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Full-Text Articles in Business

A Multiechelon Inventory Problem With Secondary Market Sales, Alexandar Angelus Dec 2011

A Multiechelon Inventory Problem With Secondary Market Sales, Alexandar Angelus

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a finite-horizon, multiechelon inventory system in which the surplus of stock can be sold (i.e., disposed) in the secondary markets at each stage in the system. What are called nested echelon order-up-to policies are shown to be optimal for jointly managing inventory replenishments and secondary market sales. Under a general restriction on model parameters, we establish that it is optimal not to both sell off excess stock and replenish inventory. Secondary market sales complicate the structure of the system, so that the classical Clark and Scarf echelon reformulation no longer allows for the decomposition of the objective function …


Charting Your Financial Goals, Benedict Koh Dec 2011

Charting Your Financial Goals, Benedict Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Every one of us has financial goals but not many of us know how to go about achieving them. We often lack investment knowledge or expertise to design an investment plan that optimises our savings. Consequently, we adopt the default approach of leaving all our savings in bank deposits. By doing so, we have already made an asset allocation decision, one that is very conservative. Over time, we soon realise that this conservative investment plan is simply not working as our savings are not compounding fast enough to keep up with inflation. We need to invest more wisely so that …


What Is Behind The Asset Growth And Investment Growth Anomalies?, Fangjian Fu Oct 2011

What Is Behind The Asset Growth And Investment Growth Anomalies?, Fangjian Fu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing studies show that firm asset and investment growth predict cross-sectional stock returns. Firms that shrink their assets or investments subsequently earn higher returns than firms that expand their assets or investments. I show that the superior returns of the low asset and investment growth portfolios are due to the omission of delisting returns in CRSP monthly stock return file and that the poor returns of the high asset and investment growth portfolios are largely driven by the subsample of firms that have issued large amounts of debt or equity in the previous year. Controlling for the effects of the …


Streaks In Earnings Surprises And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Roger Loh, Mitchell Craig Warachka Aug 2011

Streaks In Earnings Surprises And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Roger Loh, Mitchell Craig Warachka

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.


Size And Return: A New Perspective, Fangjian Fu, Wei Yang Jul 2011

Size And Return: A New Perspective, Fangjian Fu, Wei Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We document robust empirical evidence that, after controlling for idiosyncratic volatility, large stocks earn significantly higher returns than small stocks. Our empirical results indicate that idiosyncratic volatility is positively related to return, but negatively related to size. Hence, failure to control for idiosyncratic volatility generates a downward omitted variable bias and leads to the widely documented negative relation between size and return. We explain the two contrasting size-return relations, with and without the control for idiosyncratic volatility, in a parsimonious equilibrium model that incorporates three empirical regularities: some individual investors are under-diversified; small stocks have higher idiosyncratic volatilities than large …


Investor Heterogeneity, Investor-Management Agreement And Open Market Share Repurchase, Sheng Huang, Anjan V. Thakor Jun 2011

Investor Heterogeneity, Investor-Management Agreement And Open Market Share Repurchase, Sheng Huang, Anjan V. Thakor

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper develops and tests a new theoretical explanation for why a firm conducts open-market stock repurchases. Investors may disagree with the manager about the firm’s investment projects. A repurchase causes a change in the investor base as investors who are more likely to disagree with the manager tender their shares. This model leads to the following predictions: first, a firm is more likely to buy back shares when the level of investor-management agreement is low, and second, the level of agreement improves following a repurchase. Our empirical tests provide strong support for these predictions. The results are robust to …


Valuation Of Risky Projects And Other Illiquid Investments Using Portfolio Selection Models, Janne Gustafsson, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Ahti Salo Jun 2011

Valuation Of Risky Projects And Other Illiquid Investments Using Portfolio Selection Models, Janne Gustafsson, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Ahti Salo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop a portfolio selection framework for the valuation of projects and other illiquid investments for an investor who can invest in a portfolio of private, illiquid investment opportunities as well as in securities in financial markets, but who cannot necessarily replicate project cash flows using financial instruments. We demonstrate how project values can be solved using an inverse optimization procedure and prove several general analytical properties for project values. We also provide an illustrative example on the modeling and pricing of multiperiod projects that are characterized by managerial flexibility.


Leverage Change, Debt Overhang, And Stock Prices, Jie Cai, Zhe Zhang Jun 2011

Leverage Change, Debt Overhang, And Stock Prices, Jie Cai, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We document a significant and negative effect of the change in a firm's leverage ratio on its stock prices. We find that the negative effect is stronger for firms that have higher leverage ratios, higher likelihood of default, and face more severe financial constraints. Moreover, firms with an increase in leverage ratio tend to have less future investment. These findings are consistent with Myers' (1977) debt overhang theory that an increase in leverage may lead to future underinvestment, thus reducing a firm's value.


Adverse Selection And Corporate Governance, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Vasan Siraprapasiri Jun 2011

Adverse Selection And Corporate Governance, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Vasan Siraprapasiri

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance on the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread of stocks listed on the Singapore Exchange. These companies have been identified by Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CSLA) with the highest level of corporate governance among 25 emerging markets. We measure corporate governance by several criteria: discipline, transparency, independence, accountability, responsibilities, fairness, and social awareness. The results show that corporate governance has an inverse relationship with adverse selection. However, only the transparency dimension exhibits a significant inverse relationship with adverse selection. In addition, Government-Linked Companies (GLCs) are shown to have a smaller adverse …


Earnings Management Surrounding Seasoned Bond Offerings: Do Managers Mislead Ratings Agencies And The Bond Market, Gary L. Gaton, Chiraphol New Chiyachantana, Choong Tze Chua, Jeremy Goh Jun 2011

Earnings Management Surrounding Seasoned Bond Offerings: Do Managers Mislead Ratings Agencies And The Bond Market, Gary L. Gaton, Chiraphol New Chiyachantana, Choong Tze Chua, Jeremy Goh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study earnings management (EM) efforts surrounding seasoned bond offerings using discretionary current accruals. We find that issuers tend to inflate earnings performance prior to an offering. In order for EM efforts to effectively mislead ratings agencies and the bond market, they must lead to inflated bond ratings and decreased offering yields. Regression results indicate the opposite; aggressive EM efforts are associated with lower initial ratings and higher offering yields. We also find a statistically lower proportion of subsequent downgrades for firms with the most aggressive EM efforts, which is inconsistent with these firms’ inflated initial ratings. While some firms …


An Analysis Of Japanese Earnings Forecast Revisions With Application To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Gary L. Caton, Justin S. P. Chan, Jeremy C. Goh, Sheng Yung Yang Jun 2011

An Analysis Of Japanese Earnings Forecast Revisions With Application To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Gary L. Caton, Justin S. P. Chan, Jeremy C. Goh, Sheng Yung Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using the bootstrap method, we explore the characteristics of revisions in Japanese earnings forecast data. We find that forecast revisions exhibit a downward trend over time as the actual earnings announcement date approaches, and are serially correlated with three significant lags. Using these characteristics we develop a model to estimate abnormal forecast revisions, and illustrate the model's use with a sample of Japanese companies announcing seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). In contrast to results obtained by studies using American data, our findings indicate significant positive upward revisions when Japanese firms announce an SEO.


The Disparity Between Long-Term And Short-Term Forecasted Earnings Growth, Zhi Da, Mitchell Craig Warachka May 2011

The Disparity Between Long-Term And Short-Term Forecasted Earnings Growth, Zhi Da, Mitchell Craig Warachka

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We find the disparity between long-term and short-term analyst forecasted earnings growth is a robust predictor of future returns and long-term analyst forecast errors. After adjusting for industry characteristics, stocks whose long-term earnings growth forecasts are far above or far below their implied short-term forecasts for earnings growth have negative and positive subsequent risk-adjusted returns along with downward and upward revisions in long-term forecasted earnings growth, respectively. Additional results indicate that investor inattention toward firm-level changes in long-term earnings growth is responsible for these risk-adjusted returns.


How Important Are Earnings Announcements As An Information Source?, Sudipta Basu, Truong Xuan Duong, Stanimir Markov, Eng Joo Tan May 2011

How Important Are Earnings Announcements As An Information Source?, Sudipta Basu, Truong Xuan Duong, Stanimir Markov, Eng Joo Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a competitive information market, a single information source can only dominate other sources individually, not collectively. We explore whether earnings announcements constitute such a dominant source using Ball and Shivakumar's (2008) [How much new information is there in earnings?, Journal of Accounting Research, 2008, 46(5), pp. 975–1016] R 2 metric: the proportion of the variation in annual returns explained by the four quarterly earnings announcement returns. We find that the earnings announcement days' R 2 is 11% – higher than the corresponding R 2 of days with dividend announcements, management forecasts, preannouncements, and 10-K and 10-Q filings and …


The Liquidity Risk Of Liquid Hedge Funds, Melvyn Teo Apr 2011

The Liquidity Risk Of Liquid Hedge Funds, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper evaluates hedge funds that grant favorable redemption terms to investors. Within this group of purportedly liquid funds, high net inflow funds subsequently outperform low net inflow funds by 4.79% per year after adjusting for risk. The return impact of fund flows is stronger when funds embrace liquidity risk, when market liquidity is low, and when funding liquidity, as measured by the Treasury-Eurodollar spread, aggregate hedge fund flows, and prime broker stock returns, is tight. In keeping with an agency explanation, funds with strong incentives to raise capital, low manager option deltas, and no manager capital co-invested are more …


Hedge Funds, Managerial Skill, And Macroeconomic Variables, Doron Avramov, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo Mar 2011

Hedge Funds, Managerial Skill, And Macroeconomic Variables, Doron Avramov, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper evaluates hedge fund performance through portfolio strategies that incorporate predictability based on macroeconomic variables. Incorporating predictability substantially improves out-of-sample performance for the entire universe of hedge funds as well as for various investment styles. While we also allow for predictability in fund risk loadings and benchmark returns, the major source of investment profitability is predictability in managerial skills. In particular, long-only strategies that incorporate predictability in managerial skills outperform their Fung and Hsieh (2004) benchmarks by over 17% per year. The economic value of predictability obtains for different rebalancing horizons and alternative benchmark models. It is also robust …


Consolidating Information In Option Transactions, Richard Holowczak, Jianfeng Hu, Liuren Wu Mar 2011

Consolidating Information In Option Transactions, Richard Holowczak, Jianfeng Hu, Liuren Wu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Underlying each stock trades hundreds of options at different strike prices and maturities. The order flows from these option transactions reveal important information about the underlying stock price. How to aggregate the trade information of different option contracts underlying the same stock presents an interesting and important question for developing microstructure theories and price discovery mechanisms in the derivatives markets. This paper takes options on QQQQ, the Nasdaq 100 tracking stock, as an example and examines different order flow consolidation mechanisms in terms of their effectiveness in extracting information about the underlying stock price and volatility movements. The analysis leads …


Ipo Timing, Buyout Sponsors’ Exit Strategies And Firm Performance Of Rlbos, Jerry Xiaping Cao Mar 2011

Ipo Timing, Buyout Sponsors’ Exit Strategies And Firm Performance Of Rlbos, Jerry Xiaping Cao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies the impact of buyout sponsors’ IPO timing on the LBO restructuring process and subsequent exit strategies. I find that LBO duration is negatively related to hot IPO market conditions. Further, following IPOs, RLBOs with shorter LBO duration experience greater deterioration of performance and higher probability of bankruptcy. This suggests that sponsor’s efforts to enhance operating efficiency succumb to market timing. IPO timing does not affect sponsor’s exit strategies and monitoring post IPO. Sponsors keep an active long-run presence with more reputable sponsors more likely to exit by facilitating takeovers.


Out-Of-Sample Industry Return Predictability: Evidence From A Large Number Of Predictors, David E. Rapach, Jack K. Strauss, Jun Tu, Guofu Zhou Feb 2011

Out-Of-Sample Industry Return Predictability: Evidence From A Large Number Of Predictors, David E. Rapach, Jack K. Strauss, Jun Tu, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We uncover extensive evidence of out-of-sample return predictability for industry portfolios based on a principal component approach that incorporates information from a large number of predictors. Moreover, we find substantial differences in the degree of return predictability across industries. To understand these differences, we propose a decomposition of out-of-sample industry return predictability into beta and alpha shares, where the former corresponds to a conditional beta pricing model. A conditional version of the popular Fama-French three-factor model accounts for nearly all out-of-sample industry return predictability, with exposures to time-varying market and size risk premiums especially important for explaining differences in return …


When Are Analyst Recommendation Changes Influential?, Roger Loh, Rene M. Stulz Feb 2011

When Are Analyst Recommendation Changes Influential?, Roger Loh, Rene M. Stulz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The existing literature measures the contribution of analyst recommendation changes using average stock-price reactions. With such an approach, recommendation changes can have a significant impact even if no recommendation has a visible stock-price impact. Instead, we call a recommendation change influential only if it affects the stock price of the affected firm visibly. We show that only 12% of recommendation changes are influential. Recommendation changes are more likely to be influential if they are from leader, star, previously influential analysts, issued away from consensus, accompanied by earnings forecasts, and issued on growth, small, high institutional ownership, or high forecast dispersion …


Markowitz Meets Talmud: A Combination Of Sophisticated And Naive Diversification Strategies, Jun Tu, Guofu Zhou Jan 2011

Markowitz Meets Talmud: A Combination Of Sophisticated And Naive Diversification Strategies, Jun Tu, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The modern portfolio theory pioneered by Markowitz (1952) is widely used in practice and extensively taught to MBAs. However, the estimated Markowitz portfolio rule and most of its extensions not only underperform the naive 1/N rule (that invests equally across N assets) in simulations, but also lose money on a risk-adjusted basis in many real data sets. In this paper, we propose an optimal combination of the naive 1/N rule with one of the four sophisticated strategies—the Markowitz rule, the Jorion (1986) rule, the MacKinlay and Pástor (2000) rule, and the Kan and Zhou (2007) rule—as a way to improve …