Ch. 6: Security Offerings 339
by, among others,Stambaugh (1986, 1999).^48 For example, when a financial ratio such
as book-to-market is used as a predictive variable, it will “pseudo-time” the market since
the book-to-market ratio is hard-wired to rise as the market falls. There is an extensive
literature on how to estimate the bias that this causes in predictive regressions. Using
simulations,Baker, Taliaferro, and Wurgler (2004)report that pseudo-timing accounts
for less than two percent of the predictive power of the equity share. However, the role of
the pseudo-timing when the econometrician also allows for a non-stationary economic
environment remains to be determined.
The debate about what causes the apparent ability of firms to time their equity is-
sues to periods that are followed by low market returns is still inconclusive. Rational
explanations along the lines ofCarlson, Fisher, and Giammarino (2005, 2006)and
Pastor and Veronesi (2005)are interesting and consistent with the arguments and re-
sults of several papers that empirically investigate long-run performance following
security offerings. Next we turn to an in depth review of this long-run stock return
literature.
5.3. Evidence on long-run post-issue stock returns
Stocks generate surprisingly low returns over holding periods of 2–5 years following
an equity issue date, as first shown for SEOs byStigler (1964)and later reconfirmed
and extended to IPOs byRitter (1991)and more recent SEOs byLoughran and Ritter
(1995). As discussed above, to some researchers, this long-run return evidence chal-
lenges the efficient markets hypotheses and motivates the development of behavioral
asset pricing models. Responding to this challenge,Brav and Gompers (1997), Brav,
Geczy, and Gompers (2000), Eckbo, Masulis, and Norli (2000), Eckbo and Norli (2005),
andLyandres, Sun, and Zhang (2005)present large-sample evidence that the low post-
issue return pattern is consistent with standard multi-factor pricing models, and tend
to be concentrated in small growth stocks with active investment programs. Thus, the
low post-issue returns may be a manifestation of the more general finding inFama and
French (1992)that small growth stocks tend to exhibit low returns during the post-1963
period, or simply reflect the fact that asset pricing models have especially poor explana-
tory power for small growth stocks.
However, the proper interpretation of the low long-run returns following security is-
suances remains an unsettled issue.Ritter (2003)states that “the long-run performance
evidence shows that in general the market underreacts to the [equity issue] announce-
ments” (p. 262). Given the importance of the long-run performance evidence for the
overall question of corporate timing and market efficiency, we provide a detailed review
of the long-run performance evidence following IPOs, SEOs as well as corporate debt
issues. We also report new updated abnormal return estimates of issuer abnormal returns
(^48) SeeBaker, Taliaferro, and Wurgler (2004)for a more extensive list of papers that have studied this small
sample bias.