Large Share Price Movements, Reasons and Market Reaction: Julijana Angelovska
Large Share Price Movements, Reasons and Market Reaction: Julijana Angelovska
Large Share Price Movements, Reasons and Market Reaction: Julijana Angelovska
MARKET REACTION
Julijana Angelovska *
The objective of this paper is to examine the reasons of firm-level one-day share
price shocks and post -shock reaction. Positive and negative shocks are defined
and detected by using the official news providers, which are required to disclose
price-sensitive information. No information that accompanied one-day share price
shocks was found. It is suggested that irrational behavior by uninformed investors
drives the stock market returns. The reaction to these large price movements has
been investigated as part of the overreaction hypothesis and the results were
supportive of short-term price reversal in the case of price declines.
1. INTRODUCTION
In turbulent transition times many stock markets experience sharp falls and
rises in security prices. The reasons of and reaction to such changes should
generate renewed interest in the price behavior of security markets in the
transition countries. According to the well-known efficient market hypothesis,
introduced by Fama (1965), “stock prices at any time fully reflect all available
information” (as cited by McKenzie, 2008, p. 206). It means that stock prices
are unpredictable and that only rational asset pricing models can determined the
expected stock returns. The evidence on the stock market and empirical studies
showed that the stock prices are not unpredictable and that stock prices do not
always reflect all available information. The opposite view of the stock market
philosophy represented by Keynes (1936) is that the investor is not rational and
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Over the years, several inconsistencies with popular asset pricing models,
the so called market anomalies, emerged. Lee et al., (2002) notes that in market
fluctuations the events themselves are not so important, as the human reactions
to those events. Bloomfield et al., (1991) explains that financial markets under-
react to information in some cases or market price does not move upward far
enough in reaction to good news, or does not move downward far enough in
reaction to bad news, while they may overreact in other situations. In order to
understand the inherent dynamics of financial markets Malliaris and Stein
(1999) raised the following question: “If price changes are induced by changes
in information, can information concerning the shocks in fundamental factors
explain the magnitude of the observed price volatility?” Or there are other
factors that can explain the variance of price changes. Cutler et al., (1989) in his
research as well wonder if the information is the cause of market anomalies,
then how is possible to reach excess returns with little or no news. Franke and
Sethi (1998 p.2) argue “that trajectories can easily exhibit complex dynamics,
independently of any arrival of news”.
Further empirical research in different markets can shed more light on the
literature on overreaction. The emerging capital markets in transition countries
have a short history. Macedonian capital market belongs to the newly created
markets in transition countries. The purpose of the article is:
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H o : Expected abnormal return is zero for each stock for each day τ . Neither
price reversal nor price continuation occurs on the day τ .
H 1 : Expected abnormal return is different from zero for each stock for each
day τ . Price reversal or price continuation occurs on the day τ .
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Subsequent price reversal patterns in the short term (ranging from one day
to a full year using daily/weekly data) were mostly tested in the studies. Park
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Arbel and Jaggi, (1982) find – consistent with the first empirical work
performed on the subject - no evidence of any price reversals (noted exception:
Taiwan). Their results indicate that the market absorbs the information causing
stock prices to change almost immediately. Using monthly index returns from
16 countries Richards (1996 and 1997), found that this apparent anomaly of
winner-loser reversal is not a small market phenomenon and that loser countries
are not more risky than winner countries. January effects are found to be the
reason of the overreaction (Jones, 1989). Chan (2003) constructs an index of
news headlines for a random subset of Center for Research in Security Prices
(CRSP) stocks, and finds momentum after news and reversal after no news,
with the effect mostly driven by loser stocks. The entire daily Dow Jones news
archive from 1979 to 2007 was used to study how presence of public news
affects subsequent returns (Tetlock, 2010). Most studies investigating the
reversal pattern were performed on US data, but Bremer at al. (1997) analyze all
Nikkei 300 stocks. They discover the reversal pattern for the Japanese stock
market, but conclude that investors cannot earn arbitrage profits. Ratner and
Leal (1998) perform their research on emerging markets of Latin America and
Asia (excluding South Africa, Indonesia and China). Lasfer at al. (2003),
studying the price behavior of daily market indices of both developed and
emerging markets worldwide, also fail to gather any evidence in favor of the
price reversal hypothesis.
In the subsequent period the emphasis was put on intra-day data and the
link of extreme events to public (published) information. Hamelink (1999)
looks at stocks listed on the French stock exchange and discovers significant
post-extreme return patterns. Taking the bid-ask spread into account, however,
the overreaction hypothesis cannot be supported. Fehle and Zdorovtsov (2002)
support his findings.
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Savor (2012) analyzes what factors other than new public information may
be a cause of large stock price movements and compares the investors in terms
of how they respond to information and no information based price changes.
The obtained results are consistent with the hypothesis that investors underreact
to new information about the firm and overreact to price movements caused by
other factors, such as shifts in investor sentiment or liquidity shocks (Savor,
2012). The recommendations are important to investors and it has been proven
in a large body of literature. The studies show that recommendations result in
significant contemporaneous stock price reactions, and that investors can profit
by trading on recommendations even after they are released (Altinkilic and
Hansen, 2009; Asquith at al. 2005; Loh and Stulz, 2011).
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3. METHODOLOGY
Some studies of significant price events (Pritamani and Singal, 2001) use
returns scaled by volatilities instead of absolute thresholds. The logic behind
this approach is that what constitutes a significant price change is not the same
for high-volatility stocks and for low-volatility stocks (Savor, 2012). However,
return volatility is not exogenous. It reflects the industry a firm operates in and
the degree to which investor sentiment or liquidity shocks affect trading activity
in the stock (Savor, 2012).
The second measure or dynamic trigger values based upon firms expected
return and volatility (Wong 1997; Lasfer et al. 2003) is more appropriate to be
used in this study. Price limitations are defined by the Macedonian Stock
Exchanges’ Board of Directors (static limit ±10%). The static limit was changed
in 2007 to ±5% (MSE, 2007).
We define as large price increase, a positive price shock one where the
return on a particular day exceeds the average market daily return by two
standard deviations ( Rit > µ i + 2σ i ). On the other hand, large price decreases
or negative price shocks are those where the return on a particular day lies two
standard deviations below the average market daily return ( Rit < µ i − 2σ i ).
Sample mean return µi and sample standard deviation σ i of stock i are
estimated over the sample period.
The reasons for large price changes can be driven by a number of factors,
but for the purpose of this study we will focus on new information. The
information is considered to be only the one publicly available to all investors.
We use “price sensitive information” as a proxy for the presence of public
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T
Ε( Rit ) = (1 / T )∑ Rij (2),
j =1
1 N
AR τ =
N
∑ AR τ
i =1
i,
(3),
The cumulative abnormal return for stock i from day τ 1 to day τ 2 denoted
as CARi ( τ 1 ,τ 2 ) is simply summed daily abnormal returns over day τ 1 to
day τ 2 :
τ2
CARi ( τ 1 , τ 2 ) = ∑ AR
τ = τ1
i ,τ
(4).
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4. DATA
The data comprise the daily returns on all 10 stocks listed on the MBI10, a
weighted index using closing prices and published by the Macedonian Stock
Exchange, as of the beginning of January 2005. The daily returns are computed
based on the closing price of each trading day. The sample period extends from
January 2005 to December 2009. In this period, the Macedonian Stock
Exchange witnessed its first bull and bear market and the stocks have
experienced either extreme capital gains, or extreme capital losses. The trading
volume on the Macedonian Stock Exchange before 2005 was very low and the
investors were barely aware of the stock market.
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investors that experienced high losses lost their interest in financial assets. In
Table 1 a description of the dataset is shown. The data are extracted from the
official site of the Macedonian Stock Exchange (www.mse.mk).
5. EMPIRICAL RESULTS
We calculate the positive and negative large price changes that exceed
± µ i + 2σ i across the companies. The magnitude of the shocks differ among
the stocks listed on MBI 10, determined by the volatility measured in standard
deviation.
The positive shocks range between 4.58 percent and 9.83 percent and
similarly, the negative shocks range between -9.7 percent and -4.54 percent.
The number of calculated positive and negative shocks and the frequency are
reported in Table 2.
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% %
No.of positive No.of negative of all of all
shocks (+) shocks (-) shocks shocks
Alkaloid 45 40 3.78% 3.36%
Beton 66 35 5.54% 2.94%
Granit 60 36 5.03% 3.02%
Kom. bank 42 37 3.52% 3.10%
Makpetrol 43 42 3.61% 3.52%
Replek 32 0 2.68% 0.00%
Stop.banka
Bitola 40 32 3.36% 2.68%
Makstil 4 22 0.34% 1.85%
Toplifikacija 49 37 4.11% 3.10%
Z.K.Bitola 52 42 4.36% 3.52%
MBI 10 42 33 3.52% 2.77%
There are annual differences across the companies throughout the sample
period and the positive shocks are noticed in the period 2005-2007 when the
bubble was boiled and more negative after 2007 when bubble busted. The post-
shock abnormal returns, the mean abnormal return and the cumulative abnormal
return across event observations are calculated.
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Panel A. Price continuations and price reversals after a large one-day decline:
Continuation: AR<0, Reversal: AR>0; Continuation: CAR<0, Reversal: CAR>0.
Panel B. Price continuations and price reversals after a large one-day advance:
Continuation: AR>0, Reversal: AR<0; Continuation: CAR>0, Reversal: CAR<0.
Source: Author’s calculations.
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For uninformed or irrational investors, the price of the share and the rate
with which it alters are particularly strong signals to trade. Uninformed traders
are strongly influenced by the recent trades, and are more likely to buy (sell)
when previous trades have been bought (sold) (Easley, Kiefer and O’Hara
(1997a, b).
6. CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study are based on a sample of 10 firms listed on the
MBI10 index over the five-year period from January 2005 to December 2009.
We begin our inquiry into return behavior after large price movements by
selecting large price changes, as a mean plus/minus two standard deviations.
Positive and negative price shocks are detected within sample period and no
good or bad news supported these events. The investors on the Macedonian
capital market seem that are supporters of non-fundamental trading strategies.
To support the non-rational behavior of the stock market, an overreaction
hypothesis is tested.
The results indicate that the Macedonian stock market appears to have
overreacted; stock prices tend to be reversed after large price changes especially
in the case of price decreases. The results are consistent with previous studies
that documented evidence supportive to investors’ overreaction hypothesis and
especially strong price reversals in the post-negative shocks.
REFERENCES
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Sažetak
Cilj ovog rada je ispitati razloge jednodnevnih naglih promjena cijena dionica poduzeća
i reakcija na tržišni šok. U radu se definiraju i identificiraju pozitivni i negativni šokovi,
pri čemu se koriste službeni izvori informacija, koji moraju objavljivati informacije o
kojima ovisi cijena. Nisu otkrivene informacije povezane s jednodnevnim šokovima,
odnosno naglim promjenama u cijenama dionica. Smatra se da iracionalno ponašanje
neinformiranih investitora utječe na povrate na financijskom tržištu. Reakcije na velike
promjene u cijenama dionica istraživane su kao dio hipoteze o pretjeranoj reakciji i
rezultati su hipotezu potvrdili u slučaju kratkotrajnog preokreta u cijeni, odnosno u
slučaju kada cijene padaju.
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