Winston Pontoh

The random reaction in capital market by different perceptions and other factors makes it difficult for investors to get their optimum return. The objective of this study is to provide an empirical evidence about how the market will react by fundamental signal from the perspective of life cycle theory, free cash flow theory, and bird in the hand theory. The study presents the analysis of covariate for hypotheses testing with 241 firms as the sample which are listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange for period 2010–2015. This study finds that the life cycle theory and free cash flow theory are not absolute theories to explain the market reaction for any firms, because each firm has its own characteristics. The findings show that share prices shall react differently depending on each characteristics of the firm. The bird in the hand theory seems applicable in any case of firms, since the informational contents by dividend can deliver good signal to investors in capital market. Excluding the smaller and younger firms, this study proves that dividend is still a better way in determining the reaction of share prices, since each type of firms has its own types of dividend payers with different share prices.

The adjustment for the firm capital structure is unclear from perspectives of trade-off theory, pecking order theory, life cycle theory, market timing theory, and free cash flow theory, since many research findings contradict each other. Adjustments for the capital structure are complex, since the conditions for each firm are different. The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence of how firms adjust capital structure in relationship with maturity in context of trade-off, pecking order, free cash flow, and market timing theory. In terms of hypotheses testing, this study conducts logistic regression analysis with 138 Indonesian public firms as the sample in the observed period from 2010 to 2015. To distinguish the results, this study controls the sample by size and age based on the median. The study reports that preferences for the source of funds based on the cost of capital, internal conflict, and firm maturity indicate adjustments for the firm capital structure. Based on Indonesian firms, the form of capital structure in developing countries can refer to a single model or a combination of the trade-off model and pecking order model, as well as market timing.

The objective of this study is to give an empirical evidence of relationship between features of ownership structures and dividend disbursement in context of bird in the hand and catering theories. The study uses 241 listed firms as the sample, which were drawn from Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2015. Under condition that dividend policy is not moderated by ownership features, dividend policy for firms with multi-institutional, single institutional, and state are fit in context of bird in the hand theory and catering theory. Under condition that dividend policy is moderated by ownership features, this study finds that dividend policy for firms with state ownership is not fit both in context of bird in the hand theory and catering theory. Specifically, the study finds that firms with features of: (1) multi-institutional, single individual, and public; (2) multi-institutional, multi-individual, and public; and (3) single institutional, and public are fit with bird in the hand theory. Furthermore, this study finds that catering theory is not fit for firms with basic features of multi-institutional and state ownership, but it is fit for firms with features of single institutional, single individual, and public ownership.

Conservatism in the CAPM and L-CAPM standards often emphasizes systematic risk to explain the phenomenon of the risk-return relationship and ignores idiosyncratic risk with the assumption that the risk can be diversified. The effect of the Covid-19 outbreak raises the question of whether the idiosyncratic risk can still be ignored considering that the risk has a close relationship to firm-specific risk. This study sets a portfolio consisting of 177 active public firms in the Indonesia Stock Exchange before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. On portfolio set, idiosyncratic risk is estimated by the standard CAPM and L-CAPM in the observation range from January 2, 2019, to June 30, 2021. The results of the analysis show that L-CAPM and CAPM produce significantly different idiosyncratic risks. Empirical evidence shows that the highest firm-specific risk is in the third period and has a stable condition since the fourth period. This condition is confirmed by regression results that idiosyncratic risk together with systematic risk positively affects stock returns in the fourth period as suggested by the efficient market hypothesis. Uniquely, both systematic risk and idiosyncratic risk based on L-CAPM do not show a significant effect on stock returns in the fifth period, so it is a strong indication that liquidity is an important factor that must be considered in making investments.

The efficient market hypothesis assumes that the stock prices fully reflect all relevant information. Under the weak form, the future prices are independent of current prices or in the other words, they follow the random walk hypothesis. Global issues tend to have an impact on capital markets around the world. Therefore, the objective of this study is to assess the effect of global issues on the movements of expected returns in the Indonesian capital market from January 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022. The sample of 755 listed firms is used to test whether the expected returns have a random pattern during the observation period. The results of runs tests and variance ratio test show that the expected return movements are not random. On those results, the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis is rejected, and it can be concluded that the capital market in Indonesia for this period is inefficient. The findings of this study imply that the information about global issues does not affect the market. The success of the Indonesian government’s strategy in dealing with global issues (including the Covid-19 pandemic) in the form of a vaccination program and also followed by excellent fiscal and monetary policies has led to more predictable returns in the capital market. Moreover, investors can set their portfolios to get extraordinary returns as the market is more predictable.

This study provides evidence about how stockholders control insiders using dividend policy to prevent overinvestment. This study observes the dividend yield, market risk, profitability, and growth opportunities of 155 public firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2017. The dividend yield data were split into quartiles and categorized into the following areas: 1) firms with the lowest dividend yields, 2) firms with lower dividend yields, 3) firms with higher dividend yields, and 4) firms with the highest dividend yields. This study conducts multinomial regression for testing the hypotheses. The results confirm that systematic risk has an insignificant relationship with dividend policy, and profitability has a significant relationship with dividend policy. Consistent with agency theory in supporting free cash flow theory, this study finds that the agency problem exists for firms with high dividend yields relative to firms with low dividend yields in the context of Indonesian public firms. The systematic risk has an insignificant relationship with dividend policy, of which the study sample is limited. The findings also imply that stockholders tend to control insiders in case of overinvestment. Besides, this study also finds that market risk as a systematic risk is insignificant both for firms with high and low dividend yields.

This study begins with the assumption that the existence of abnormal circumstances will force investors to take measures to protect their investments in the capital market. Recently, the stock index in the Indonesian market has been declining and continued to fall until the end of April 2020 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In terms of efficient market theory, prospect theory and signaling theory, this study aims to analyze the relationship between risk and return in the Indonesian capital market during the Covid-19 pandemic as a manifestation of investor behavior. To test hypotheses, the correlation test, the independent sample t-test and the Cohen test for 629 public firms with 52,836 observable data are used. The findings show that for financial sectors and non-financial sectors, the fourth period differs from previous periods when the relationship between systematic risk and stock returns is positive, although only non-financial sectors have a significant effect. The results show that efficient market theory, prospect theory and signaling theory are consistent with the phenomena around the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. In addition, Cohen’s test results suggest that government policies in the face of the pandemic are successful in stimulating the market.