures in an emerging market.

Prior literature suggests that stock prices lead earnings in reflecting value-relevant information because accounting income incorporates information discretely to satisfy recognition principles while stock prices incorporate it continuously. The purpose of this paper is to derive an analytical model that relates the time lag of earnings to the incremental informativeness of future anticipated earnings in equity prices after controlling for current realized earnings.

This study models the extent to which forward-looking information about future earnings is capitalized into current stock returns. Specifically, this study derives an analytical future earnings response coefficient (FERC) model that regresses current stock returns on both current and future earnings surprises, and examines the properties of the regression coefficients on current earnings (i.e. current earnings response coefficient, CERC) and future earnings (i.e. FERC).

The analytical FERC model shows that the pricing coefficient on future earnings (FERC) is positive in the presence of stock prices leading earnings. More importantly, the pricing coefficient on future earnings (FERC) increases with the recognition lag, but the pricing coefficient on current earnings (CERC) decreases with the lag. The results suggest that recognition principles that intend to enhance the reliability of earnings inadvertently lower the timeliness of earnings and, thus, shift the investors’ demand for value-relevant information from current realized earnings to future anticipated earnings.

This study makes two major contributions. First, it fills the gap between the lack of an analytical model and the abundance of empirical findings in previous FERC studies. As the recognition lag of earnings increases, stock investors shift the pricing weight on value-relevant information from current realized earnings to future anticipated earnings. Second, it provides support for the validity of the FERC model as an empirical model that examines the lack of earnings timeliness. As the timeliness of earnings relative to stock prices declines, the FERC increases but the CERC decreases.

This study aims to determine whether the stock holdings of equity mutual funds are informative for predicting future stock performance in the Chinese market. It is a puzzle that actively managed mutual funds underperform passive benchmarks, whereas retail investors still delegate investment decisions to the fund managers. The present study sheds light on whether mutual fund managers possess security selection skills in their top ten holdings.

By regression analysis and portfolio sorting, this study focuses on 830 Chinese A-share stocks in the industry research reports from the Guotai Junan Securities Company. It collects mutual fund's top ten holdings data from the Wind Financial Terminal between 2019Q1 and 2021Q1. As robustness checks, the result holds for the fixed-effect model, an additional measure of ranks in the top ten holdings, the predictability test based on the confusion matrix and two stage least square (2SLS) regression.

The authors find that the top ten holdings by equity mutual funds are informative for predicting stock performance and can provide valuable information for investors to support their decision-making.

The findings of this study provide insightful guidance for retail investors in making investment decisions and support the hypothesis that active fund management adds value.

Firstly, the authors find that the top ten holdings of Chinese mutual funds show significantly positive signals for future stock excess returns, indicating the selection skills of fund managers. Secondly, the above positive relationship exhibits a diminishing marginal effect with more funds holding this stock. Thirdly, the authors find that the predictability horizon of the number of overweighing funds is up to three quarters and then diminishes in the fourth quarter. Finally, investors have a 59% prediction accuracy for the whole stock sample and an 85% precision conditional on the predicted positive subsample to outperform the market. The authors also address the endogeneity and reverse causality issues.

Although it has often been studied in finance research, the relationship between dividend yields and stock returns remains an unresolved issue, especially in the Korean stock market. When firms continue to pay non-decreasing dividends for three or five years, they may establish a dividend reputation, which could affect this relationship. The author found firms that pay more dividends, larger firms, older firms, more profitable firms, less leveraged firms, firms with less volatile returns, firms with foreign holdings of more than 5%, and firms with more concentrated ownership build dividend reputations. The author also found that the relationship between dividend yields and future stock returns depends on a firm’s dividend reputation. The evidence shows that when firms with higher yields have dividend reputations, they produce higher future returns, whereas there is no significant relationship between yields and returns for firms with no reputation. These results are inconsistent with the findings of studies that use developed market data. In addition, when larger firms with higher growth potential and firms with less concentrated ownership have dividend reputations, future returns are higher.

The accounting literature has traditionally focused on firm-level studies to examine the capital market implications of earnings and other accounting variables. We first develop the arguments for studying capital market implications at the aggregate level as well. A central issue is that diversification makes equity investors at least partially and potentially almost completely immune to several firm-level properties of earnings by holding diversified portfolios. Diversification is particularly important when assessing the welfare consequences of random errors in accounting measurement (imperfect accruals) and, to the extent it is independent across firms, of deliberate manipulation (earnings management). Consequently, some firm-level metrics of association, timeliness, value relevance, conservatism and other earnings properties do not map easily into investor welfare. Similarly, earnings-related risk manifests itself to equity investors largely through systematic earnings risk (covariation with aggregate earnings and/or other macroeconomic indicators). We conclude that the design and evaluation of financial reporting must adopt at least in part an aggregate perspective. We then summarize the literature in accounting, economics and finance on aggregate earnings and stock prices. Our review highlights the importance of studying earnings at the aggregate level.