The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?
Published: 03/01/1996 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb05205.x
KENT L. WOMACK
An analysis of new buy and sell recommendations of stocks by security analysts at major U.S. brokerage firms shows significant, systematic discrepancies between prerecommendation prices and eventual values. The initial return at the time of the recommendations is large, even though few recommendations coincide with new public news or provide previously unavailable facts. However, these initial price reactions are incomplete. For buy recommendations, the mean postevent drift is modest (+2.4%) and short‐lived, but for sell recommendations, the drift is larger (−9.1%) and extends for six months. Analysts appear to have market timing and stock picking abilities.
The Persistence of IPO Mispricing and the Predictive Power of Flipping
Published: 12/17/2002 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00135
Laurie Krigman, Wayne H. Shaw, Kent L. Womack
This paper examines underwriters' pricing errors and the information content of first‐day trading activity in IPOs. We show that first‐day winners continue to be winners over the first year, and first‐day dogs continue to be relative dogs. Exceptions are “extra‐hot” IPOs, which provide the worst future performance. We also demonstrate that large, supposedly informed, traders “flip” IPOs that perform the worst in the future. IPOs with low flipping generate abnormal returns of 1.5 percentage points per month over the first six months beginning on the third day. We show that flipping is predictable and conclude that underwriters' pricing errors are intentional.
Caveat Compounder: A Warning about Using the Daily CRSP Equal‐Weighted Index to Compute Long‐Run Excess Returns
Published: 12/17/2002 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.165353
Linda Canina, Roni Michaely, Richard Thaler, Kent Womack
This paper issues a warning that compounding daily returns of the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) equal‐weighted index can lead to surprisingly large biases. The differences between the monthly returns compounded from the daily tapes and the monthly CRSP equal‐weighted indices is almost 0.43 percent per month, or 6 percent per year. This difference amounts to one‐third of the average monthly return, and is large enough to reverse the conclusions of a paper using the daily tape to compute the return on the benchmark portfolio. We also investigate the sources of these biases and suggest several alternative strategies to avoid them.
Price Reactions to Dividend Initiations and Omissions: Overreaction or Drift?
Published: 06/01/1995 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1995.tb04796.x
RONI MICHAELY, RICHARD H. THALER, KENT L. WOMACK
This article investigates market reactions to initiations and omissions of cash dividend payments. Consistent with prior literature we find that the magnitude of short‐run price reactions to omissions are greater than for initiations. In the year following the announcements, prices continue to drift in the same direction, though the drift following omissions is stronger and more robust. This post‐dividend initiation/omission price drift is distinct from and more pronounced than that following earnings surprises. A trading rule employing both samples earns positive returns in 22 out of 25 years. We find little evidence for clientele shifts in either sample.