Effect of Internet Financial Reporting on Stock Prices and Dividend Yield of Quoted Non-Financial Companies in Nigeria

The study examined the effect of internet financial reporting (IFR) on stock prices and dividend yield of quoted non-financial companies in Nigeria. The population of the study consisted fifty (50) non-financial companies listed in Nigerian Stock Exchange. Simple Random Sampling Techniques was adopted to choose a sample size of five companies used in the study. The study covers the period from 1995 to 2014. Secondary data was adopted for this study and it was extracted from the annual reports of the sampled companies. Data was analysed using Ordinary Least Square (OLS). Results revealed that Internet Financial Reporting has significant influence on stock prices (p<0.0005) and dividend yield (p<0.0005). This study concluded that internet reporting gives companies opportunity to assess investors and prospective investors who are widely dispersed across the globe and whose decision making in respect of investment in shares will affect the companies. The study also recommended that official regulation should be put in place and enforced to check fraudulent information disclosure that would deceive prospective investors; and punitive actions should also be taken against any erring company in order to protect investors’ decision. Keywords: Internet Financial Reporting, Financial Companies, Non-Financial Companies, Internet,  Information, Investor

Understanding the evolution and spread of chikungunya virus in the Americas using complete genome sequences

Local transmission of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) was first detected in the Americas in December 2013, after which it spread rapidly throughout the Caribbean islands and American mainland, causing a major chikungunya fever epidemic. Previous phylogenetic analysis of CHIKV from a limited number of countries in the Americas suggests that an Asian genotype strain was responsible, except in Brazil where both Asian and East/Central/South African (ECSA) lineage strains were detected. In this study, we sequenced thirty-three complete CHIKV genomes from viruses isolated in 2014 from fourteen Caribbean islands, the Bahamas and two mainland countries in the Americas. Phylogenetic analyses confirmed that they all belonged to the Asian genotype and clustered together with other Caribbean and mainland sequences isolated during the American outbreak, forming an 'Asian/American' lineage defined by two amino acid substitutions, E2 V368A and 6K L20M, and divided into two well-supported clades. This lineage is estimated to be evolving at a mean rate of 5 x 10-4 substitutions per site per year (95% higher probability density, 2.9-7.9 x 10-4) and to have arisen from an ancestor introduced to the Caribbean (most likely from Oceania) in about March 2013, 9 months prior to the first report of CHIKV in the Americas. Estimation of evolutionary rates for individual gene regions and selection analyses indicate that (in contrast to the Indian Ocean Lineage that emerged from the ECSA genotype followed by adaptive evolution and with a significantly higher substitution rate) the evolutionary dynamics of the Asian/American lineage are very similar to the rest of the Asian genotype and natural selection does not appear to have played a major role in its emergence. However, several codon sites with evidence of positive selection were identified within the non-structural regions of Asian genotype sequences outside of the Asian/American lineage