ABSTRACT We analyze several hundred firms that expand via acquisition and/or increase their number of business segments. The combined market reaction to acquisition announcements is positive but acquiring firm excess values decline after the diversifying event. Much of the excess value reduction occurs because our sample firms acquire already discounted business units, and not because diversifying destroys value. This implies that the standard assumption that conglomerate divisions can be benchmarked to typical stand‐alone firms should be carefully reconsidered. We also show that excess value does not decline when firms increase their number of business segments because of pure reporting changes.

ABSTRACT Spot power prices are volatile and since electricity cannot be economically stored, familiar arbitrage‐based methods are not applicable for pricing power derivative contracts. This paper presents an equilibrium model implying that the forward power price is a downward biased predictor of the future spot price if expected power demand is low and demand risk is moderate. However, the equilibrium forward premium increases when either expected demand or demand variance is high, because of positive skewness in the spot power price distribution. Preliminary empirical evidence indicates that the premium in forward power prices is greatest during the summer months.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between book‐to‐market equity, distress risk, and stock returns. Among firms with the highest distress risk as proxied by Ohlson's (1980) O‐score, the difference in returns between high and low book‐to market securities is more than twice as large as that in other firms. This large return differential cannot be explained by the three‐factor model or by differences in economic fundamentals. Consistent with mispricing arguments, firms with high distress risk exhibit the largest return reversals around earnings announcements, and the book‐to‐market effect is largest in small firms with low analyst coverage.

Public firms that place equity privately experience positive announcements effects, with negative post‐announcement stock‐price performance. This finding is inconsistent with the underreaction hypothesis. Instead, it suggests that investors are overoptimistic about the prospects of firms issuing equity, regardless of the method of issuance. Further, in contrast to public offerings, private issues follow periods of relatively poor operating performance. Thus, investor overoptimism at the time of private issues is not due to the behavioral tendency to overweight recent experience at the expense of long‐term averages.