S. McKay Price

Pricing of Volatility Risk in REITs

We examine the pricing of volatility risk in the cross-section of equity real estate investment trust (REIT) stock returns over the 1996 to 2010 period. We consider both aggregate (systematic) volatility and firm-specific (idiosyncratic) volatility. In contrast to the negative and significant price of systematic volatility risk for non-REIT equities, we find that systematic volatility is not priced in REIT returns. Idiosyncratic volatility, estimated using the Fama and French (1993) three-factor model, is negatively priced in the cross-section and is largely independent of non-REIT idiosyncratic volatility. Within the total volatility risk profile, idiosyncratic volatility dominates aggregate volatility in REIT pricing.

Differences in Conference Call Tones: Managers vs. Analysts

In this study we extracted the linguistic tones of managers and analysts during earnings conference calls and compared the differences between them. We found that manager tones convey much more optimism (less pessimism) than their analyst counterparts and investors (particularly institutional investors) react more strongly to analyst tones.

Governance, Conference Calls and CEO Compensation

We study the relations between governance mechanisms (internal and external), conference call voluntary disclosures (incidence and length), and CEO compensation using hand-collected data on conference calls, corporate governance, and compensation. We hypothesize and show that institutions push for more frequent and longer conference calls in order to obtain more information with which to evaluate their investment. While independent directors push to hold conference calls, they may also prefer to have shorter conference calls to avoid potential lawsuits, proprietary costs, and/or loss of reputation that can arise from releasing too much information. Entrenched executives seek to minimize risk (such as employment and/or litigation risk) by limiting the length of conference calls or by avoiding conference calls altogether. In addition, contrary to recently proposed hypotheses, we find that executives do not receive additional compensation for bearing the risks of holding voluntary conference calls.

The Relation between Momentum and Drift: Industry-Level Evidence from Equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

We examine the industry-level relation between the two dominant asset pricing anomalies, the continuation of past price movements (momentum) and the incomplete reaction to earnings news (post-earnings-announcement drift). With the former having long been established in REIT returns, and the latter having only recently been documented, we show that the two returns phenomena are highly related in both the cross-section and time-series of industry-level returns, and the relation is negative. Additionally, the payoff to a REIT drift strategy largely dominates the payoff to a REIT momentum strategy in terms of greater economic magnitude and statistical significance.

Do Investors Infer Vocal Cues from CEOs During Quarterly REIT Conference Calls

We examine the investor reaction to emotionally charged information. Using audio files of quarterly earnings conference calls and specialized Layered Voice Analysis software, we isolate the emotional content of managers’ vocal cues. With results that are both statistically and economically significant, we find that executive emotion is positively related to investors’ initial reaction. Moreover, this strong investor reaction to emotional signals by REIT managers appears to be justified, suggesting that credible, value-relevant information is contained in the emotion related signals. However, we also find some limited evidence of a partial reversal in subsequent trading windows, suggesting that investors may second guess themselves or fear they overreacted.

Words versus Deeds: Evidence from Post-Call Manager Trades

We examine the impact of conference call tones on the direction and magnitude of subsequent manager trades. Our univariate results show that corporate insiders buy company shares following negative-tone conference calls, and sell shares following positive-tone conference calls. This inverse call tone-trading pattern holds for both managers’ introductory sessions and subsequent question and answer (Q&A) sessions. Our multivariate results confirm the univariate call tone-trading patterns and show that contrarian manager trades are mostly driven by managerial selling activity. In contrast to the consistent and strong evidence of managers trading in the opposite direction of their call tones, we find no evidence of managers trading in the same direction of their call tones. We also examine the impact of analyst Q&A challenges on post-call manager trades. Our findings suggest that managers learn from analyst feedback and adjust their post-call trades accordingly.

Governance and International Investment: Evidence from Real Estate Holdings

The international business literature documents that higher quality corporate governance, at both the national level and the firm level, is associated with a greater likelihood to invest abroad and to take larger stakes when investing abroad. We examine a unique set of international real estate holdings and corporate governance data to evaluate the comparability of real estate investment to foreign direct investment (FDI) more broadly. Our results at both the national and firm level indicate that real estate transactions differ fundamentally from other types of FDI. Specifically, property nation governance, real estate firm headquarter nation governance, and firm level governance are negatively associated with the propensity to invest across borders. Further, firm level corporate governance is negatively related to the stake acquired in foreign property investment. These results are counter to the FDI literature.