Capital Market Reaction Around the Stock Splits and Bonus Issues : Evidence from Some Indian IT Stocks

Over the years relationship between bonus issues or stock splits & stock prices has been the subject of much empirical discussion within the finance literature. According to theory, bonus issues increase the number of equity stocks outstanding but have no effect on stockholder's proportional ownership of stocks. The bonus issue or stock splits date is known well in advance and therefore should contain no new information. As such, one would not expect any significant price reaction on bonus issue or stock splits announcement. Contrary to this theoretical prediction, however empirical studies of bonus issues and stock splits have documented a statistically significant market price reaction. It is therefore a matter of concern that firms announcing bonus issues & stock splits experience rise in their stock prices on an average supporting semi-strong form Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). Generally the investigation of semi-strong form market efficiency has been limited to the study of well developed stock markets. The aim of this paper is to examine the stock price reaction to information release of bonus issues or stock splits with a view of examining whether the Indian stock market is semi-strong efficient or not. The event study methodology (Dolley 1993, Fama et al. 1969 and Brown & Warner 1980, 1985) has been used to contribute further evidence on the efficiency characteristics of the Indian stock market