DOI: 10.5817/FAI2013-3-1 No. 3/2013
7
On the Differential Market Reaction to Dividend
Announcement: Evidence from an Emerging Equity
Market
Usman Bashir, Dr. Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah, Muntazir Hussain
Faculty of Management Sciences
International Islamic University Sector H-10, Islamabad, Pakistan
Email: bbashir.usman@gmail.com
Abstract: The corporate finance literature for market reaction to
dividend announcements reports mixed results: some of studies support
a positive response of markets as a result of dividend announcement
whereas some report negative. This study is an attempt to investigate
the heterogeneous market reaction to dividend announcement for 73
firms listed in the Karachi Stock Exchange. We investigated this
phenomenon with a novel methodology using both the event study and
multivariate regression for the possible effects of firm-specific factors
associated with dividend announcements. We report that the market
reaction is one-sided as the majority of companies in the sample are with
positive CAR for the given period. We cannot ignore the importance of
firm-specific factors that have an effect on the dividends but we conclude
that the majority of companies in the sample period portray a positive
CAR and the market reaction is positive.
Key Words: Dividend Announcement, Cumulative Abnormal Returns,
Firm-specific Factors, Market Reaction
JEL Classification: G12, G14, G32
1 Introduction
Investors are always interested in optimizing their earnings and
continuous search of optimal investments on the basis of technical and
signalled information. Healthy dividends depict the profitability of the
company and good investments made by the management. The
relationship of dividend and stock prices has been under debate of most
researchers. Dividend announcement conveys the information about the
future earnings of the company, i.e. it conveys a signal to the investors of
how the firm will perform in the future. One of the common assumptions
is that market is not efficient, whereas the dividend information content
sends a signal to investors. The finance literature has proved that the
Financial Assets and Investing
8
stock prices of a company change after the announcement of dividends
(Bhattacharya, 1979, 1980; John & William, 1985; Miller & Rock, 1985).
Managers intentionally or unintentionally send a message to external
investors about the pattern of firm’s future earnings and value by
announcement of cash dividends (Miller & Modigliani, 1961). Most of
researchers have focused on the influence of earning information on
stock dividends by applying the event study to capture the possible
effect. Jin (2000) suggested that there may be other firm-specific factors
affecting the stock prices other than dividend announcements.
The concept which explains the relationship of stock price and information
content of dividend is given by the dividend signalling theory proposed by
Miller and Rock (1985), free cash flow theory (Bhattacharya,1979,1980;
John & William,1985; Miller & Rock, 1985), free cash flow hypothesis
given by Jensen (1986) and Agency Cost theory forwarded by
Easterbrook (1984). The discussion in these theories mainly states that
changes in firms dividend policy significantly affects the share prices of
the respective firm. The dividend announcement, which might be a result
from any of the three theories, acts as a transmitting channel which
signals the future earnings of the firm to investors. Higher dividend
figures represent the strength of the company in the context of producing
higher earnings in future and vice versa. Indirectly, when a firm
announces higher dividends, the stock prices of the company will also
increase - this statement has been substantiated by the mixed empirical
results in literature of e.g. Jin (2000); Mitra & Owers (1995); Healy &
Palepu (1988). The dividend announcement plays a role as a signal to
investors; in case of a dividend increase it portrays a positive signal that
future earrings will increase, while a decrease gives a negative signal to
investors that future earnings will deteriorate. Basically, it is the way of
communication or a channel via which the firm communicates with the
investors this was first identified by Cooper et al. (2001), who explained
various ways in which firms communicate with investors some of which
are earning announcements and dividend announcements.
This paper is an attempt to investigate empirically whether the stock
prices change after the announcement of dividends. Does the information
content hypothesis given by Miller & Modigliani (1961) holds for Pakistani
firms? Furthermore, the main objective will be to check the relationship
of firm-specific factors and whether the dividend announcement is
No. 3/2013
9
influenced by these factors. This study has significance for both the
corporate manager as well as for the investor. The managerial
importance of this study lies in the relationship of a positive dividend
announcement and the firm value. As we have stated, the management
can portray positive signals to investors by announcing high dividends.
Higher dividends are seen as the best managerial application of skills and
investing in optimal and positive NPV projects leading to higher yields,
which creates a healthy perception in the minds of investors that the firm
is moving towards shareholder wealth maximization and value creation.
The investigation proceeds in two ways. We are applying diverse
methodology in terms of the event study by incorporating firm-specific
factors which enhance the robustness of the empirical results of the event
study. Using the event study methodology alone would lead to spurious
results due to the association of firm-specific factors which might distort
the actual findings. Secondly, the sample is divided into two groups: first,
the full sample is considered, then it is divided into two groups having
positive and negative CAR, for the possible effect of firm-specific factors.
This paper is structured into five sections. Immediately following
Introduction in Section 1 is Section 2, which outlines valuable literature in
this area. Section 3 describes the nature of data and methodology.
Section 4 presents the empirical results, and Section 5 contains
concluding remarks regarding the results in section 4.
2 Literature review
The dividend announcement and its common perception in the minds of
investors are often debated in the corporate finance literature. In
literature, we found both supportive and contradictory views of the
information content of dividends. Fama (1970) applied the efficient
market hypothesis to stock market and divided the information efficiency
in three categories; a weak form of efficiency, a semi-strong form of
efficiency and a strong form of efficiency. He further explained how the
information is reflected in stock prices. A similar concept is found in
studies like Keith Cuthbertson (2005); Reilly (2006). A contradictory side,
like Miller and Modigliani (1961), investigated this concept and concluded
that the dividend announcement has no impact on the firm returns and
the dividend information content hypothesis is irrelevant. They further
argued that this phenomenon has no impact on stock prices of firms
Financial Assets and Investing
10
under the assumption that the market is perfect and firms invest with
fixed schedule. Rubinstein (1976) tested this context and concluded that
the dividend information content is neutral and it has nothing do with the
increase or decrease of the stocks return. Kamstra (2000) supported
Miller and Modigliani (1961) and concluded that the dividend
announcement has nothing to do with the change in prices of the stock.
Gordon and Shapiro (1956) provided an view opposing that of Miller
(1961) - they concluded that the dividend announcement significantly
affects the stock prices and firm returns. Handjinicolaou and Kalay (1984)
studied this phenomenon and concluded that it seems that the current
dividends are affecting the future dividend changes and stock prices.
Similarly, a more recent study, Deangelo and Deangelo (2006), found
that the information content of dividends is highly relevant.
A lot of researchers (Healy and Palepu, 1988; Nissim & Ziv, 2001;
Michaely et al., 1997; Dyl & Weigand, 1998; Grullon et al. 2002; Koch &
Sun, 2004; Fargher & Weigand, 2009) agree that the information
content of dividends has a significant impact on stock prices. They used
the CAR to conduct the analysis. They found a positive and significant
relationship between the CAR and profitability of the firm and its stock
prices. What they fail to reject is that there is a negative relationship
between the CAR and risk. Frankfurter and Wood (2002), Bozos,
Nikolopoulos and Ramgandhi (2011) studied the phenomenon in two
steps. First, the authors developed the CAR, and second, they regressed
the CAR on various sets of variables. They concluded that the firm
produced a positive and significant CAR at the announcement dates. In
the second part, they found a significant and positive relationship
between managerial ownership variable and information content of
dividend. They found all firm specific variables significant and positive in
relationship with CAR. Other studies (Boehem & Sorescu, 2002; Brav et
al, 2005; How, Ngo & Verhoeven, 2011) tested the reaction of market
investors to dividend announcements. The stock prices increased and
they validated the signalling theory. Fama (1969) studied the
phenomenon and concluded that the information content of dividend is
significant. The dividend gives a signal to market investors about the
future trends of stock prices moving. The study divided the data into
positive and negative abnormal return and analysed them in the form of
the event study. The significant positive CAR confirmed a positive
No. 3/2013
11
response of market to dividend announcements. The overall results are in
accordance with the information content of dividend hypothesis that the
market investor can get a positive or a negative signal as a response of a
dividend announcement. In an additional study, utilizing quarterly
information, Pettit (1972) suggested that dividends convey sufficient
signals to market investors. But the question is how the market takes
time to adjust the signal to represent the true efficiency; if the signal that
is sent to the market in the form of dividend is efficient and how much
time it would take to adjust with the true value of stocks. He suggested
that the dividends convey signal in excess of what the market perceives.
Bhattacharya (1979), holding the perfect information efficiency, claimed
that investors have capability to assess the inner news of firm. They use
various tool to assess the firm profitability, risk and real worth of
business. The management uses the dividends as a signalling tool to give
the signal about the real worth of the firm to the external market.
John and Williams (1985), Miller and Rock (1985), the slightly updated
and modified versions of the dividend information content hypothesis,
were incorporations of the cash flow concept. The dividend
announcement affects the cash flow in near future or present. This
activity is intentional in nature; however, management do this by
incurring some cost to give a signal to market investors and
shareholders. Jensen (1986) suggested that the free cash is the main
determinant of the stock prices increase and decrease in the case of
information content of dividend. The dividend would be paid in the case
of free cash flows where the cash is in excess of the cash required for the
investment projects. The abnormal response of stock prices would only
be observable when there is an unexpected dividend announcement.
Easterbrook (1984) incorporated the agency cost concept into the
phenomenon. He argued that keeping the shareholder separated from the
management concept sometimes encourages misuse of funds by the
management. In the context of agency theory hypothesis, the reaction of
stock prices would be negative when dividend announcement occurs. The
research yielded somewhat interesting results regarding the dividend
initiation and dividend omission. Studies like Mitra and Owners (1995)
argued that that the increased dividend announcement has a positive
effect on the stock returns. The study by Eades and Kim (1985)
suggested that the decreasing dividend announcements have a negative
Financial Assets and Investing
12
impact on the stock returns. The emerging markets like Malaysia reacted
the same as in the study of Mitra and Owners (1995); Hess and Kim
(1985). They concluded that the increasing dividend has a positive and
decreasing dividend has a negative effect on the stock prices. Kao (1994)
studied the unexpected dividend announcements and information content
of dividend and concluded that dividend information sends significant
signals to market investors. Further, he suggested that the management
take valuable information to confirm their expectations in future and
present scenario.
3 Data and methodology
The data is obtained from Balance Sheet Analysis files (BSA) compiled by
the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Statistics and DWH department. Firmspecific
variables data is obtained by the BSA files, the stock prices data
is taken from Business recorder for 73 companies on the basis of final
dividend announcement dates in the year FY011. The methodology is
divided into two parts: the first is to estimate the cumulative abnormal
returns using the event study to find out whether there is any effect of
the dividend announcements on the stock prices of the firms, these test
are suggested by Thompson (1985); Johnston, (2007). The abnormal
returns are calculated by expected returns by the market model; the
equations follow:
	 	 (1)
∑ (2)
Where for equation (1) is the expected return,	 0 is the intercept or
constant, is the return of market and is the slope. After this step
we calculate the abnormal returns and the cumulative abnormal returns
as in equation (2) and consider the event pre and post window to be 60
and 10 days respectively to identify the effect of such announcements on
the firm's stock prices. The second part of the methodology is to check
whether the CARs (calculated in equation 3) calculated are effected by
any other firm-specific factors; for this purpose firm-specific factors are
incorporated which will enhance the robustness of the empirical results of
the event study. If only the event study methodology was applied, the
results would be spurious due to the association of other factors which
No. 3/2013
13
might distort the actual findings. Secondly, we divide the sample into two
groups: first the full sample is considered, then it is divided in two groups
having a positive and negative CAR, for the possible effect of firm-specific
factors. The regression equation will be as follows
	 	 (3)
Where " " is the cross-section, is the constant and ,
, 	 , 	 , 	 	are the coefficients of the explanatory variables. 		is
dependent variable for i firms.
3.1 Specifications of firm specific variables
In the equation above, the explanatory variables are SZE which is the
size of the firm. Similarly to Viswanath et al. (2002), we define the firm
size as the natural logarithm of market capitalization; empirical work of
Mougoue and Rao (2003) and Alpa and Dhanni (2005) document a
reverse relationship between firm size and dividend payout. The EVOL is
the volatility which is measured by the standard deviation of stock
returns as studied by Rubin and Smith (2009), firms with net income
more volatile distribute more dividends in order to send a good signal to
outside investors - the relationship is expected to be positive; less
volatile firms will be inferred as having a steady stream of cash flows
leading to consistent dividends as compared to more volatile ones.
LEV is the leverage ratio of the firm. It is calculated as total liabilities as a
percentage of shareholders equity, the signal is expected to be positive
which may be due to two different aspects under the agency theory and
signalling theory. According to Borokhovich (2005), the higher ratio leads
to meeting financial liabilities which reduces funds for distribution.
According to Ross (1977), the higher the debt ratio the more will be the
firms value increased. DY is the dividend yield of firms, which is
calculated as the total amount of dividend as a percentage of
shareholders equity, the relationship with stock prices is ambiguous and
may be positive or negative as documented by Belden, Todd and Knapp
(2005) as well as Easstons and Sinclair (1989). LIQ is the liquidity of the
firm; it is calculated as cash in hand divided by total assets; the firms
having high liquidity are considered to give more dividends so the
expected signal is hypothesized to be positive. It is hypothesised that if
Financial Assets and Investing
14
any of the explanatory variables is positively or negatively significant in
equation 2, it can be deduced that it is not only the information content
of dividend that affect cumulative abnormal returns but also other factors
whichever is significant in equation 3.
3.2 Chow Test
The latter part is to check if there is any difference between the firms
having negative and positive CARs. On this basis the firms will be divided
in two groups consisting of the whole sample. The CHOW test will be
applied to check whether there is any significant difference between the
above mentioned subgroups.
c
/
/
(4)
where is the sum of square residuals of full sample, is the sum
of square residuals of positive sample and is the sum of square
residuals of negative sample.
4 Results
We have applied the event study methodology to calculate the cumulative
abnormal return of all companies. As we have used 73 companies for the
analysis, we could not report the table of cumulative abnormal returns.
For the sake of brevity the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) table is not
reported. The CAR has both positive and negative significant values as
shown in figure 4.1. The positive and significant values of the event study
before the event (Dividend announcement) indicate that the investors
speculate on an increase in the future prices of stock and are engaged in
speculative activities. For some companies, the CARs were negative after
the event of announcement of the dividends, which indicates the stock
returns have decreased after the announcement of the dividends. Some
companies that report positive and significant CAR after the dividend
announcement are consistent with the idea that the stock prices
increases as dividends are announced. For the sake of further analysis,
the CAR are categorized as a full sample and further into two subgroups.
The first category includes CAR of all companies. We report it as full CAR
"F". The second group includes the positive CAR of all companies and we
No. 3/2013
15
report it as positive CAR "P". The third category includes the negative
CAR as we report as negative CAR "N" in Table 4.1 and Table 4.2. For
each category of CAR, we have estimated the separate equation where
we kept the CAR as the dependent variable and firm-specific variables are
independent variables. We report the multivariate cross sectional
regression results in table 4.1 and table 4.2.
Before discussing the basic results of the multivariate regression model,
we present the overall explanatory power of the model and overall
significance of the model. We report the two important elements as Rsquared
values and F-statistics. The values reported in the bottom of
table 4.1 and 4.2 are the R-squared values. The R-squared value in the
case of all regression is comparatively low; however, the good thing is
that the model is overall significant as the F-statistics reported are
significant in all cases of regression equation.
Figure 4.1 Pictorial presentation of average CARs of firms
Source: authors' processing
‐60
‐40
‐20
0
20
40
60
80
Financial Assets and Investing
16
Table 4.1 Results of Multivariate Cross-Sectional Regressions
for CAR 1, 2 and 4
Variable CAR 1
F P N
SZE -0.0037 0.0532 -0.0332
(0.2340) (0.5610) (0.1940)
EVOL -0.0453 -0.0651 0.0014
(0.055)** (0.1940) (0.5610)
DY 0.1350 -0.2510 -0.0392
(0.023)*** (0.2624) (0.1497)
LEV 0.3020 -0.0146 0.1340
(0.3185) (0.0897)* (0.2931)
LIQ 0.0144 -0.0346 -0.0022
(0.050)** (0.058)** (0.3924)
R2
24.63% 13.97% 17.30%
F-STAT 4.4170 2.8160 3.4210
CHOW 10.0168***
Variable CAR 2
F P N
SZE -0.0335 0.0113 -0.0017
(0.1352) (0.2370) (0.3215)
EVOL -0.0016 -0.0020 0.0035
(0.3215) (0.4891) (0.2931)
DY 0.0231 -0.3126 0.0163
(0.054)** (0.098)* (0.2561)
LEV 0.2310 0.0018 0.0632
(0.3215) (0.2163) (0.2763)
LIQ 0.0772 -0.1555 0.0233
(0.051)** (0.6145) (0.2340)
R2
27.35% 35.12% 14.17%
F-STAT 4.8650 3.7690 2.6250
CHOW 7.963***
Variable CAR 4
F P N
SZE -0.0039 0.0002 -0.0161
(0.1314) (0.2163) (0.2931)
EVOL -0.0020 -0.0017 -0.0032
(0.3215) (0.2579) (0.2693)
DY 0.0295 -0.5630 0.1680
(0.051)** (0.057)** (0.1790)
LEV 0.0231 0.0024 0.1320
(0.053)** (0.1213) (0.2459)
LIQ 0.0169 -0.0054 -0.0022
(0.5610) (0.1940) (0.1352)
R2
15.62% 26.30% 27.31%
F-STAT 3.4230 2.3150 4.4360
CHOW 7.134***
P-values are clustered in parenthesis*,** and*** indicates values at 10%, 5% and 1%
significance level. F, P & N in the second row of column are the Full, Positive and Negative
CAR respectively.
Source: authors' processing
No. 3/2013
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4.1 Results of Multivariate Cross-Sectional Regressions
for CAR 1, 2 and 4
The results reported in table 4.1 show that the variable earnings volatility
EVOL is negative and statistically significant at 5% percent level for CAR1
F only, which indicates that the firm whose earnings volatility is lower
conveys the maximum information to investors about the future earnings
and dividends of firms which as a result increase the stock prices and the
returns. For the rest of the regressions we found no significant
relationships between the earnings volatility and cumulative abnormal
returns. The results reported in table 4.1, the coefficients of size variable
SZE in all cases are statistically insignificant. Whatever the signal, we
cannot make any conclusions from such results. The statistically
significant and positive coefficient of the dividend yield DY for CAR2 F, at
5% level, indicates that after the dividend announcement the investor
has good news and as a better event to respond, the stock prices have
increased; as a result, the investors yield higher returns. In the case of
CAR2 P and CAR4 P, the coefficient is negative and significant at 5%
level. It can be deduced that that investor feels bad about the dividends
and predicts future dividends to be lower. As a result, the stock prices
decline and affect the returns adversely. These results are consistent with
Wansley et al. (1991); Lee & Yan (2003); Gurgul et al. (2006); Dasilas &
Leventias (2011).
However, the Leverage variable LEV has a positive and significant
coefficient for CAR2 P and CAR4, F at 5% level, meaning that higher the
debt ratio, the more the firm is willing to give healthy dividends; it could
be interpreted in the signalling theory perspective that the firm being
highly levered signals its value increasing which would obviously in return
increase the firm profitability leading to healthy dividends. The liquidity
ratio variable LIQ has positive and significant coefficients for CAR1 F and
CAR2 F at 5% level, which indicates that if the firm has sufficient liquid
assets it would contribute to higher investors’ wealth. In the case of CAR1
P the coefficient is negative and significant at 5% level meaning that the
firms having liquidity problems are less capable to pay dividends
minimizing the shareholders wealth, so it could be inferred that the more
liquid the firm is, the more finely it is positioned to announce dividends.
The shareholders can pressure the management to do so in the case that
Financial Assets and Investing
18
the firm has free cash after investing in a project and vice versa in the
case of low liquidity.
Table 4.2 Results of Multivariate Cross Sectional Regressions
for CAR 6, 8 and 10
Variable CAR 6
F P N
SZE -0.0020 0.0079 -0.0246
(0.1940 (0.6123) (0.2473)
EVOL -0.0023 -0.0040 0.0077
(0.0311)*** (0.5610) (0.1940)
DY 0.0247 -0.6320 0.1820
(0.5012) (0.0583)** (0.3924)
LEV 0.0222 0.0436 -0.0412
(0.1621) (0.3456) (0.4481)
LIQ 0.0138 -0.0440 0.0101
(0.6126) (0.3694) (0.4891)
R2 37.88% 8.23% 33.71%
F-STAT 7.681 1.926 4.291
CHOW 8.236***
Variable CAR 8
F P N
SZE -0.0751 0.0056 -0.0363
(0.3215) (0.4891) (0.2931)
EVOL -0.0039 -0.0027 0.0037
(0.1352) (0.2218) (0.3215)
DY 0.0361 -0.4310 0.0316
(0.0517)** (0.6145) (0.2340)
LEV 0.0351 0.0539 0.0378
(0.1863) (0.2371) (0.2712)
LIQ 0.0284 -0.0036 0.0248
(0.2931) (0.1231) (0.1352)
R2 41.21% 9.23% 36.45%
F-STAT 5.274 1.642 3.218
CHOW 9.2163***
Variable CAR 10
F P N
SZE -0.0914 0.0007 -0.0086
(0.5610) (0.2579) (0.2340)
EVOL -0.0017 -0.0073 0.0016
(0.1314) (0.2163) (0.2931)
DY 0.0614 -0.4220 0.0763
(0.5610) (0.1940) (0.1352)
LEV 0.0637 0.0096 0.0516
(0.4618) (0.1523) (0.1455)
LIQ 0.0489 -0.0084 0.0230
(0.1314) (0.2163) (0.2473)
R2 38.26% 6.13% 23.43%
F-STAT 4.139 1.637 3.161
CHOW 7.856***
P-values are clustered in parenthesis*,** and*** indicates values at 10%, 5% and 1%
significance level. F, P & N in the second row of column are the Full, Positive and Negative
CAR respectively.
Source: authors' processing
No. 3/2013
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The chow test is reported in the bottom of table 4.1 and table 4.2, which
are presented to check the difference of the two groups with negative
and positive CAR. The results reject the null hypothesis (the two groups
are similar), which indicates that the information content of dividend is
validated. In literature we find such evidence when the response of
negative or positive CAR is not due to the firm-specific factors but due to
the information content of dividend (Jin, 2000).
4.2 Results of Multivariate Cross-Sectional Regressions
for CAR 6, 8 and 10
The results reported in table 4.2 show that the variable earnings volatility
EVOL is negative and statistically significant at 5% percent level for CAR6
F only, which indicates that the firm whose earnings volatility is lower
conveys the maximum information to investors about the future earnings
and dividends of firms which as a result increases the stock prices and
the returns. For the rest of regressions we found no significant
relationship between the earnings volatility and cumulative abnormal
returns. The statistically significant and positive coefficient of the
dividend yield DY for CAR8, F at 5% level indicates that the dividend
announcement gives the investor good news as a better event to
respond, and stock prices have increased as a result of the investor
taking the high returns. In the case of CAR6 P and CAR4 P, the coefficient
is negative and significant at 5% level. It can be deduced that that
investor perceives the negative information about the dividends and
predicts future dividends to be lower as a result, the stock prices declines
and hence affect the returns adversely.
5 Conclusion
This paper investigates the information content of dividend by employing
the event study methodology to check the effect of dividend
announcement on stock returns. Furthermore, to check the relationship
CAR with firm-specific factors, we employed the multivariate crosssectional
regression keeping the CAR as the dependent variable. The
three separate equations for categories of CAR for the whole sample,
positive CAR and negative CAR are estimated. We report mixed results of
the event study, the positive and significant effect of dividend information
on some company returns, which seems to mean that the investors take
this event as good news and we found an increasing trend of dividends.
Financial Assets and Investing
20
However, in some companies CAR is statistically negative and it seems
that the dividend announcement has a negative impact on stock prices.
The result of the multivariate cross sectional regression is mixed;
however, the result of the chow test confirms that the information
content of dividend holds for the sample companies for the given sample
period of analysis and Pakistani companies respond positively to the
dividend announcement as a whole. The results are in accordance with
the studies conducted by several authors such as Wansley et al. (1991);
Lee & Yan (2003); Gurgul et al. (2006); Dasilas & Leventias (2011).
The overall results incline us to reject the Miller & Modigliani (1961)
hypothesis which does not hold for Pakistani firms. The concepts of
Jensen (1986) regarding free cash flow and Easterbrook (1984) for
agency costs concept explain this phenomena in a much more
understandable way: retention of free cash flows and over investment in
projects could lead to a negative reaction creating a feeling of resentment
in shareholders’ minds or cause agency problems which might lead the
managers to satisfy their own personal self interest in the form of perks
and benefits, etc.
So far the results we reported clearly indicate the importance of dividend
announcements on stock prices but still there are a lot of reasons which
might affect these announcements in the form of stock splits, stock
repurchases etc. These factors can be used as future directions of
research heading this way.
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