Did ICT firms behave very differently from non-ICT firms during the global ICT boom-bust cycle on the stock markets? To answer this question we analyze the financial behavior of a sample of North-American and Western European firms during 1991-2002. We document that ICT firms are indeed what...

This empirical study revisits the determinants of firms' capital structures. The main focus thereby is onthe 'market timing theory', according to which the current level of the capital structure is the cumulative outcome of past attempts to `time the market', i.e. issuing shares when equity is...

This paper conducts a transatlantic comparison of market timing effects on corporate capital structures, using some 45,000 observations on US, UK, and continental European firms. We confirm the empirical regularity that leverage and historical market-to-book ratios connect negatively in the US,...

In this paper the authors survey financial structure theories, from the start-up point, which is considered Modigliani and Miller’s capital structure irrelevance theorem, to recent theories, such as the pecking order and the market timing theory. For each type of model, a brief overview of the...

This paper examines the relative importance of many factors in the capital structure decisions of publicly traded American firms from 1950 to 2003. The most reliable factors for explaining market leverage are: median industry leverage (+ effect on leverage), market-to-book assets ratio (−),...

This paper is an empirical assessment of the performance of mutual fund managers in terms of “market timing” and “selectivity”, within the framework suggested by Treynor and Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson and Merton (1981). The relevant data set is a balanced panel of fifty five mutual...

Mutual fund manager excess performance should be measured relative to their self-reported benchmark rather than the return of a passive portfolio with the same risk characteristics. Ignoring the self-reported benchmark introduces biases in the measurement of stock selection and timing components...

Valuation-based market timing demonstrates greater potential to improve risk-adjusted returns for conservative long-term investors than given credit by Fisher and Statman (2006). On a risk-adjusted basis, market-timing strategies provide comparable returns as a 100 percent stocks buy-and-hold...

This paper develops an alternative interpretation of the observed inverse relation between market-to-book ratio and long term indebtedness based on the market timing theory of capital structure and provides empirical evidence to substantiate the same. Our findings suggest that in the presence of...