This paper analyzes the recommendations of common stocks made by the investment newsletters followed by the Hulbert Financial Digest. We conclude that, taken as a whole, the securities that newsletters recommend do not outperform appropriate benchmarks. Our data provide modest evidence that the...

It is often stated that bidders acquire poorly-run targets in order to improve firm performance. This inefficient management hypothesis is frequently tested by examining target stock returns in the years prior to an acquisition. While the hypothesis is commonly assumed in the literature to be...

This paper empirically examines whether the short swing rule (Section 16b of the Securities Exchange Act) deters managers from trading before merger announcements. This rule bars insiders from profiting on round-trip trades within a six month period. It is unlikely to deter insiders from trading...

Financial economists seem to believe that takeovers are partly motivated by the desire to improve poorly-performing firms. However, prior empirical evidence in support of this inefficient management hypothesis is rather weak. We provide a detailed reexamination of this hypothesis in a...

While the bulk of the research on the financial performance of mergers and acquisitions has focused on stock returns around the merger announcement, a surprisingly large set of papers has also examined long-run stock returns following acquisitions. We review this literature, concluding that...

Are there skill differences in mergers and acquisitions? To investigate this question, we focus on persistence in the performance of corporate acquirers. We find persistence only when successive deals occur under the same CEO and conclude that skill differences in acquisitions reside with the...

Financial economists seem to believe that takeovers are partly motivated by the desire to improve poorly-performing firms. However, prior empirical evidence in support of this inefficient management hypothesis is rather weak. We provide a detailed reexamination of this hypothesis in a...

While the bulk of the research on the financial performance of mergers and acquisitions has focused on stock returns around the merger announcement, a surprisingly large set of papers has also examined long-run stock returns following acquisitions. We review this literature, concluding that...

Financial economists have generally asserted that, in a world of corporate taxes and bankruptcy costs, the debt level of a firm is negatively related to its risk. Surprisingly, our paper shows that neither the face value of debt, the market value of debt, nor the ratio of market value of debt to...

Financial economists have generally asserted that, in a world of corporate taxes and bankruptcy costs, the debt level of a firm is negatively related to its risk. Surprisingly, our paper shows that neither the face value of debt, the market value of debt, nor the ratio of market value of debt to...