Assessing the impact of bonus issue announcements on stock price returns in borsa Istanbul equity market

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the effects of the approval of applications made by the companies that apply to Capital Markets Board of Turkey for bonus issue in Borsa Istanbul equity market in 2016 and 2017. The event study method was used in this study in which the efficiency of equity market was tested in semi-strong form. Within the scope of the study, the simple rate of returns of the stocks' daily closing prices belonging to 5 days before and after (t-5, t+5) the date when bonus issue application was approved by Capital Markets Board were calculated. The estimation window is the time period beginning from the day -6 to day -135 before date of the approval. Of the economic models, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was used in calculating the expected returns. The companies with a bonus issue rate above 50% and the companies with a bonus issue rate under 50% were examined separately. As a result of the study, in 2016 no statistically significant positive cumulative abnormal return was obtained, while some statistically significant negative cumulative abnormal return after was obtained 3 and 5 days after the approval date. It has been determined that one could obtain statistically significant positive cumulative abnormal return 1 day after the approval and statistically significant negative cumulative abnormal return 2 days after the approval date in 2017. When 2016 and 2017 years were analyzed as a single period, it was observed that one could obtain statistically significant positive cumulative abnormal return 1 day after the approval and statistically significant negative cumulative abnormal return 2, 3 and 5 days after the approval date. The findings reveal that Borsa Istanbul equity market was not an efficient market in semi-strong form during the tested period.