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This study aims to examine the influence of ownership structure and board composition on the probability and intensity of stock repurchases. The study’s sample comprises 3,744 firm-year observations, consisting of 53 repurchasing firms with 96 firm-year observations from 2008 to 2019.

Probit and fixed-effects regression models are used to obtain empirical results. Moreover, a probit model with a continuous endogenous regressor (IV-probit) and an instrumental variable method with two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) estimation are used to address endogeneity.

Corporations with high family or state ownership tend to inhibit stock repurchases to hoard excess free cash flow, supporting agency theory. Conversely, firms with high board independence tend to repurchase their stocks at least once to distribute free cash flows to shareholders, confirming agency theory. Nonetheless, corporations with more female directors on the board or CEO duality tend to conduct stock repurchases at least once but do not repurchase stocks with high values. Interestingly, more female directors on the board may send false signals about undervalued stocks.

This is the first study to reveal that firms with CEO duality repurchase their stocks at least once but avoid repurchasing shares with high values. It is also the first study to explore whether women on a board may cause false signaling about undervalued stocks. Furthermore, this study reveals that family and state ownership are potential determinants of stock repurchases in countries with high ownership concentration. This is the first study to address this issue in Thailand.

This paper aims to examine whether firms meeting or just beating an earnings benchmark engage in tone management in earnings conference calls to complement earnings management in the UK context. It also investigates whether the audience tone in beating or just meeting earnings fails to predict future performance.

This study was performed using a sample of non-financial UK firms listed in the FTSE 350 index over the period 2010–2015.

The findings show that firms that exercise more earnings management to meet or just beat earnings are positively associated with the abnormal tone during earnings conference calls. The outcomes also reveal that the audience’s tone of firms meeting or just beating an earnings benchmark fails to predict future performance. This confirms the effectiveness of the tone management in managing the perception of audience.

This study highlights the need for increased accountability by firms on earnings conference call. It also supports academics and practitioners in understanding the management discretion used in reporting and communication during the earnings conference call. Overall, the results of this study are beneficial for regulators, policymakers and professionals, regarding confirming the need for the earnings conference calls to be regulated.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines the association between earnings management and tone management in the UK earnings conference calls. It adds to the existing literature by examining the self-serving behaviour of managerial tone during earnings conference calls within a sitting in which meeting or just beating a benchmark is used. Unlike several studies that explain the behaviour of tone as a signalling strategy, this study reveals that the tendency of impression management behaviour can explain the tone management.

Both the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the popular press have routinely criticized firms for the complexity of their financial disclosures. This study aims to investigate how financial analysts respond to the tone complexity of firm disclosures.

Using approximately 20,000 earnings conference call transcripts of S&P 1,500 firms between 2005 and 2015, the authors first calculate the abnormal negative tone, the measure of tone complexity; then use such tone measure in econometric models to examine analyst forecast behavior. The authors also test the robustness of the results under different model specifications, tone word lists and alternative tone measure calculations.

Consistent with the notion that analysts respond to the information demand from investors and incur more costs and effort to analyze firm disclosure when the tone is more complex, the authors find that higher tone complexity is positively and significantly associated with more analyst following, longer report duration, more forecast revisions, larger forecast error and larger forecast dispersion. In addition, the authors find that tone complexity has a long-term impact on analyst following but has a limited long-term impact on analyst report duration, analyst revision, forecast error and dispersion.

This study complements existing literature by highlighting the information role of financial analysts and by providing evidence that analysts incorporate the management tone disclosed during conference calls to adjust their forecasting behaviors. The results can be used by policymakers as evidence and support for further improving firm communication from a new dimension of disclosure tone.

Investors are inattentive to continuous information as opposed to discrete information, resulting in underreaction to continuous information. This paper aims to examine if the well-documented return predictability of the strategies based on the ratio of short-term to long-term moving averages can be enhanced by conditioning on information discreteness. Anchoring bias has been the popular explanation for the source of underreaction in the context of moving averages-based strategies. This paper proposes and studies another possible source based on investor inattention that can potentially result in superior performance of these strategies.

The paper uses portfolio sorting as well as Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regressions. For examining the role of information discreteness in the return predictability of the moving average ratio, the sample stocks are double-sorted based on the moving average ratio and information discreteness measure. The returns to these portfolios are computed using standard approaches in the literature. The regression approach controls for various well-known return predictors.

This study finds that the equally-weighted monthly returns to the long-short moving average ratio quintile portfolios increase monotonically from 0.54% for the discrete information portfolio to 1.37% for the continuous information portfolio over the 3-month holding period. This study observes a similar pattern in risk-adjusted returns, value-weighted portfolios, non-January returns, large and small stocks, for alternative holding periods and the ratio of 50-day to 200-day moving average. The results are robust to control for well-known return predictors in cross-sectional regressions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to document the significant role of investor inattention to continuous information in the return predictability of strategies based on the moving average ratios. There are many underreaction anomalies that have been reported in the literature, and the paper's results can be extended to those anomalies in subsequent research.

The findings of this paper have important practical implications. Strategies based on moving averages are an extremely popular component of a technical analyst's toolkit. Their profitability has been well-documented in the prior literature that attributes the performance to investors' anchoring bias. This paper offers a readily implementable approach to enhancing the performance of these strategies by conditioning on a straightforward measure of information discreteness. In doing so, this study extends the literature on the role of investor inattention to continuous information in anomaly profits.

While there is considerable literature on technical analysis, and especially on the performance of moving averages-based strategies, the novelty of this paper is the analysis of the role of information discreteness in strategy performance. Not only does the paper document robust evidence, but the findings suggest that the investor’s inattention to continuous information is a more dominant source of underreaction compared to anchoring. This is an important result, given that anchoring has so far been considered the source of return predictability in the literature.

This study aims to evaluate the presence of abnormal returns due to stock splits or reverse stock splits in the Brazilian capital market context.

The event study technique was used on data from 518 events that occurred in a 30-year period (1987–2016), comprising 167 stock splits and 351 reverse stock splits.

The results revealed the occurrence of abnormal returns around the time the shares began trading stock splits or reverse stock splits at a statistical significance level of 5%. The main conclusion is that stock split and reverse stock split operations represent opportunities for extraordinary gains and may serve as a reference for investment strategies in the Brazilian stock market.

This study innovates by including reverse stock splits, as the existing literature focuses on stock splits, and by testing two distinct “zero” dates that of the ordinary general meeting that approved the share alteration and the “ex” date of the alteration, when the shares were effectively traded, reverse split or split.

Despite its devastating nature, the COVID-19 pandemic has also catalyzed a substantial surge in the adoption and integration of technological tools within economies, exerting a profound influence on the dissemination of information among participants in stock markets. Consequently, this present study delves into the ramifications of post-pandemic dynamics on stock market behavior. It also examines the relationship between investors' sentiments, underlying behavioral drivers and their collective impact on global stock markets.

Drawing upon data spanning from 2012 to 2023 and encompassing major world indices classified by Morgan Stanley Capital International’s (MSCI) market and regional taxonomy, this study employs a threshold regression model. This model effectively distinguishes the thresholds within these influential factors. To evaluate the statistical significance of variances across these thresholds, a Wald coefficient analysis was applied.

The empirical results highlighted the substantive role that investors' sentiments and behavioral determinants play in shaping the predictability of returns on a global scale. However, their influence on developed economies and the continents of America appears comparatively lower compared with the Asia–Pacific markets. Similarly, the regions characterized by a more pronounced influence of behavioral factors seem to reduce their reliance on these factors in the post-pandemic landscape and vice versa. Interestingly, the post COVID-19 technological advancements also appear to exert a lesser impact on developed nations.

This study pioneers the investigation of these contextual dissimilarities, thereby charting new avenues for subsequent research studies. These insights shed valuable light on the contextualized nexus between technology, societal dynamics, behavioral biases and their collective impact on stock markets. Furthermore, the study's revelations offer a unique vantage point for addressing market inefficiencies by pinpointing the pivotal factors driving such behavioral patterns.

Millennials are a vital generational cohort of the Indian population, and understanding their motivation to participate in the stock market is crucial. This study aims to understand the investment decision-making behavior among millennials in the Indian Stock Market.

Using a cross-sectional research design that entails in-depth personal interviews, this study aims to understand the equity investment behavior of millennials. Verbatim texts from interview transcripts were used to analyze the content and arrive at themes.

The study investigated the motivation to enter the stock market and gained insights into how individuals make equity investment decisions considering economic and behavioral dimensions. The basis for stock selection was predominantly on the self-analysis of investors. Multiple stock selection priorities are also discussed. In addition, informants ensured asset diversification and exercised various strategies to overcome emotions. Furthermore, they suffered from various behavioral biases.

Individual investors are the least informed and most impacted stakeholders in the stock markets; therefore, this study contributes fresh insights to enhance their financial security. The paper also examines some noticeable behavioral tendencies retail investors exhibit and gathers helpful strategies for mitigating behavioral biases.

The uniqueness of the research lies in its adoption of a qualitative methodology that uses the investment experience of millennial investors to reveal the components of decision-making behavior and investor psychology. The findings are thereby unique and have significant managerial implications.

This study investigates the media activities of firms issuing private equity placements and seasoned equity offerings in Taiwan, as firms have incentives to manage media coverage to influence their stock prices during private equity placement.

We collect a corpus of news stories and transform the news into term sets based on the part of speech. Then, we refer to Cecchini et al. (2010) to classify the news terms into positive, negative, and usual categories. Next, we employ the SVM algorithm to perform the classification tasks and the term frequency method to perform the text mining task. In last, we use a multiple regression model to verify the hypotheses.

We determine that issuing firms in a private placement have substantially more positive news stories and fewer negative news stories than those in public offerings. Furthermore, we evidence that the media management effects of postequity issues are more active than those of preequity issues. Finally, our results demonstrate that the timing and content of financial media coverage among different equity issuance methods may be biased by firm management. According to previous studies, they may attempt to manipulate stock prices to increase the number of highly profitable insider stakeholders.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate that if private placement will associate with more active media management than the public offerings. According to our results of the difference-in-means test, the public offerings market may control news coverage; however, this result is inconsistent with that of the regression results. The private placements market may also exercise media management in the “before announcement day” and “after announcement day” periods by increasing positive news and reducing negative news.

The aim of this research paper is to analyze the connection between ESG performance and financial performance within the real estate sector. By focusing on ESG ratings and pillar scores as proxies for ESG performance, the study investigates how these factors impact both profitability and market indicators.

With data sourced from over 680 publicly listed real estate companies, the research employs a fixed effects regression model to analyze the findings. By utilizing this method, the study can assess the impact of governance, environmental and social factors on both the accounting and market performance of real estate companies.

The outcomes of this study underscore a link between sustainability, particularly environmental aspects and financial performance. However, the study also reveals a contrasting result: governance factors are associated with adverse financial outcomes. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight the limitations as the results present a mixed picture with limited significant findings.

Companies should prioritize improvements in environment to boost profitability, while they should carefully consider the costs and benefits associated with enhancing their governance structure.

By focusing on this industry and adopting a global perspective, the study addresses a gap in the literature. The research’s innovative approach to utilizing ESG ratings and pillar scores as proxies for ESG performance enhances its originality. Furthermore, the research’s identification of the differing impacts of environmental and governance factors on financial outcomes add novel perspectives to the discourse.

Determining the impact of behavioral influences on the stock market has significant implications for investment analysis and portfolio management. Behavioral biases are parameters that need to be considered in investment decision-making. The purpose of this study is to inform Bangladeshi investors about behavioral biases that they may encounter when making investment decisions in the prevailing frontier environment.

Through the chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, paired-samples t-test and descriptive analysis based on the facts collected from 281 respondents of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the study has found that individual investors of Bangladesh often make investment decisions emotionally rather than based on theories.

The result shows that risk aversion and risk perception are the two most influential emotional dimensions that impact investors' decisions. The findings are consistent with the other researchers and highlight the fact that investors hardly act according to the norms recommended in the financial theories.

The findings are grounded on a small portion of investors at DSE on some particular days, which is not sufficient to study individual investors' entire complex decision-making behavior from various angles. Many respondents were reluctant and even confused to disclose their behavioral aspects. These, along with biased and careless answers, may impede the identification of the actual scenario of the behavioral responses in decision-making that demand further study.

The novelty of this study is unique in that it examined investors of the DSE, who are considered to be a representative in a frontier market like Bangladesh. Since this market is not very resilient, small investors need to be aware of the biases of behavioral factors to survive.