Chapter 13: Corporate Financing Decisions and Efficient Capital Markets
Chapter 13: Corporate Financing Decisions and Efficient Capital Markets
Chapter 13: Corporate Financing Decisions and Efficient Capital Markets
Stock
Price Overreaction to “good
news” with reversion
Delayed
response to
“good news”
Efficient market
response to “good news”
Time
Getting Technical
Barron’s March 5, 2003
Getting Technical
Back to Buy Low, Sell High Barron’s March 12, 2003
Getting Technical, continued.
Most technical indicators fall into two categories -- trend
followers and overbought/oversold oscillators.
The former include such tools as moving averages and pattern
breakouts. The latter include such tools as the relative strength
index and stochastics. All of them work great when used as
designed. The problem is that most people simply apply them all
the time, and that can cause problems.
For example, if moving averages are trend-following tools that
signal a change in trend when prices cross them, what happens
when there's no trend?
If we apply the commonly used 50-day moving average and
prices have been in a trading range for six months, it's not
uncommon for the market to cross the average many times in
both directions. The result is a series of losses.
So, there's nothing wrong with the tool; it's just the wrong one to
use under the circumstances.
Getting Technical, continued
Clearly, the bull market is over. Arguably, the bear market is over,
too. We can't be sure of that until more time passes.
I believe it ended last July. During that market bottom, we saw a big
rush to the exits in the form of a big price decline and reversal -- as
well as the biggest volume on record except for the post-
September 11 period.
And even though the major market indexes made lower lows in
October, it wasn't by much. There was neither a significantly
lower low nor a significantly lower high. The classic definition of
a declining trend was not met, so the bear market was broken.
Even if the market undercuts those lows once again, that alone
would not a bear market make. A bearish signal would come only if
the market cannot trade back up to its range top in the next cycle. A
lower low and a lower high would mark a new bearish trend.
…the end of a bear market doesn't necessarily lead directly to a new
bull market. Conditions are now ripe for a 1970s-style, decade-sized
flat market (see chart 1). Sure, we could hit a new low here, but I
don't believe it will be a significantly lower low.
Semi-Strong Form Market Efficiency
Information set
of publicly available
information
Information
set of
past prices
Some Common Misconceptions
1.2
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
With different
1 2 3patterns,
4 5 6 you7may
8 believe
9 10 11 that
12you
13 can predict
14 15 16 17the18next value
19 20 21 22 2
in the series—even though you know it is random.
Event Studies: How Tests Are Structured
Event Studies are one type of test of the semi-
strong form of market efficiency.
This form of the EMH implies that prices should reflect
all publicly available information.
To test this, event studies examine prices and
returns over time—particularly around the arrival
of new information.
Test for evidence of under reaction,
overreaction, early reaction, delayed reaction
around the event.
How Tests Are Structured (cont.)
Returns are adjusted to determine if they are
abnormal by taking into account what the rest of
the market did that day.
The Abnormal Return on a given stock for a
particular day can be calculated by subtracting
the market’s return on the same day (RM) from
the actual return (R) on the stock for that day:
AR= R – RM
The abnormal return can be calculated using the
Market Model approach:
AR= R – (a + bRM)
Event Studies: Dividend Omissions
Cumulative Abnormal Returns for Companies Announcing
Cumulative abnormal returns
Dividend Omissions
0.146 0.108
(%)
0.032 0
-0.244
-8 -6 -4
-0.72 -2 -0.483 0 2 4 6 8
-1
Efficient market
-2
response to “bad news”
-3
-3.619
-4
-4.563-4.747-4.685-4.49
-5 -5.015 -4.898
-5.183
-5.411
-6
Magnitude Issue
Selection Bias Issue
Lucky Event Issue
Possible Model Misspecification
The Record of Mutual Funds
If the market is semistrong-form efficient,
then no matter what publicly available
information mutual-fund managers rely on
to pick stocks, their average returns
should be the same as those of the
average investor in the market as a whole.
We can test efficiency by comparing the
performance of professionally managed
mutual funds with the performance of a
market index.
The Record of Mutual Funds
Annual Return Performance of Different Types of U.S.
Mutual Funds Relative to a Broad-Based Market Index
(1963-1998)
0.00%
Annual Return Performance
All funds Small- Other- Growth Income Growth and Maximum Sector
-10.00% company aggressive funds funds income capital funds
growth growth funds gains
funds funds funds
-20.00%
-30.00%
-40.00%
-50.00%
-60.00%
Taken from Lubos Pastor and Robert F. Stambaugh, “Evaluating and Investing in Equity Mutual Funds,” unpublished paper,
Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago (March 2000).
The Strong Form of the EMH