Individual Analysts Earnings Forecasts: Evidence For Overreaction In The UK Stock Market

This paper presents an analysis of two forms of overreaction (generalized overreaction and overreaction to prior earnings changes) in analysts earnings forecasts for the UK stock market, using a sample of individual forecasts of earning per share from a British investment bank over the period 1989-2002. Given that previous UK empirical research over 1980s and mid 90s has provided limited and contradictory findings, we investigate whether and how overreaction of analysts forecasts varies across forecast horizons, firm size (small and large) and growth opportunities (high and low P/E ratio) in order to provide further and comparable evidence. Overall, our findings support the generalized overreaction hypothesis but reject the firm size effect, the overreaction for high P/E ratio companies and the higher overreaction regarding the forecasting horizon. Keywords: Overreaction, Underreaction, Analysts forecasts, forecast horizons, size effect, price/earnings ratio

Impact of mergers and acquisitions on stock returns of tramp shipping firms

This paper examines a new issue in the tramp shipping industry – mergers and acquisitions – which has drawn firms into a competition on size, market share and total tonnage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the behaviour of tramp shipping firms' stock returns, when they announce mergers and acquisitions, and how this is portrayed on their stock values. The methodology used is event study analysis and bootstrap. Our sample is constituted by member firms of NASDAQ and NYSE. The empirical results indicate the positive impact that announcements of mergers and acquisitions cause in tramp firms' stock returns. The impact of mergers and acquisitions is highly important and plays a key role for firms to follow new challenges in the shipping industry and create higher financial value.bootstrap methodology; consolidation; corporate restructuring; event study analysis; mergers; acquisitions; NASDAQ; NYSE; tramp shipping firms; stock returns.

The Small Business Capital Market Behavior in Athens Stock Exchange

Financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially business investments and growth, is a composite and particular complicated affair in the Greek entrepreneurial reality. This paper examines the significance of secondary capital markets, as an alternative source of financing small-medium enterprises’ new entrepreneurial plans. Cointegration technique is applied to test the relationship between the secondary capital market and the dominant sectors in Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Causality tests are also used to provide evidence on the existence of interdependence between the cointegrated series. The results indicate that there is significant uni-directional causality between primary and secondary capital market in Greece, enhancing us to suggest valuable policy implications. Copyright Springer 2006causality, cointegration, entrepreneurship, small busisness capital markets, C12, G15,