Previous empirical financial studies have paid little attention to the role of diversification strategy on financial choices. This study analyses the financing strategies of multibusiness firms, suggesting the relevance of sorting the diversification phenomena into its related and unrelated components. The implications of our findings are important because they explain earlier contradictory results on capital-structure determinants and offer an explanation of how the degree of product specialization/diversification and the direction of diversification (related or unrelated) translate into different corporate financial behaviours. Copyright (c) The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 AFAANZ.
This study is the first to empirically examine stock market manipulation on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The dataset contains 40 cases of market manipulation from 1996 to 2009 that were successfully prosecuted by the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission. Manipulation is found to negatively impact market efficiency measures such as the bid-ask spread and volatility. Markets appear incapable of efficiently responding to the presence of manipulators and are characterised by information asymmetry. Manipulators were successfully able to raise prices and exit the market. This finding contradicts views that trade-based manipulation is entirely unprofitable and self-deterring. The victimisation of information-seeking investors and the market as a whole provides a strong rationale for all jurisdictions, including Australia, to have effective laws that prohibit manipulation and for robust enforcement of those laws to further deter market manipulation.
This article examines the effect of increased corporate information disclosure on stock liquidity. Using the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Italy as a natural experiment we extend previous work examining the effect on one measure of liquidity-bid-ask spreads-to others, specifically depth and the price impact of transactions (or effective bid-ask spreads). Consistent with previous research we find that bid-ask spreads of stocks decline following the introduction of IFRS, which implies that stock liquidity increases for small traders. However, we also provide evidence that depth at the best quotes declines, which challenges the proposition that liquidity increases for large trades following an increase in disclosure. In additional tests, we find that effective bid-ask spreads of block trades also decline following the introduction of IFRS. Overall, this evidence confirms that stock liquidity for both small and large trades increases following an increase in corporate information disclosure.
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