The effect of dividend announcement on share prices: A study on the Ghana stock exchange

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Date
August, 2015
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Abstract
Maximising Shareholder’s wealth in modern times has become the primary goal of financial management. The wealth of shareholders is found in the share prices of a company and thus is maximised when the prices of company’s shares increase. Amongst the several factors that affect the prices of company’s shares, researchers have argued that one of the most influential is dividends paid to investors. Available literature from the Ghanaian context has shown mixed results on the relevance of dividends with several of these researches pointing to the inefficiency of the Ghana Stock Exchange. This study analysed the behaviour of share prices around 30 dividend announcement days for eleven companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange with the aim of determining if there was a relationship between dividend announcements and share prices. The sample companies were also analysed in light of their market capitalisation to determine if the market’s reaction to dividend announcement were influenced by the size of listed companies. Data used were mainly obtained from the Ghana Stock Exchange and GSE filings of Annual Reports Ghana and included the closing share prices of sample companies, daily Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index and published dates of dividend announcements. The study established that dividends carry negative information to the market and company size influences the effect and the speed with which the market reacts to dividend announcements on the Ghana Stock Exchange.
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A Thesis submitted to the KNUST School of Business, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (Finance Option),
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