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This study investigates investor trading behaviour around regular and one-off public holidays on the Sydney Stock Exchange (SSX) from 1901 to 1950. The purpose is to examine whether trading patterns differ between regular holidays, which are known in advance, and one-off holidays, which are unexpected. The study provides insights into the predictability of holidays and its influence on market activity, contributing to the broader literature on investor inattention and market anomalies.

Using a novel dataset constructed from handwritten share price lists covering 14,224 trading days, we perform quantitative analysis to assess trading volume before and after regular and one-off public holidays. Ordinary least squares regression models are employed to identify the presence of a holiday effect, accounting for various fixed effects and time-varying factors such as geopolitical events.

We find that trading volume is significantly lower on the day before regular holidays and higher on the day after, consistent with the investor inattention hypothesis. In contrast, no significant holiday effect is observed for one-off holidays. This suggests that predictability plays a crucial role in influencing investor behaviour, with irregular, less predictable holidays having less impact on trading patterns.

The study is limited by the historical nature of the data, which may not fully capture the diversity of modern trading environments. Additionally, the analysis is restricted to the SSX and may not be generalisable to other markets or time periods. Future research could explore similar effects in different contexts or with more recent data.

This research provides valuable insights for market participants and regulators by demonstrating how the predictability of holidays influences market activity. Understanding these patterns could help in making more informed decisions during periods of expected low trading volumes.

The study underscores the role of public holidays in shaping investor behaviour, with broader implications for understanding how societal events influence financial markets. This is particularly relevant in discussions about the impact of unexpected events on market stability.

This is the first study to compare the effects of regular and one-off public holidays on trading volumes in a historical stock market context. Our findings highlight the importance of event predictability in financial markets, offering a new perspective on how historical market behaviours can inform current financial theories.

This study investigates the relationship between media and social media sentiment and the likelihood of CEO pay cuts. The purpose is to examine whether and how these pay cuts influence market reactions. The study aims to provide insights into how external sentiment affects corporate decision-making and market perceptions, particularly in the context of CEO compensation.

Using a sample of 6,331 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2021, this paper employs quantitative analysis to assess the association between media and social media sentiment and CEO pay cuts. We utilise company DEF14A SEC filings to identify CEO pay cut dates and capture traditional media and Twitter sentiment 30-days prior to these filing dates.

We find a negative association between media and social media sentiment and CEO pay cuts, indicating that firms facing more negative sentiment are more likely to engage in pay cuts. We find evidence that CEO pay cuts are negatively correlated with market reactions, suggesting markets generally do not seem to favour decisions to cut CEO pay. This relationship, however, is complex and influenced by multiple factors, including the nature of sentiment and the specific components of CEO compensation.

The study faces limitations in identifying the varying degrees of pay cuts and their motivations. Additionally, the content of news articles and Twitter posts used to measure sentiment was not specifically identified, which may affect the accuracy of sentiment measurement.

This research offers valuable insights for managers and corporate decision-makers, highlighting the potential impact of public sentiment on critical executive compensation decisions.

The study underscores the influence of media and social media in shaping public opinion and driving corporate actions, highlighting the growing intersection between social perceptions and corporate governance. This has broader implications for how firms engage with media platforms and manage their public image, particularly in the realm of executive compensation.

We are the first to study the impact of media and social media sentiment on CEO compensation decisions and market reactions. By employing DEF14A filings as event dates for market reaction studies, we offer a novel approach to analysing the impact of executive compensation changes on market behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of earnings management in the Australian not-for-profit (NFP) disability service providers sector, as well as to understand the motivations for and implications of such practices. This research is important for stakeholders, such as members and funders, as well as the broader Australian community, considering the significant financial resources allocated to these organizations from the public purse.

The authors employ a longitudinal dataset containing financial data from 154 Australian NFP disability service providers, collected over a two-year period (2015–2016). Through the analysis of detailed balance sheets and income statements, the authors seek to uncover evidence of earnings management practices in this sector. The study’s results provide valuable insights into the behaviour of the charitable human services sector.

The findings reveal that Australian NFP disability service providers engage in earnings management practices, primarily aimed at reducing reported profits to meet the normative financial expectations of stakeholders, such as public sector funders and philanthropists. The executives of these organizations strive to report profits close to zero, being cautious not to report a loss, which might raise concerns about their sustainability.

The authors contribute to the existing literature on earnings management in the NFP sector by focussing on Australian disability service providers, an area that has been under-researched due to a lack of suitable data. The results offer insights into the incentives and implications of earnings management practices in this sector and highlight the need for a revaluation of accounting standards, reporting requirements and audit arrangements applicable to the NFP sector.

Does the choice of listing process matter in determining a firm's future crash risk? It is understood that the main function of an equity market is to provide price discovery, however, it is not clear whether the choice of listing methods would matter to the shareholders' wealth in the long term. We are the first to answer this question by utilising a hand-collected dataset that identifies all companies that went public via reverse merger (RM) in a growing emerging market.

Using hand-collected data from 2000 to 2018 in China, we follow the literature to construct two crash risk measures for RM and IPO firms. Our main analysis is performed using OLS regressions on the full sample as well as a sample using Propensity Score Matching. Our results hold with a number of robustness checks.

We find that reverse merger (RM) firms exhibit higher future stock price crash risk than initial public offering (IPO) firms. This relationship is more predominant in non-state-owned enterprises, and we find weak evidence suggesting such relationship weakens as firms stay longer in the market. There is no significant difference in future stock price crash risk between RM firms listed during IPO suspension periods and normal IPO firms.

We are the first to study the choice of listing method and its impact on firms' future stock price crash risk.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a recent innovation in the uranium market, the Global X Uranium Exchange-Traded Fund (URA), on the trading characteristics of constituent and non-constituent stocks.

The authors analyse bid-ask spread measures, relative effective spreads and adverse selection costs to assess changes in information asymmetry among uranium stocks. The authors also study abnormal returns to assess the impact of URA on the market.

Over a three-month period, following the introduction of URA, the authors find uranium stocks display decreased bid-ask spread measures, driven by reductions in information asymmetry. Relative effective spreads decrease by 36% after the introduction of URA, and adverse selection costs decline by 24% over the same period. Uranium stocks experience a significant positive abnormal return of 5.0% the day after the introduction of URA with subsequent price reversals. These suggest that the introduction of URA prompted uninformed traders to rebalance portfolios and migrate to the less information-sensitive Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), causing temporary deviations in trading characteristics.

The authors demonstrate that the introduction of new financial securities to the market can have a significant impact on the trading characteristics of related equities. As URA is the only ETF in the uranium sector, the authors thereby avoid the influence of multiple ETFs that may have impacted previous studies.

As Chinese stock market develops and grows, mutual fund plays an increasingly important role for strong financial strength and good social resources. This paper aims to present an overview of fund investment effect, identify the investment preference of institutional investors and explore the socially responsible investment value of mutual fund, especially green fund.

In order to test the green effects in the fund market, especially from the perspective of institutional shareholding, the authors build three panel data models to examine the attention, promotion and network effect respectively.

In general terms, the authors obtain a positive relationship between mutual funds and green firms (attention effect). This positive relationship is conducted by the comparison of institutional shareholding level between green firms and non-green firms by using two-sample t-test. The authors find that although all the coefficients of mutual funds' shareholding variables are positively related to social performance, only the number of mutual fund shareholders shows slight significance. The authors observe a stronger promotion effect of green funds on social performance than the other mutual funds (promotion effect). From a network perspective as well as previous social capital research, the mutual funds shareholding network shows a significant and positive effect on the firm's social performance in the firm–fund network (CFClose) as well as in the firm–firm network (CCClose), while the coefficients of closeness in the firm and green fund network are positive but non-significant (network effect).

Although some valuable findings have been documented, there is a great potential to be further explored. For example, how to guide more green funds to solve the finance problem of middle and small-sized firms may be another crucial task for the point of view of government or industry level. While at the mutual fund level, it is essential to positively participate in and fulfill the environment duty of listed firms which can not only satisfy the expectation of environment value investment.

The fund market has witnessed unprecedented growth in China and plays an important role in promoting the development of green industries. This indicates the practice of mutual funds as socially responsible investment in China. Some effective measures should be taken to incentive the mutual funds to continually invest in environment-friendly firms, which would benefit to the promotion of social performance driven by financing innovation.

The ESG issue is a global one that needs the participation of the countries worldwide. As one of the most important emerging markets, regulators in China should consider taking more action in promoting ESG concerns. To some extent, institutional investments can actually reflect how the responsible investments are going in this market.

This paper provides a systematic empirical analysis of Chinese fund market in the view of institutional investor preference. Three green effects, namely attention, promotion and network effects, are put forward, which have not been employed in previous studies. Our work is useful for understanding sustainable finance which has been elevating into national strategy.