Several supervisory authorities and governmental working groups issued corporate governance best practice codes for listed companies during the nineties. In this paper, we used a unique database that allowed us to analyse the relationship between the level of compliance of the code of best practice issued by the Portuguese Securities Market Commission and the returns of the concerned companies. By using a multifactor model, one can conclude that there is a positive relationship between the compliance of some of these recommendations and the returns that were determined. The recommendations on the structure and functioning of the executive board deserve a special attention. However, globally, CMVM's code of best practice doesn't have a systematic effect on firm returns. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

In the prediction of O(3) concentrations, the threshold model that considers two regimes was the one that fitted the data most efficiently.

Mutual fund, Performance reaction, Investor behaviour, Small markets and regulation, G21, G23, G28,

In this paper we investigate the incremental information content of a sample of 1,751 quarterly financial reports, issued in Portugal between 1994 and 2004. Specifically, we examine price and volume reactions to financial reports issued in: (1) the first and third quarters, which are unaudited; (2) the second quarter, which is subject to limited audit; and (3) the fourth quarter (the annual report) which is subject to a full audit. We conclude that unaudited first and third quarter financial reports that include condensed income statements and balance sheets convey enough new information to the market to spur significant price and trading reactions. This conclusion holds before and after the first and third quarter reports were made mandatory in 1999. We also found that the incremental information content of the second quarter report dropped after 1999, presumably because part of its information content was usurped by the newly required first quarter reports. Finally, we found evidence that mandatory audited reports announcements spur more significant price reactions than mandatory unaudited financial reports. In contrast to evidence from other countries, we found that smaller firms' disclosures do not generate a larger reaction than large firms' disclosures.

The literature provides broad evidence for the seasonality of stock market returns, but is very scarce regarding the potential seasonality of investment funds performance. Using a sample of 5349 Equity Europe or Equity Eurozone investment funds, this article contributes to fill this gap by providing evidence that investment funds globally exhibit higher performances in the first than in the second 6 months of the year, and that they exhibit negative abnormal performances in the first compared to the intermediate and final months of each quarter. Finally, the article reports a summer holiday effect, such that investment funds outperform negatively in August compared to the other intermediate months of the quarter.