This paper tests whether there is a difference in the stock price reactions to industrial straight debt offerings of different risk. Using bond ratings at the time of announcement as a measure of risk, we find that there is no monotonic relation between stock price impact and rating and no statistically significant difference across risk classes, even though the sample includes low-rated debt issues from recent years. This confirms earlier evidence on straight debt issues, but differs from the evidence on convertible securities. The paper also finds that the results for straight debt are not affected by shelf registrations or by the issuing firms' involvement in merger and acquisition-related activity.

Presents a linear aggregation model of valuation of assets to help understand how the minimum mean squared error valuation rule is affected by various parameters that characterize the economy and the circumstances under which historical-cost valuation rule yields a statistically more precise estimate of the unobserved economic value of firms' assets than the current valuation rule.