The Impact of Open-Market Share Repurchases on Long-Term Stock Returns: Evidence from the Taiwanese Market

This study examines long-term stock returns following open-market share repurchases of listed firms in Taiwan. The empirical results based on event-time cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) and buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHARs) show that announcing firms do not experience significant positive long-term return relative to the control firms. Moreover, using the calendar-time portfolio approach, we find the abnormal returns are significantly negative over twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six months, suggesting stocks of firms that repurchase their shares are underperformed in the postannouncement period. The implication from our results is that in Taiwan, share repurchases are mainly used to stabilize stock price during a market downturn rather than to signal a firm's future prospects.