Interest Rates, Money Supply Announcements, and Monetary Base Announcements

This paper presents a new set of empirical regularities on the link between interest rates, money supply announcements and monetary base announcements. Among the main findings reported are: (i) unexpected increases in the announced monetary base have a significantly positive effect on interest rates during the period from October 1979 to October 1982; (ii) although unexpected money supply and monetary base announcements have the same impact on interest rates, they have different implications for the future behavior of the money supply and monetary base; (iii) the significant response of longer-term interest rates to unexpected monetary announcements is reflecting a response of current and expected future short-term rates -- i.e.term-structure premia are not altered by these announcements.

Company investment announcements and the market value of the firm

This paper examines the stock market reaction to 402 company investment announcements made by UK companies during the 1991-1996 period. The market-adjusted abnormal returns are generally positive but small. Investment announcements are classified according to functional categories, and we find the level of abnormal returns to vary according to the type of capital investment being announced. In particular, we find the market to react more favourably to investments that 'create' future investment opportunities, than to investments which can be categorized as 'exercising' investment opportunities. The market reaction also varies with firm size, with large companies tending to experience smaller responses to announcements than do smaller firms. Chung et al. (1998) reported that the quality of a company's investment opportunities is the primary determinant of market reactions to capital expenditure decisions. The findings presented here lend some support to a role for investment opportunities in market valuations. Project size is also found to have a significant positive impact on the level of abnormal returns

Rescuing Banks from the Effects of the Financial Crisis

This paper examines government policies aimed at rescuing banks from the effects of the great financial crisis of 2007-2009. To delimit the scope of the analysis, we concentrate on the fiscal side of interventions and ignore, by design, the monetary policy reaction to the crisis. The policy response to the subprime crisis started in earnest after Lehman’s failure in mid September 2008, accelerated after February 2009, and has become very large by September 2009. Governments have relied on a portfolio of intervention tools, but the biggest commitments and outlays have been in the form of debt and asset guarantees, while purchases of bad assets have been very limited. We employ event study methodology to estimate the benefits of government interventions on banks and their shareholders. Announcements directed at the banking system as a whole (general) and at specific banks (specific) were priced by the markets as cumulative abnormal rates of return over the selected window periods. General announcements tend to be associated with positive cumulative abnormal returns and specific announcements with negative ones. General announcements exert cross-area spillovers but are perceived by the home-country banks as subsidies boosting the competitive advantage of foreign banks. Specific announcements exert spillovers on other banks. Our results are also sensitive to the information environment. Specific announcements tend to exert a positive impact on rates of return in the pre-crisis sub-period, when announcements are few and markets have relative confidence in the "normal" information flow. The opposite takes place in the turbulent crisis sub-period when announcements are the order of the day and markets mistrust the "normal" information flow. These results appear consistent with the observed reluctance of individual institutions to come forth with requests for public assistance.announcements, financial crisis, rescue plans, undercapitalization

Banks’ Great Bailout of 2008-2009

This paper examines government policies aimed at rescuing banks from the effects of the financial crisis of 2007-2009. To delimit the scope of the analysis, we concentrate on the fiscal side of interventions and ignore, by design, the monetary policy reaction to the crisis. The policy response to the subprime crisis started in earnest after Lehman’s failure in mid September 2008, accelerated after February 2009, and has become very large by September 2009. Governments have relied on a portfolio of intervention tools, but the biggest commitments and outlays have been in the form of debt and asset guarantees, while purchases of bad assets have been very limited. We employ event study methodology to estimate the benefits of government interventions on banks and their shareholders. Announcements directed at the banking system as a whole (general) and at specific banks (specific) were priced by the markets as cumulative abnormal rates of return over the selected window periods. General announcements tend to be associated with positive cumulative abnormal returns and specific announcements with negative ones. Our results are also sensitive to the information environment. Specific announcements tend to exert a positive impact on rates of return in the pre-crisis sub-period, when announcements are few and markets have relative confidence in the “normal” information flow. The opposite takes place in the turbulent crisis sub-period when announcements are frequent and markets mistrust the “normal” information flow. These results appear consistent with the observed reluctance of individual institutions to come forth with requests for public assistance.announcements, financial crisis, rescue plans, undercapitalization

The Impact of New Product Announcements on Quick Service Restaurant Companies’ Stock Returns

This study seeks to answer two main questions: 1) Do product announcements impact quick service restaurant stock returns? 2) Do economic conditions impact the degree which product announcements impact quick service restaurant stock returns? 159 total product announcements were collected for 6 quick service companies: McDonald’s Corp., YUM! Brands Inc., The Wendy’s Co., AFC Enterprises Inc., Jack in the Box Inc., and Sonic Corp. 84 of these announcements were from 2005-2007 (Labeled “Pre-Recession”), and 75 were from 2009-2011 (Labeled “Post-Recession”). Using historical stock price data, an analysis of the overall trends of the mean-adjusted excess returns was conducted to determine whether or not product announcements impact the stock returns. Further analysis was conducted to determine whether the “Pre-Recession” results had different results from the “Post-Recession” results, demonstrating a difference between two different economic periods. The results showed that on average, the day following the product announcement had negative excess returns. In addition, there was a noticeable difference between “Pre-Recession” and “Post-Recession” post-announcement returns behavior. “Pre-Recession” results, on average, had positive excess returns in the 10 days following the product announcement, while “Post-Recession” results had negative excess returns in the 10 days following the product announcement

The Banking Bailout of the Subprime Crisis: Big Commitments and Small Effects?

This paper examines government policies aimed at rescuing banks from the effects of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Governments responded to the crisis by guaranteeing bank assets and liabilities and by injecting fresh capital into troubled institutions. We employ event study methodology to estimate the benefits of government interventions on banks. Announcements directed at the banking system as a whole were associated with positive cumulative abnormal returns whereas announcements directed at specific banks with negative ones. The effects of foreign general announcements spilled over across different areas and were perceived by home-country banks as subsidies boosting the competitive advantage of foreign banks. Specific announcements produced effects that were consistent with other banks being crowded out for government resources. Multiple specific announcements exacerbated the extent of banks’ moral hazard. Results were sensitive to the information environment. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that individual institutions were reluctant to seek public assistance.announcement, bank, event study, financial crisis, rescue plan

Realized Bond-Stock Correlation: Macroeconomic Announcement Effects

We investigate the effects of macroeconomic announcements on the realized correlation between bond and stock returns. Our results deliver insights into the dominating drivers of bond-stock comovements. We find that it is not so much the surprise component of the announcement, but the mere fact that an announcement occurs that influences the realized bond-stock correlation. The impact of macroeconomic announcements varies across the business cycle. Announcement effects are highly dependent on the sign of the realized bond-stock correlation which has recently gone from positive to negative. Macroeconomic announcement effects on realized bond and stock volatilities are also investigatedBond-stock correlation; Macroeconomic announcements; Realized correlation; Realized volatility

Do markets love misery? : Stock prices and corporate philanthropic disaster response

While companies have emerged as very proactive donors in the wake of recent major disasters like Hurricane Katrina, it remains unclear whether that corporate generosity generates benefits to firms themselves. The literature on strategic philanthropy suggests that such philanthropic behavior may be valuable because it can generate direct and indirect benefits to the firm, yet it is not known whether investors interpret donations in this way. We develop hypotheses linking the strategic character of donations to positive abnormal returns. Using event study methodology, we investigate stock market reactions to corporate donation announcements by 108 US firms made in response to Hurricane Katrina. We then use regression analysis to examine if our hypothesized predictors are associated with positive abnormal returns. Our results show that overall, corporate donations were linked to neither positive nor negative abnormal returns. We do, however, see that a number of factors moderate the relationship between donation announcements and abnormal stock returns. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Realized Bond-Stock Correlation: Macroeconomic Announcement Effects

We investigate the effects of macroeconomic announcements on the realized correlation between bond and stock returns. Our results deliver insights into the dominating drivers of bond-stock comovements. We find that it is not so much the surprise component of the announcement, but the mere fact that an announcement occurs that influences the realized bond-stock correlation. The impact of macroeconomic announcements varies across the business cycle. Announcement effects are highly dependent on the sign of the realized bond-stock correlation which has recently gone from positive to negative. Macroeconomic announcement effects on realized bond and stock volatilities are also investigated.Bond-stock correlation, Macroeconomic announcements, Realized correlation, Realized volatility