Can the Market Divide and Multiply? A Case of 807 Percent Mispricing

Review of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 35-44, 2022

15 Pages Posted: 21 Jun 2018 Last revised: 11 Mar 2022

See all articles by Martijn J. van den Assem

Martijn J. van den Assem

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Dennie van Dolder

University of Essex - Department of Economics

Remco C. J. Zwinkels

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute

Marc Schauten

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Date Written: September 1, 2020

Abstract

This paper documents a strong violation of the law of one price surrounding a large rights issue. If prices are right, the relation between the prices of shares and rights follows the outcome of a simple calculation. In the case of Royal Imtech N.V. in 2014, prices deviated sharply and persistently from the theoretical prediction. Throughout the term of the rights, investors were buying shares at prices that were many times what they should have been given the price of the rights. Short-selling constraints in the form of high recall risk and lacking stock lending supply are the most likely explanation for the failure of arbitrage as a safeguard of market efficiency. Still, it remains remarkable that investors were buying large volumes of shares at highly inflated prices in the presence of a cheap, perfect substitute.

Keywords: law of one price, market efficiency, mispricing, limits to arbitrage, short-sale constraints

JEL Classification: G12, G14, G40

Suggested Citation

van den Assem, Martijn J. and van Dolder, Dennie and Zwinkels, Remco C.J. and Schauten, Marc, Can the Market Divide and Multiply? A Case of 807 Percent Mispricing (September 1, 2020). Review of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 35-44, 2022, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3193120 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3193120

Martijn J. Van den Assem (Contact Author)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, 1081HV
Netherlands

Dennie Van Dolder

University of Essex - Department of Economics ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

Remco C.J. Zwinkels

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, NH 1081 HV
Netherlands
+31205985220 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://research.vu.nl/en/persons/remco-zwinkels

Tinbergen Institute ( email )

Burg. Oudlaan 50
Rotterdam, 3062 PA
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://tinbergen.nl/person/1574/remco-zwinkels

Marc Schauten

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, 1081HV
Netherlands

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