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This study aims to investigate whether the zero-investment portfolio strategy generates higher excess returns for all listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) or ESG100 stocks. The study period is from January 2016 to December 2020, a total of 60 months. The dividend yield is employed for categorizing the stock into value and growth stocks. The strategy of buying value stocks and short-selling growth stocks is then applied. The results show that investing using the zero-investment portfolio strategy can generate higher returns in an investment portfolio that consists of ESG100 stocks than in an investment portfolio that consists of all stocks in the SET. The optimal holding periods for investing in portfolios that consist of stocks in the SET are 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months, and the optimal holding periods for a portfolio that consists of ESG100 stocks is 6 months. To explain excess returns of stocks in the SET, the Fama and French (2015) five-factor model is employed. There is no relation between risk factors and excess returns for the holding period of 6 months and 12 months. However, excess return is found to have a negative relation with the market risk premium factor for a 9-month holding period. The excess returns of ESG100 stocks are also inversely correlated with investment factors for a holding period of 6 months.

The flexibility of managers to respond to risk and uncertainty inherent in business decisions is clearly of value. This value has historically been recognized in an ad hoc manner in the absence of a methodology for more rigorous assessment of value. The application of real option methodology represents a more objective mechanism that allows managers to hedge against adverse effects and exploit upside potential. Of particular interest to managers in the merger and acquisition (M&A) process is the value of such flexibility related to the particular terms of a transaction. Typically, stock for stock transactions take more time to complete as compared to cash given the time lapse between announcement and completion. Over this period, if stock prices are volatile, stock for stock exchanges may result in adverse selection through the dilution of shareholder wealth of an acquiring firm or a target firm.

The paper develops a real option collar model that may be employed by managers to measure the market price risk involved to their shareholders in offering or accepting stock. We further discuss accounting issues related to this contingency pricing effect. Using an acquisition example from U.S. banking industry we illustrate how the collar arrangement may be used to hedge market price risk through flexibility to renegotiate the deal by exercising managerial options.

This chapter focuses on information efficiency as provided by fair value accounting (FVA) and corporate governance (CG) practices in an emerging market. Positive accounting theory was adopted as an empirical model to test the relationship between information efficiency and stock prices. Data for the period 2007–2020 from 576 listed firms on the Stock Exchange of Thailand were collected, tested, and analyzed using a fixed effect estimator. The results indicate that investors in the stock market trust the use of publicized efficient information as provided by FVA and CG practices in making their investment decisions, when FVA and CG proxies were found to significantly influence stock prices. Hence, this evidence implies that information efficiency leads to better firm values in an emerging market.

The study discussed in this article examines two empirical questions: (1) Can multiple financial signals enhance the intermediate-horizon returns of value and glamour investments on Asian stock markets? and (2) Do the return enhancements, if any, differ by value and growth firm types and vary across different markets? The results of this study show that financial signals affect return enhancements, and these enhancements differ by firm types and vary across markets. These differences can be explained by non-positive value premiums and relatively poor information quality documented on Asian markets.

This study investigates the ex-dividend day stock prices of the firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) where the tax rate is higher on dividends than on capital gains. The results help to explain what impact taxes have on the ex-day stock prices behavior in an emerging market.

To examine the tax effect on the ex-day stock prices behavior, this study considers after-tax dividends and computes the raw price ratio, market-adjusted price ratio, raw price drop, market-adjusted price drop. The market-adjusted ex-dividend day abnormal returns and relative trading volume are also examined to determine the direction of investor trading around the ex-day.

The main hypotheses examine whether the mean (median) differs from its theoretical value by using a t-test and nonparametric sign-rank test. The findings suggest that the drop of stock prices on the ex-day on the DSE is not due to taxes or transaction costs but to valuation assumptions made by investors in determining the equilibrium stock price.

Findings of this study will be useful for investors and traders in their valuation assumption to trade around the ex-dividend day.

Market participant’s preference of dividends, and exempted tax and its ultimate contribution to the equity value explain the ex-day stock prices behavior in the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

We investigate institutional investors’ trading behavior of acquiring firm stocks surrounding merger activities for the period 1992–2001. We label investment companies and independent investment advisors as active institutions and banks, nonbank trusts, and insurance companies as passive institutions. We analyze the trading behavior of active and passive institutions surrounding merger announcements and their eventual resolution. Our results indicate that active institutions significantly increase their holdings of acquiring firm stocks for mergers with higher announcement period abnormal return and this increase is more pronounced for stock mergers than cash mergers. Active institutions display preference for stock proposals at the merger announcement on the basis of their prior beliefs and this is explained by the “overreaction phenomenon.” However, they update their beliefs between announcement and final resolution as more information arrives into the market. Finally, active institutions appear to correct their overreaction behavior by displaying their greater preference for cash proposals as compared to stock proposals at the quarter of eventual outcome. The trading behavior of passive institutions suggests that these institutions disregard the market response of merger announcement in trading acquiring firm stocks at the announcement quarter. The passive institutions gradually update their beliefs and utilize the information released at the announcement in rebalancing their portfolios at the final resolution.

We investigate the impact of the creation of a new incentive structure for CEOs resulting from firms introducing equity-based compensation (EBC) as a means of paying top executives on policy decisions. Contrasting a firm’s stock and operating performance in the period the CEO is compensated with EBC (EBC period) and the period when EBC is not a component of the same executive’s pay (No EBC period) leads us to conclude that awarding stock options and restricted shares to executives is not associated with improved firm performance. However, firms initiate EBC after superior performance suggesting that CEOs are awarded compensation in this form as a reward for past performance. Firms have higher unsystematic and total risk levels in the EBC period suggesting EBC influences CEOs’ risk-taking behavior and reduces agency costs arising from managerial risk aversion. While there is no change in R&D expenses and cash ratios there is a decrease in capital expenditures in the EBC period, which is consistent with reduced overinvestment agency costs. Finally, leverage and payout ratios are similar in both periods implying that firms’ financing policy is not influenced by changes in CEOs’ compensation structure.

In a world of asymmetric information between managers and investors, the choice of the payment method is a key issue in mergers and acquisitions. Previous literature shows that contingent methods of payment other than stocks (e.g. contingent value rights, earnouts or convertible securities), even if they do not solve the information asymmetry problems, can mitigate their consequences. In this chapter, I examine the motivations and the effects of the inclusion of a contingent payment method the use of which has not been studied yet, the warrant. I show that this consideration is used mainly when information asymmetry problems are severe and that it can be used to solve the information problems.

This study examines the five-factor model of Fama and French (2015) on the French stock market by comparing it to the Fama and French (1993)’s base model. The new Fama and French five-factor model directed at capturing two new factors, profitability and investment in addition to the market, size and book to market premiums. The pricing models are tested using a time-series regression and the Fama and Macbeth (1973) methodology. The regularities in the factor’s behavior related to market conditions and to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe are also examined. The findings of Fama and French (2015) for the US market are confirmed on the Paris Bourse. The results show that both models help to explain some of the stock returns. However, the five-factor model is better since it has a marginal improvement over the widely used three-factor model of Fama and French (1993). In addition, the investment risk premium seems to be better priced in the French stock market than the profitability factor. The results are robust to the Fama and Macbeth (1973) methodology. Moreover, profitability and investment premiums are not affected by market conditions and the European sovereign debt crisis.

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.