The aim of this study is to determine the effect of contract winning announcements made by companies on the stock returns. In this study, which focuses on this aim, the influence of the 112 contract winning declarations belonging to companies traded in Istanbul Stock
IntroductionInvestors who want to evaluate their savings by investing in stocks in the capital market determine the real value of the stocks they will primarily invest in. Afterwards, they make the investment decision by comparing the real value with the market value. The main problem here is to determine the real value. Actual value is calculated by taking into consideration all factors that affect the price of the shares. When the literature is examined; macroeconomic factors, past price movements of the shares, factors affecting human psychology, company announcements, etc. are among the factors that will affect the share price (Adjasi, 2009;Flannery & Protopapadakis, 2002;Sharma & Mahendru, 2010;Liargovas & Repousis, 2010;Bozkurt, 2015; Bozkurt et al, 2014;Karakuş et al, 2017). The effect of these announcements on the share prices of the company is the main issue of this study.How the firm's announcements affect share prices can be explained in two ways. First, announcements related to the companies become important data for investors at the point where future cash flows are forecasted. Since the actual value of the shares is calculated as the present value of future cash flows, the data will also directly affect the actual value estimation. Actual value estimates will also affect market prices by influencing demand. The second is that related announcements affect market prices by influencing investor psychology. The assumption that all investors are rational is a phenomenon for many markets; in reality, some of the investors are found in behavior that is far from rational. Such investors invest with their own prejudices without analyzing the economic and social and political events of the country and the world, calculating the actual value of the stocks and doing basic analysis. Again, for these investors, psychological factors are among the most important factors affecting their investments. At this point; it is evident that investors will be able to make investment decisions with positive or negative news about a company.In this study, the effect of the winning a contract announcements on the stock return of the firm is examined. The impact of the announcements related to the winning of a contract has been the subject of different studies in the literature.Larson and Picou (2002) examined the impact announcements related to winning a contract on stock price of companies that traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, or the NASDAQ. In the study using the event study methodology, 329 announcements were included in the data set. As a result of the study, positive and significant abnormal returns were detected in 0, +1 days and (0, + 1) and (+ 2, + 5) event windows. In addition, the abnormal returns are compared...