Market reactions towards the announcement of Sukuk issuance: evidence from Malaysian market

Abstract

Drawing from the significance and implication that investors can use to properly comprehend the trend in market reaction from the new issuance of information, this study aims to investigate the market’s reaction toward the announcement of Islamic bond or sukuk. The Islamic bond market provides not only an avenue for more dynamic capital trades and portfolio diversification but also functions as an engine that accelerates the growth of the Islamic capital market. This study specifically aims to investigate whether the announcements of sukuk issuance that carry any new information can create impact on the market’s reactions. The overall sample time frame for this study is divided into three event windows; before, during and after the financial crisis in order to ascertain any unusual impact on the market’s return during the 2007-2008 financial crises. The stock market return is measured via the FTSE and Bursa Malaysia’s KLCI. In order to offer a more robust finding on the returns, this study re-measured the market return using Bursa Malaysia’s FTSE EMAS Index as it is a better representation of the sample population. The data collected from Bursa Malaysia, Bloomberg and DataStream database will be then analysed using Brown and Warner’s standard event study methodology of Brown and Warner (1985). Based on the 115 sukuk issuances between 2002 and 2013 (a period of 12 years), this study reveals that the effect of the announcement is significantly negative a day before and on the announcement date. On top of that, the result finds that there is a significantly positive reaction 30 days after the announcement of sukuk issuance which indicates that investors take a longer time to absorb the information from the sukuk announcement. The existence of a significantly positive reaction of stock markets during the financial crisis periods could be attributed to the conditions where the Islamic debt issuance might have sent an incredible signal about the financial position of the company, which have helped in solving the financial problem, especially during the economic downturn. However, the EMAS Index shows none of these significant results. The significant findings in this study (i.e., when uses the KLCI) are expecting to contribute clearer evidence and strategies concerning whether the information regarding sukuk can help investors to form a better investment strategy.