We examine a sample of 12,023 acquisitions by public firms from 1980 to 2001. Shareholders of these firms lost a total of $218 billion when acquisitions were announced. Though shareholders lose throughout our sample period, losses associated with acquisition announcements after 1997 are...

We construct a large sample of announcements that firms have authorized, suspended, resumed, or completed open market repurchase (OMR) programs. Starting or continuing repurchases is associated with positive average announcement period abnormal returns. Stopping repurchases, either by suspending...

This paper investigates the timing and source of anomalous positive long-run abnormal returns following repurchase authorizations. Returns between program authorization and completion announcements are indistinguishable from zero. Abnormal returns occur only after completion announcements....