Earnings Quality and Stock Returns

An exclusive focus on bottom-line income misses important information about the quality of earnings. Accruals (the difference between accounting earnings and cash flow) are reliably, negatively associated with future stock returns. Earnings increases that are accompanied by high accruals, suggesting low-quality earnings, are associated with poor future returns. We explore various hypotheses -- earnings manipulation, extrapolative biases about future growth, and under-reaction to business conditions -- to explain accruals' predictive power. Distinctions between the hypotheses are based on evidence from operating performance, the behavior of individual accrual items, and discretionary versus nondiscretionary components of accruals.

Shares Pledged and Corporate Repurchase

[[abstract]]We examine how personal shares pledged by controlling shareholders affect corporate share repurchase decisions. Shares pledged create a margin call pressure for controlling shareholders who might use repurchase to protect their control rights. Using Taiwan's data, we find evidence that high pledge companies are more likely to repurchase, especially after a significant drop in share prices. Investors perceive this incentive and the announcement effect is negatively related to shares pledged. We also provide evidence that companies suffer less such problem if there are large outside blockholders.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20131016~20131019[[booktype]]電子版[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Chicago, U.S.

Combination Strategies for Targeted Delivery of Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

Pharmaceuticals, and more recently biopharmaceuticals, have become the mainstay for antineoplastic treatments in combination with surgical interventions and radiation therapy. In recent years, advances have been made in the development of nano-technological interventions for the treatment of cancer alone or in combination with existing therapeutic modalities. Nanotechnology used for therapeutic drug delivery and sensitization of photodynamic, sonodynamic and radiotherapy are now being tested in preclinical and clinical trials for the treatment of cancer. This article will review the current state of the art for nanotechnology therapies with an emphasis on targeted drug delivery and the observed and likely benefits when used in combination with existing therapeutic approaches

Earnings Quality and Stock Returns

An exclusive focus on bottom-line income misses important information about the quality of earnings. Ac-cruals (the difference between accounting earnings and cash flow) are reliably, negatively associated with future stock returns. Earnings increases that are accompanied by high accruals, suggesting low-quality earnings, are associated with poor future returns. We explore various hypotheses — earnings manipulation, extrapolative biases about future growth, and under-reaction to changes in business conditions —to explain accruals’ predictive power. Distinctions between the hypotheses are based on evidence from operating per-formance, the behavior of individual accrual items, discretionary versus nondiscretionary components of accruals, and special items. We check for robustness using within-industry comparisons, and data on U.K. stocks

Share Pledges and Margin Call Pressure

[[abstract]]It is common practice worldwide for corporate insiders to put up stock as collateral for personal loans. We highlight a potential problem in such pledging. When controlling shareholders face a margin call threat if stock prices fall below the required level for a loan, they have an incentive to use corporate resources for their private benefits. We develop and test a margin call hypothesis that controlling shareholders may initiate share repurchases to fend off potential margin calls associated with pledged stocks in order to maintain their control rights. Investors seem to recognize such opportunistic behavior and discount the potential benefits of repurchase programs. However, share pledges are not reliably related to repurchases when control rights are not a concern. We further show that regulatory restrictions of control rights on pledging greatly reduce the likelihood of firms to repurchase. Overall, our results shed light on the impact of share pledges on corporate decisions.[[notice]]補正完