Valuation, Price-Earnings Ratio, Industry comparison, Comparable company analysis

This paper examines empirically the effects of domicile and SEC registration and reporting requirements on information asymmetry. We compare the adverse-selection component of the relative bid–ask spread (our measure of information asymmetry) for three samples of Nasdaq NMS companies that trade in different home markets and are subject to different standards of disclosure: registered U.S. companies, registered non-Canadian foreign companies, and unregistered non-Canadian foreign companies covered by the information-supplying exemption of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. We find that the adverse-selection component is not significantly larger for the two foreign samples, and it is not reliably different for the registered and unregistered foreign samples. Therefore, we are unable to document that less stringent SEC registration and reporting requirements for foreign companies are associated with greater information asymmetry among investors for non-U.S. securities traded on Nasdaq.

[This study examines empirically the prediction of long-term stock return volatility. We find: (1) when using historical volatility to predict five-year monthly volatility, returns should be measured either weekly or monthly, and the historical period should be approximately five years; (2) when constructing a forecast based solely on historical volatilities of comparable firms, comparable firms should be selected on the basis of industry and firm size; and (3) a shrinkage forecast formed by adjusting a historical forecast toward a comparable-firms forecast is more accurate than either a historical or a comparable-firms forecast. Our results suggest that errors in pricing employee stock options due to errors in predicting long-term volatility would rarely have a material effect on net income.]

Abstract Examines empirically the prediction of long-term stock return volatility. Using historical volatility to predict five-year monthly volatility; Constructing a forecast based on historical volatilities of comparable films; Forming a shrinkage forecast by adjusting a historical forecast toward a comparable-firms forecast.

We examine operating performance and ownership of joint venture and wholly-owned merchant banks operating in Singapore from the formation of the industry to its maturity. For our sample, joint ventures dominated wholly-owned banks as an organizational form only within the first six years of the industry's life, when there were opportunities for organizational learning and risk sharing by venture partners. Thereafter, new banks were typically wholly-owned subsidiaries and 71% of surviving joint ventures switched to wholly-owned status. Despite their higher mortality rates, we find no evidence of lower performance for joint ventures.

Andrew Alford, Jennifer Jones, Richard Leftwich, Mark Zmijewski, The Relative Informativeness of Accounting Disclosures in Different Countries, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 31, Studies on International Accounting (1993), pp. 183-223

We present evidence that 20 percent of the 10-Ks in our sample are filed with the SEC after the 90-day statutory due date. Firms that delay filing their 10-K are not a random sample of firms; up to 25 (10) percent of the firms experiencing unfavorable (favorable) economic events delay their 10-K. Firms that delay their 10-K are, on average, small, have negative accounting rates of return, negative earnings changes, low liquidity, and high financial leverage; they also experience negative market- adjusted stock returns.