Investor sentiment and the market reaction to dividend news: European evidence

Purpose: This paper examines the effect of investor sentiment on the market reaction to dividend change announcements. Design/methodology/approach: We use the European Economic Sentiment Indicator data, from Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), as a proxy for investor sentiment and focus on the market reaction to dividend change announcements, using panel data methodology. Findings: Using data from three European markets, our results indicate that the investor sentiment has some influence on the market reaction to dividend change announcements, for two of the three analysed markets. Globally, we find no evidence of investor sentiment influencing the market reaction to dividend change announcements for the Portuguese market. However, we find evidence that the positive share price reaction to dividend increases enlarges with sentiment, in the case of the UK markets, whereas the negative share price reaction to dividend decreases reduces with sentiment, in the French market. Research limitations/implications: We have no access to dividend forecasts, so, our findings are based on naïve dividend changes and not unexpected change dividends. Originality/value: This paper offers some insights on the effect of investor sentiment on the market reaction to firms’ news, a strand of finance that is scarcely developed and contributes to the analysis of European markets that are in need of research. As the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the effect of investor sentiment on the market reaction to dividend news, in the context of European markets

Does the market reaction to dividend news is influenced by investor sentiment?

We analyse whether the investor sentiment affects the market reaction to dividend change announcements. We use the European Economic Sentiment Indicator data, from Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), as a proxy for investor sentiment and focus on the market reaction to dividend change announcements. Our results indicate that the investor sentiment have some influence on the market reaction to dividend change announcements, for two of the three analysed markets. Globally, we find no evidence of investor sentiment influencing the market reaction to dividend change announcements for the Portuguese market. However, we find evidence that the positive share price reaction to dividend increases enlarges with sentiment, in the case of the UK markets, whereas the negative share price reaction to dividend decreases reduces with sentiment, in the French market

Are dividends disappearing? mixed evidence from Europe

Recent empirical studies reported the phenomenon of low propensity of firms to dividend payment, concluding that companies have become less likely to pay dividends. In addition, most of these studies claim that investors’ expectations regarding dividend payments also decreased. We analyse the propensity to pay dividends in three European markets: Portugal, France and the UK. Although they are all European markets, they differ from each other for several reasons. Firstly, the UK is one of the largest European capital markets, whereas the French and Portuguese markets are smaller, especially Portugal. Additionally, these latter two markets are less intensively researched. Secondly, these countries differ in terms of ownership concentration. In Portugal and France ownership tends to be more concentrated than in the UK. Thirdly, Portugal and France are bank-based financing systems, whereas the UK is a market-based system. Finally, the legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders are different in the three countries. We find evidence of the decline of firms paying dividends in Portugal and in the UK, but not in France. Moreover, we find some evidence that firms that pay dividends tend to be the ones of larger size and higher profitability, but we find no evidence of a significant relation between a firm’s growth and dividend payments

What do we know about financial literacy? A literature review

This article provides a literature review about the dilemma of financial literacy. The individuals and families’ financial decision process is getting more vital in recent years. Given the increasingly risky and globalized markets, the actual context of global financial crisis and the continuous increasing in the complexity of financial products and services, individuals must be able to make well-informed and correct decisions. Consequently, higher levels of financial knowledge contribute to more extensive economic growth and development. However, it has been shown that, in global terms, the financial literacy present low values, which suggest the need of financial educational programs in the schools curricula. There is also evidence of a positive relationship between financial literacy and investment decisions, as well as retirement programs. Studies conducted to date suggest that there are socioeconomic conditions that influence the financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, such as age, gender, work experience, income and education level

Corporate dividend policies: survey evidence from finance directors in the UK and Portugal

This paper reports the empirical results of a questionnaire survey about corporate dividend policy addressed to finance directors of UK and Portuguese listed firms. Similar to other studies (for example, Brav et al., 2005 in the US and Dhanani, 2005 in the UK), we survey 313 finance f«directors in the UK and 48 in Portugal to examine their views of and understanding about the dividend decision in order to compare practice with theoretical propositions to be found in the literature. Our survey results demonstrate similarities in the responses from the UK and Portugal, but also substantive differences, particularly in respect of the interaction between dividend and investment decisions and views about the signalling consequences of dividends

Signalling with dividends? new evidence from Europe

According to the dividend signalling hypothesis, dividend change announcements trigger share returns because they convey information about management’s assessment on firms’ future prospects. We analyse the classical assumptions of the dividend signalling hypothesis, using data from three European countries. The evidence gives no support to a positive relation between dividend change announcements and the market reaction for French firms, and only weak support for the Portuguese and UK firms. After accounting for non-linearity in the mean reversion process, the global results do not give support to the assumption that dividend change announcements are positively related with future earnings changes. We also formulate two hypotheses in order to explore the window dressing phenomenon and the maturity hypothesis, finding some evidence in favour of both, especially in the UK market

A estrutura de capital das PME: evidência no mercado Português

A estrutura de capital das empresas tem constituído, nas últimas décadas, um dos temas de maior interesse na área financeira. Fruto deste interesse surgem, desde o artigo publicado por Modiglianni e Miller (1958), vários estudos e várias teorias aplicadas a este domínio, inicialmente generalizadas às empresas de grande dimensão, e entretanto também aplicadas ao universo das PME. O presente trabalho tem como objectivo investigar a estrutura de capital das PME portuguesas, além de verificar se as práticas empresariais permitem validar os argumentos propostos pelas teorias financeiras explicativas da estrutura de capital. Baseados numa amostra de dados painel balanceada, para o período compreendido entre 2000 e 2005, os nossos resultados indicam que a teoria que melhor explica o comportamento das PME no que diz respeito à sua estrutura de capital, é a Teoria da Pecking Order, que nos indica que as empresas preferem financiar-se, em primeiro lugar, com autofinanciamento, e só depois recorrem a financiamento externo, através de capital alheio. Em última instância, será equacionada a questão dos aumentos de capital

Lower propensity to pay dividends? new evidence from Europe

Recently, some empirical studies reported the phenomenon of the low propensity of firms to dividend payment, concluding that companies have become less likely to pay dividends. In addition, the major parts of these studies sustain the investors’ expectations regarding dividend payments also decreased. We analyse the propensity to pay dividends in three European markets: Portugal, France and the UK. Although they are all European markets, they are different from each other for several reasons. Firstly, the UK is one of the most important European capital markets, whereas the French and Portuguese markets are smaller, specially Portugal, that is a very small market compared to other Western European markets. Additionally, these two markets are less intensively researched. Secondly, we have differences in these countries associated with the ownership of equity. In Portugal and France ownership tends to be more concentrated than in the UK. Thirdly, Portugal and France are bank-based system, whereas the UK is a market-based system. Finally, the legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders is different in the three countries. While the UK is a country of Anglo-Saxon influence, the other two countries are characterised by a continental influence. We find evidence of the decline of firms paying dividends, except for the French market. Moreover, we find evidence suggesting that the Portuguese market does not have such a smoothing dividend policy like the US or the UK markets, but it has a more volatile dividend policy, such as the case of the German market

The effect of firm-specific factors on the market reaction to dividend change announcements: new evidence from Europe

The dividend policy is one of the most debated topics in the finance literature. According to the dividend signalling hypothesis, which has motivated a significant amount of theoretical and empirical research, dividend change announcements trigger share returns because they convey information about management’s assessment on firms’ future prospects. Consequently, a dividend increase (decrease) should be followed by an improvement (reduction) in a firm’s value. However, some studies have not supported the hypothesis of a positive relationship between dividend change announcements, and the subsequent share price reaction, such as the ones of Lang and Litzenberger (1989), Benartzi, Michaely and Thaler (1997), Chen, Firth and Gao (2002), Abeyratna and Power (2002) and Vieira (2005). Furthermore, some authors found evidence of a significant percentage of cases where share prices reactions are opposite to the dividend changes direction, like the works of Asquith and Mullins (1983), Benesh, Keown and Pinkerton (1984), Born, Mozer and Officer (1988), Dhillon and Johnson (1994) Healy, Hathorn and Kirch (1997), and, more recently, Vieira (2005). Consequently, we try to identify firm-specific factors that contribute in explaining the adverse market reaction to dividend change announcements. Globally, our evidence suggests that only for the UK sample we have firm-specific factors influencing the market reaction to dividend change announcements. We conclude that the UK firms with a negative market reaction to dividend increase announcements have, on average, higher size, lower earnings growth rate and lower debt to equity ratios

The phenomenon of the adverse market reaction to dividend change announcements: new Eeidence from Europe

The dividend policy is one of the most debated topics in the finance literature. According to the dividend signalling hypothesis, which has motivated a significant amount of theoretical and empirical research, dividend change announcements trigger share returns because they convey information about management’s assessment on firms’ future prospects. Consequently, a dividend increase (decrease) should be followed by an improvement (reduction) in a firm’s value. Although there are empirical evidence supporting the positive relationship between dividend change announcements and the subsequent share price reactions, some studies have not supported this idea. Furthermore, several studies found evidence of a significant percentage of cases where share prices reactions are opposite to the dividend changes direction, like the works of Asquith and Mullins (1983), Benesh, Keown and Pinkerton (1984), Born, Mozer and Officer (1988), Dhillon and Johnson (1994) Healy, Hathorn and Kirch (1997), and, more recently, Vieira (2005). We introduce a new approach to investigate the relationship between the market reaction to dividend changes and future earnings changes with the purpose of understanding why the market sometimes reacts negatively (positively) to dividend increases (decreases). We find only weak evidence for the dividend information content hypothesis. The Portuguese results suggest that the adverse market reaction to dividendchange announcements is basically due to the fact that the market does not understand the signal given by firms though dividend change announcements. Moreover, we find no evidence of the inverse signalling effect, except for the UK market. The results suggest that the UK market investors have more capability to predict future earnings than the investors of the Portuguese and the French markets