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Do managers time the market ? Evidence from open-market share repurchases. Konan Chan, Univ. of Hong Kong and National Taiwan Univ. David Ikenberry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Inmoo Lee, National University of Singapore.
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Do managers time the market ?Evidence from open-market share repurchases Konan Chan, Univ. of Hong Kong and National Taiwan Univ. David Ikenberry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Inmoo Lee, National University of Singapore 2006 NTU International Conference on Finance , December 2006
Motivation • Managers seem to have timing ability in making corproate decisions • IPOs: Ritter (1991) • SEOs: Loughran and Ritter (1995) • (Stock) Mergers: Loughran and Vijh (1997) • Repurchases: Ikenberry, Lakonishok, Vermaelen (1995) • Spin-offs: Cusatis, Miles and Woolridge (1993) • Splits: Ikenberry and Ramanth (2002) • Equity share in new issues: Baker and Wurgler (2002) Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Motivation (continued) • Two major concerns • Biased methodology • Bad model problem: Fama (1998), Eckbo et al (2000) • Wrong method: Brav et al (2000), Mitchell and Stafford (2000) • Time dependence: Gompers and Lerner (2003) • Statistical test: Brav (2000) • Pseudo market timing: Schultz (2003) • Managers do not have timing ability and they make corporate decisions solely based on past market performance • This will mechanically create the pseudo performance following managerial decisions Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Pseudo market timing (Schultz (2003)) • Assume no abnormal return in each period • Issue when prices are high • Abnormal return occurs only when in event-time, but not in calendar-time • Poor-performed firms get more weight in event-time Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Pseudo market timing • Key implications of PMT • Strong relationship between corporate events and past market performance • The abnormal returns, if there is any, exist only when the event-time approach is used • Debate • Support (Butler et al (2005)): return predictability of equity share in new issues is due to PMT • Against (Baker et al (2006)): PMT explains only a small portion of equity offering decisions Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Goal of this paper • Examine whether pseudo market timing can explain the share repurchases decision • Check if key implications of pseudo market timing hold • How much abnormal return can be explained by pseudo market timing? • Examine if the performance is affected actual buyback, an indicator of managerial perception of undervaluation Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Why repurchases? • Out-of-sample test: past studies of pseudo market timing focus on IPOs • Examine the major motive to buy back: mispricing Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Data • Open-market repurchases (Chan et al (2004)) • 1980-1996: 5,508 obs • Sample selection • Size • BM • Share price >= $3 prior to announcements • Actual repurchase • Quarterly cash flow statement Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Buy-and-hold abnormal returns • Matching firms: control size, BM, stock exchange • Poor performance prior to announcements • Strong outperformance following buyback programs Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Relationship between number of repurchases and past market performance • Except the months in the highest past return quintile, there is no strong relationship between the number of repurchases and past market performance • One would expect to observe many obs when past return is low Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Calendar-time abnormal return • Carhart (1997) four-factor model regressions • Portfolios include firms announcing buybacks in past 4 years • OLS assigns equal weight to each calendar month • WLS uses # of obs as weight, and converts back to event-time Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
BHARs condition on actual buybacks • Actual repurchase • Non-buy: no buyback at all • Buy-less: buy back <= 4% of shares outstanding • Buy-more: buy back > 4% of shares outstanding Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
BHARs condition on actual buybacks Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
CAR using RATS based on Carhart model Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Conclusion • Evaluate the key implications of PMT • Open-market repurchase decisions do not strongly depend on past market performance • Strong abnormal returns are still observed when the calendar-time approach is used • Evaluate the performance condition on actual buyback activity • There is a strong relationship between actual buyback and future performance • The relationship is particularly strong in value firms Chan, Ikenberry, Lee
Conclusion (continued) • Pseudo market timing can explain only a small portion of return drifts following repurchases • The share repurchase decisions do not seem to be explained by pseudo market timing, but indicate the managerial timing ability Chan, Ikenberry, Lee