Switching volatility in target stocks during takeover bids

Gelman Sergey, Wilfling Bernd


Abstract
This paper examines shifts in the market betas and the conditional volatility of stock prices of takeover targets. Using daily stock prices of five European and American targets, we find that adequately specified Markov-switching GARCH models are capable of detecting statistically significant regime-switches in all takeover deal-types (in cash bids, pure share-exchange bids, mixed bids). In particular, conditional volatility regime-switches are found to be most clear-cut for cash bids. Our econometric findings have implications for a broad range of financial applications such as the valuation of target stock options.

Keywords
Takeover bids; stock price dynamics; Markov-switching models



Publication type
Research article (journal)

Peer reviewed
Yes

Publication status
Published

Year
2009

Journal
Journal of Empirical Finance

Volume
16

Start page
745

End page
758

Language
English

ISSN
0927-5398