Date of Award

5-3-2006

Degree Type

Closed Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Finance

First Advisor

Dr. Jason Greene - Chair

Abstract

ABSTRACT TWO ESSAYS ON INVESTOR SENTIMENT AND EQUITY OFFERINGS BY HSIN-HUI CHIU May 2, 2006 Committee Chair: Dr. Jason T. Greene Major Department: Finance Using monthly open-end mutual fund flows as a proxy for investor sentiment, I am able to examine the impact of sentiment on IPO volume and underpricing. I find that issuers’ filing decisions are significantly affected by the predicted future sentiment around the expected IPO dates. Furthermore, sentiment has an impact on the final offer price setting and over-allotment options exercised. While previous research documents IPO cycles with respect to other proxies for investor sentiment, I am able to examine IPO cycles and underpricing with respect to sentiment along with investor risk preferences. I hypothesize that a going public firm will try to issue its IPO when investor risk preferences are favorable to the firm’s own risk characteristics. Empirical results based on 5,661 initial public offerings between 1986 and 2004 are consistent with my hypotheses that issuers not only time the market with sentiment in general, but also attempt to incorporate investor risk preferences into their going public decisions. Furthermore, underpricing is more severe when firms issue equity during months with large inflows into equity mutual funds. In my second essay, I find that SEO firms appear to time market efficiently because of the shorter filing periods compared to the average 2-3 months of the IPOs. Also, sentiment not only affects a SEO offer price setting but also affects the over-allotment options exercised. I examine two subgroups of the SEO samples: shelf registration and non-shelf SEOs. I find that shelf-registered SEOs incorporate investor sentiment into offering price to a greater degree compared to regular SEOs. Lastly I find that investor risk preference plays a role in firms’ decision to file prospectuses with the SEC. In other words, firms rationally decide the timing of filing based on the predicted investor preference and try to match firm characteristics with investor preference around the expected SEO date.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/1058999

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