We provide novel evidence of the role of investor sentiment in determining firms' capital structure decisions from three perspectives: leverage ratio, debt maturity and leverage target adjustment. We find that when investor sentiment is high, firms increase their leverage ratios, supporting our contention that high investor sentiment increases firms' debt capacity and facilitates the use of an aggressive leverage policy. Debt maturity is shorter in high sentiment periods, implying that firms are confident about future earnings and use shorter debt maturity to signal their financial solvency. Leverage target adjustment is slower in low sentiment periods, indicating higher costs of external finance. Furthermore, the sentiment-leverage relationship sensitivity is greater for financially constrained firms. Our extended analysis determines that leverage-increasing firms generate lower stock returns subsequent to a period of high sentiment, offering practical insights into the economic consequences of increasing leverage in high sentiment periods on corporate value for investors. Our research advances the understanding of the impact of investor sentiment on firms' financing decisions and stock returns.

This paper investigates the dynamic interactions of firms' financial behaviours using a five-variable structural vector autoregression (SVAR) framework. We provide empirical evidence that firms' financial behaviours are jointly determined. We demonstrate that a single-equation analysis on one financial behaviour generates biased estimates. We find that firms deviate from the desired level of each financial characteristic to absorb shocks to the other financial characteristics. Following such deviations, the characteristics revert in subsequent periods. Among these inter-related financial behaviours, equity decisions are the most independent, followed by dividend target, investment, and leverage target. Although firms prioritize financial behaviours differently, it appears that there is neither one financial behaviour that firms use only to absorb shocks nor one that never responds to the others.